Beenoo the Fool
Labaree, Mary Fleming
446 THE COMMONWEAL September4, I929 in certain functional diseases. It also is used in the manufacture of artificial silk. Most of our rubber of commerce is obtained from the Hevea trees...
...Beenoo would call loudest and merriest of them all, when the musicians demanded coin for their hire...
...September 4, I929 THE COMMONWEAL 447 God plotted the arc of the missile so that the sole issue of the throwing was this: the old white stallion drawing the carriage, as he heard the kep of stone on stone beside him, tossed his silly head more wildly than his wont, and tried to make the driver think he was about to run away, when he knew and the driver knew he would not go faster than a prancing walk were all the steeds and warriors of Kurdistan thundering after him...
...It also is used in the manufacture of artificial silk...
...But even so he would start a brave laugh by accosting a gaunt scarecrow, erstwhile fop of his village with, "A1, handsomest of male creatures...
...This shrub does well under cultivation on richer lands, and 1,8OO acres of land in California are now being devoted to its production...
...Almost he forgot that he was not like other men...
...Indeed it were but half a wedding without Beenoo...
...so that while here and there, folk of that village seemed to possess a singular shrewdness, among them were to be found more fools and half-fools than in any other village of the plain...
...What are the words of thy mouth this day...
...Thy red bag is stuffed with silver pieces...
...These indications point to the development of a new industry which will utilize a definite portion of our agricultural land for industrial purposes, thus reducing the surplus production of our common farm crops...
...Our fun begins when the sheep's fun ends...
...They had lost a daughter and gained naught...
...but to be passed unnoted was the brimstone with raw egg they stir into grape molasses and push down the throat of a colicky horse...
...God made her for bearing children to praise Him...
...Or perchance the Master Shoemaker will drop a pair into empty hands...
...The silly smile, the restless eyes were ever in evidence...
...But happily, each twelvemonth, there were many families to take brides...
...He twitted the miserly, stirred the sluggard, until the harvest was gathered, kept all in laughing good humor with his: "O uncle, thy raisins brought a fortune this year...
...They are the words, chicken and pilaf...
...He chuckled, shouted, wrangled, sighed and pitched with us, until the sun's journey came to an end...
...where wine jars or samovars were ready to quench the most extravagant thirst...
...There was the shrill and thrum of fife and drum that caught all feet in their meshes, drawing folk into the endless dance circle, or bade them stamp and clap while sword dance and water dance were enacted for their joyance...
...Naught do I hear but the sound of their gentle breathing And my gaze is lost in a tangle of innocent hair...
...446 THE COMMONWEAL September4, I929 in certain functional diseases...
...Hail father, I weep for thee...
...It seemed he thought God was a Master Shoemaker who might have a new pair of sandals all shaped and sewed and ready for him...
...He snatched up a split cobble...
...Families were torn asunder...
...For only they who have tasted sorrow can sorrow truly with other men...
...To what far strands or magic isles are you faring, 0 little sleepers of mine, o'er what dim seas...
...He is Master of sky and earth and bread and shoes and all else...
...It is sad thy hand is blind and cannot find it...
...The developments of the past few years indicate a closer relationship between farming and industry...
...However, those at feast in the bridegroom's upper room did not need that their hearts be warmed or lifted up...
...For you must know that Beenoo came of a family and village where for the sake of keeping properties undivided they gave and took in marriage from their own kin and bounds, as far as they could co/npass it...
...Joan BV~K~R...
...that none equaled him in love of savory viands, or could tuck away so large a portion of them...
...just as prosperity was established in industry by the utilization and elimination of waste in that line...
...and each was so intent on the words of the other they did not hear the "Peace upon you l" of Beenoo, neither did they see him waiting expectantly before the shop of Mahmud, the grocer...
...See also, how the little granddaughter, child of thy son, doth cling to thy knee...
...In city or village, it mattered not which, he thrust himself upon the company at large and as many of the folk individually as time and circumstance permitted...
