3/24/34

Device for a short story:

The crafty, scheming sometimes almost super human half-wit, whom people half pity and half fear. A serious accident involving the death of a very popular and well liked person – lured into a trap by a mysterious letter. A sudden, fearful thought – he rushes to the waste paper basket, finds ants on the flap where the envelope had been licked for sealing – ! The half-wit had had a drooling, slobbering passion for peppermint candy. He had devised and sent the letter resulting in the death. The person killed could have been the idiot’s only protector.

For short story: Guinn’s precarious turning at the top of this cliff just outside Hoon Hall - Let the brakes and steering wheel be the cause of the accident. (This is a bare frame-work for only the smallest item of the plot, however).

P. de E. strikes me in a peculiar way. Aside from his two-faced tendencies (which sometimes seem to point to downright lying ability) and his slovenliness, he has pretty fair ideas, despite, I suppose, his limited opportunities for acquiring an appreciation for the better things. I honestly believe that he does know he has his delinquencies, and that is a long stride in the right direction. Furthermore, I believe he has improved 100 per cent since he first came to Schreiner. In addition to that, I can’t say that he has had every opportunity – what with others taking every opportunity to emphasize his faults to him, and what with my being around to furnish an example. He did have a great deal of room for improvement in the way of personal cleanliness, and despite his many improvements along this line, he still has a long way to go. Cox says he “looks like a pig.” Perhaps I think so, too, but I can’t say that I have yet been provoked to the extent of saying so in public. But C. says a lot of things that I often believe have not been given proper consideration beforehand. P. de E. has an inkling of the right way to do things, but he just does not seem to be imbued with the certain inherited, instinctive, or what-have-you spark with which to fire it. I despair for his future at anything except a saw mill or small town radio work. He will never be able to meet the public more than once without creating a bad impression.

Another device: An interview with the aged grave digger over tombstones – and checking the interesting information with another – impartial – observer of the same events:

For instance, tomb stones do not tell if shot, stabbed, or burned to death; whether in a cowardly, unknowing, or heroic manner. Today the remains of two – a man, invalid, 32, and his sister, single, 40 – are being buried in th cemetery across the creek. From my window I can see the tent over the graves – grim spectre in the center of the bleak picture, half framed by the gnarled old limbs of the sinister oak almost within reach of my hand.