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Show FICHTIOW f SLOW AND CAREFUL V 1 I y J011N SCOTT DOl'GLAS I t'M Comet U - ., , , IMl . JOU can't make fast moves when handling bees, so a bceman icarns to be slow and careful no mat-;er mat-;er what happens. I remembered '.hat the day I stopped by Onkknill ranch and found a stranger sitting In the farmhouse kitchen and watching watch-ing Emmy prepare a fut fryer. Now I've been in love with Emmy since she was 16. The 10 years that have passed since then have changed her so little that if I were buzzing around looking for something sweet, Vi still pick Emmy. The western sun slanting through the window made a halo of her (air hair and her face was flushed from the hot stove. She waved a floury hand is she popped a drumstick into the puttering put-tering grease. "Hello, Bill," she said. "1 want you to meet Fuller Launson. He's bought the Hall place and is raising horses. Where'd you come from?" "Sierra foothills," I answered, "I'm taking my bees down to Red-lands Red-lands to pollinate the Farland orchard." or-chard." "Bill has a pollinating service," Emmy explained. "Arsenic sprays kill so many bees that orchardi3ts pay him to bring his hives, so the trees will bear fruit." "I see," Launson said, the wisp cf a black mustache over his thin lips barely moving. I couldn't - make up my mind whether he was one of those robber-beet that steal honey from another an-other hive or whether he was a drone that lets the workers support sup-port him. He had black eyes and a waspish face. And there was contempt con-tempt In the way he looked at my swollen hands that mighty near put me in a stinging mood. I can't bother with gloves when I'm handling hand-ling beehives all the time. I asked about his horses while Emmy Em-my cooked supper, but he seemed to resent my dropping in and wouldn't say much. However, he admitted that his old man had plenty of money and thought that since Fuller Launson Laun-son wasn't much good in his busi- ncss, he might as well try to raise horses. Now Emmy has a heart as big as a six-super hive and she's always -feeling sorry for queer characters. She never .talks much about herself, but she's a good listener. Still I couldn't figure what she saw in Launson, except ex-cept that he had a college degree and she respects education. I could have told Launson other things about her. She's been lonely since her folks died, however, so if she found him good company, that was all right with me. A bceman learns not to disturb the queen unless he has to. After supper I had to leave to get hives set up in the fields of the Red-lands Red-lands orchard before sun-up. Launson Laun-son showed no signs of swarming, so I guessed he planned to visit a while longer with Emmy. But a beeman doesn't jump to conclusions. As 1 say, he learns to be slow and careful. care-ful. It was two weeks before I got back to Oakknoll again. Launson sat in the same chair, as if he hadn't moved in all that time. He didn't seem real friendly, and acted bored when I asked about his horses. Well, supper didn't go so well that night. Emmy treated me as she always al-ways does, but Launson sulked as bees do on a rainy day when they can't gather pollen. After supper, Launson said, "there's a good movie in town. Like to go, Emily?" She started shaking her head, but I spoke up. "You go right along. I've been driving nights and working days until I'm too wore out to be fit company for anyone. I'll Just catch a few winks on the sofa and push along about 11." "Oh. Bill," Emmy said anxiously, "do you have to work so hard? You haven't an ounce of flesh!" "No moncy'd keep me driving this way," I admitted. "Now that the war's over und we gut to help feed the world, we need bigger fruit crops. weak chin would hurt my swollen hands much. I decided not to try it. "Lauson." I said, "I'm putting some hives out under the trees here. If you ain't afraid of bees, I want you to give me a hand." When I came inside later to wash up, Emmy was just putting the last steaming dishes on the table. Well, supper didn't go as well that night. Emmy treated me as she always docs, but Launson sulked as bees do on a rainy day when they can't gather pollen. But the spring pollinating is almost over and soon I can take it easier." "Not here, I hope," Launson said unpleasantly, when Emmy went into the bedroom to get her hat. I knew then bow bcrs feet when you shake their hive on a cold day but I was too tired to argue. I wa asleep before they drove away and the alarm-clock awakened me before be-fore they returned. It was nearly a month before I could get back. When I drove past the old Hall place it looked like Launson hadn't given his horses much care. He stepped out of the house after I'd stopped the truck, and spoke as if he owned Oakknoll. "You back?" "Ycd." I said. "Just in time for supper." "I didn't know Emily was expecting expect-ing you," he snapped. I wondered whether Launson' TOU CAN'T RUN AWAY One of my younger friends, a man in whom I always have had considerable con-siderable confidence, did something last week that caused my confidence to be shaken. I'll tell you about it When the pressure in a job he has held for two or three years became too great, he quit. "I am going to pull stakes and go to another town," he told me. "I just couldn't take it any more." I say that . my confidence was shaken. What I mean is this, that whenever anyone tries to run away from a crisis, a situation, a condition condi-tion or himself, he's doomed to fail. Yet every day you see someone who is trying to run away from himself. him-self. Psychologists are very much interested in the roads which these runaways take, and one of their first considerations in evaluating a personality per-sonality which Is broken or unhappy is escape. You probably know that you live every day with a conflict raging inside in-side yourself. Sometimes the conflict con-flict is subdued by a quiet sort of guerrilla warfare cf the mind. At other times it reaches the battle "Whcre'c Mr. Launson?" She asked. "Last I saw of him," I said, tucking tuck-ing in my napkin, "he was running toward his house with a veil of bees trailing behind him. He dropped a hive he was carrying and Instead of backing away slow and careful like, he began swatting bees. "They kind of resented it." , Emmy didn't jay anything for a minute. "I'm ghd he's gone," she said, and smiled. "I'd have told him things before, but I get so lonely when you're away, Bill. What made him drop the hive? "I guess something I said startled him. You see, he'd just advised me to move on, saying I'd never get any where with you, Emmy." "The idea! What'd you say to that, Bill?" "Why, I told him he was crazy that we'd been married 10 years." point. Only rarely is there total peace. When this conflict becomes too formidable, too threatening, you do the obvious thing you try to run. That seems to be the thing to do, but often the escape is worse than the conflict and more lives are damaged by these escape or fight mechanisms than by any one thing. Maybe you'd like to have me tell you very briefly about the various escape routes that the mind follows when things get too hot They are 13. First comes regression, regres-sion, which means to go backward, do childish things. Then comes extroversionthat ex-troversionthat means to turn to excessive activity to cover up the conflict The opposite of that is introversionto in-troversionto think excessively, to dodge real Issues. Rationalization is to indulge in false thinking, while segregation is not to let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. When you practice repression, you forget unpleasant things; and when you disassociate, you pass the buck. Sometimes you resort to conversion that means to have a breakdown or illness In place of a conflict Displacement Dis-placement is to worry over one thing when another is to blame, and projection pro-jection is to attribute your own faults to others. Another escape is called identification; identifica-tion; that means to form phantasies. When you follow compensation, you overdo some particular thing in order to overcome your inadequacies. The final escape route Is the only one which is wholeheartedly recommended. recom-mended. It is called sublimation that means to turn the effect of the conflict into some useful channel |