...As industrial chemistry is applied to the utilization of the wastes of the farm, the farming business will become increasingly prosperous...
...Yet never was there one in the likeness of men who had so devouring a passion "to be seen of men" as poor Beenoo...
...How the girls must love you today 1" And when at nightfall we dropped, faint and footsore, to the sun-cracked earth, he would cry out, "Fetch the fife and drum, lads, for my feet wish to danceI" The very last time I saw him was beside a river...
...This very first time I saw him, Beenoo was squatting under a dusty willow by the big irrigating stream between vineyards and village where my father was headman...
...Wretched beasts and humankind fell in hillocks with their carts and gear...
...The old bridge, built to carry pilgrims to Kerbela and a nobleman's soul to paradise, had crumbled beneath a mass of fleeing folk...
...I know not, save God gave him vision of the day when all humanity shall be freed from the so great burden of this our mortality...
...I pause beside each bed, bend o'er the little sleepers With awed, quiescent heart and reverent will, Raising a prayer that their great angelic keepers Will watch and guard them, lying so meek and still...
...The last times I saw Beenoo were in the days of that war called the Great War, when we of city and village, stung by fear of the enemy and the tribesmen, fled south through the burning heat of summer, fled with evil men along our way, men who robbed us of our silver and cattle, our'bread and our daughters, while weariness, lead bullets, sun bullets and fever lald us low...
...Solemn night's stillness, solemn the starry wreathing Wherewith the arching heavens are glistening fair...
...And he answered the scoffing of my puny words with a grave : "Yea, lad...
...The laughter was so pleasant a thing he almost forgot that his girdle was more closely drawn than its custom was and called for yet another drawing-in...
...How long ago it all seems...
...Doubtless there would have been a split head if the half-stone had not whirred between the busy right ear of Maryam Khanum and the busy left ear of Shushan Khanum...
...Softly I leave them, alone in the dark night sleeping, Profound in their trust, lying so meek and mild, Softly I leave them content, in the perfect keeping Of a love more mighty than mine, I too a child...
...It was plain to see where he had learned on sorrow...
...His belly was empty, and he was waiting with dwindling patience for the men to finish their feasting in the big upper room, that the women and children might gather in the cook room to deplete the innumerable bowls and platters, when he and God's poor were free to polish them...
...And Beenoo who was hovering near: "Two words alone taste sweet upon my lips, today, O Master of the Feast...
...This rubber is of high quality, as indicated by the experiments of the Bureau of Standards which reports that "experiments indicate that properly prepared guayule rubber will compare favorably with plantation Hevea rubber...
...Yet some did not know that the time of mourning needed him also...
...Not only this is the voyage we'll not be sharing, And you witI know more perilous waters than these...
...All knew this...
...But he was not alone...
...He was clapping his hands, village-weddlng fashion...
...Laughter sprang up to greet the words, and Beenoo was ready for his hour of banter, happy that the eyes of men were upon him, that merriment rang about him, that for the time being, he was part and parcel of the common fabric of life...
...the drum is thirsty...
...But it was a wedding, not sandals or knucklebones, not a corner of room, stable or roof, that counted...
...One afternoon two friendly ladies drove out on the street toward the city gate...
...There is a goodly bulge in thy girdle...
...And it was worth waiting a whole year through for just one old-time wedding where for days the cloth was heaped with pilaf, meats, stuffed fruits and vegetables...
...To his knees clung three little ones...
...and the mothers were unable to win back...
...Or was it that in dim fashion he understood how human easement of sorrow comes from the tears which mingle with ours...
...Beenoo in the strange loneliness of being different had not merely tasted, he had drunk deep and long...
...The narrow, treacherous ford was blocked by a press of fear-stricken creatures...
...With eyes of one in a dream he sat on that harsh brink which--in a few brief moments--was to lie at the mercy of the enemy...
...It was about the time he began his wanderings from betrothal to wedding, from wedding to funeral--after his brother had been placed for three days and three nights in the madmen's cave under the old church on the mountain and was brought home, not cured but tenfold more mad, to cry and moan himself to death, chained in a corner of his father's brother's vineyard hut...
...Or were all the red and gold veiled little village brides of the past stepping one by one before him ? Or was it that, perhaps, after the unreal years of wandering lighted only by marriage feasts of other men he beheld coming forth to meet him, a bride of his very own...
...I call to mind the very first time I saw Beenoo...
...None could weep with those who wept, as he...
...mutton on the top...
...But who is able to forget the wedding feast when little Penna, daughter of Yuash of Nadirabad, became bride of Gewergis, son of Yonan of Shirwan...
...Brother of my soul, the fife is hungry...
...And he would say to the weeping mother : "Nay, sister, grieve not...
...Folk's joking and teasing were wine to the soul of Beenoo, not vinegar as to the souls of some...
...God knows...
...But this much was plain...
...Let them sing...
...It was the summer I became big enough to lead a water buffalo cow to the bathing pool and give her tail the necessary twist to make her lie down in the water...
...The amount of Hevea rubber being imported into the United States is constantly increasing, as indicated by the following data: I924 3,038,000 pounds I925 8,469,ooo " x9z6 9,643,ooo " I9~ 7 II,I74,ooo " It comes entirely from Mexico, where a subsidiary of the International Rubber Company owns about 1,8oo,ooo acres of land on which the wild shrub grows...
...and his words were, "Toombala, toombala, The bride comes...
...Was it for a bride of death he clapped, that the little ones might have a first and last sip of wedding ecstasy...
...He limped with the rest, tongue swollen, lungs afire...
...My companions threw bits of dried clay from the bank of the stream until they pattered about him, and I cried: "Toss a coin to the sky, Beenoo...
...Where had he learned on joy...
...and "Beans are grown at the foot of the hill of God...
...He helped the Lord to heal the heart of many a grief-wounded mother and father, by the genuineness of his tears--different from half-tears, cold tears, onion-tears that choke the mourner with a terrible inward laughter, or cause him to grow faint with added anguish, tears honestly withheld being holier in God's sight...
...Babes were left while mothers bore elder children to the further shore...
...Remote from my care they seem and my brooding love...
...BEENOO THE FOOL By MARY FLEMING LABAREE HE fatuous open-mouthed grin showed what he was: God's fool...
...I know not...
...Farming is an industry which produces food for human consumption and raw material for manufacture...
...Ai, ai...
...We prentice boys knew the old stallion as we knew the fool...
...I can hear her jolly father-in-law call, "Come Beenoo, come hither, man...
...Most of our rubber of commerce is obtained from the Hevea trees grown under cultivation, but some is obtained from the guayule shrub which grows wild in Mexico...
...It was the bride's folk who needed comforting...
...Then he caught sight of the sheep's knucklebones in my fist, and slng-songed : "Knucklebones are the best of friends...
...Is it not a sin to allow such cheerful creatures to die of hunger and thirst...
...And in the long fast, when folk were sighing in their hearts for goodly mutton stew while feeding upon beans, yet durst not speak a word, lest they offend God's holiness or the ears of tender children, he would wag his poor bemused head with, " 'Tis plain God loves feasts more than fasts...
...Ai, the hurt of it...
...Whereat we scampered to our waiting homes and mothers, while he came after, slowly, slowly, to crave shelter for a night...
...Were they not warm enough, were they not high enough already, in that they had acquired a bride who should bear sons to their house...
...He was gazing dejectedly from the sky to the ragged toes of his dirty cloth sandals and then back again to the sky...
...Ghi/dren Asleep The night is still, the tides of sleep are flowing Fluently, tenderly, over, beneath, above Their delicate limbs and quenching their eyes' bright glowing...
...For Beenoo is gone, those who sat with him at feast and fast are gone, and the pleasant places where they sat are plowed by war and watered by tears...
Vol. 10 • September 1929 • No. 18
