10 Story Book, August 1938 — page 42: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

INTRIGUING STORIES, SPICED WITH PRETTY GIRLS! 45 little storeroom off the kitchen for him. She arose softly so as not to awaken him, and then with sympathetic curiosity be- gan examining the threadbare clothes hanging on the rough board wall and the strange foreign books on the shaky table. But what interested her most was a large collection of mysterious-looking nails of various sizes, all carved with hieroglyphic figures and all cruelly, inconceivably sharp at the points. In the same box were a number of odd tools and a written manu- script entitled “An Inquiry into the Kind of Nails Used at the Crucifixion.” Meeka felt a thrill, then a sense of awe. He was a scholar, a great and learned man! And Zingare intended making him, him, do the work of three peasants at harvesting! Suddenly a harsh voice came from the top of the stairway: ‘“Meeka! What are you doing up here?” It was Zingare. There was no suspi- cion in his eyes, only amazement. Meeka explained her presence in the loft easily enough. Sarras was sick; she was afraid he might get sicker and die; and that . would be awkward. “Let the Jew dog die,” growled Zin- gare. “Let him die after the harvesting,” said Meeka. Zingare saw the point and chuckled. Sarras was up and around the next day attending to the chores; Meeka proved to be a magic physician. She had him clean out the storeroom and then moved him down from the loft. She added the finish- ing touches to the furnishing of the room herself, making it quite cozy and home- like. Zingare was out in the fields working when the change was made, and when he came home and saw Sarras in his new quarters he was dumbfounded. But Meeka had her crafty reason: “I want him down here so he can help me with the kitchen work; now he’s handy enough to get up in the morning and make the fire. He ought to be doing more to pay for his keep.” If Zingare had thought, he would have realized that this was a very palpable subterfuge. But Zingare did not think; he had to see with his eyes, and most of the time his eyes were closed. II. One day Zingare’s eyes happened to be open, wide, open fatally so. He had been working the fields, and on account of the prostrating heat came home earlier than usual. God or the devil (Zingare himself said it was God, Meeka insisted it was the devil) whispered to him to approach noise- lessly and look inside before entering. He looked—and saw. Thick-headed, purblind as he was, he could not help seeing. Meeka and Sarras were standing by the table. He had his arms around her and was drawing her face toward his for a kiss. And what a kiss it would have been! Eyes were gazing into eyes; lips were pursed for lips; chest was heaving to chest. Eager for the kiss, that -su- preme caress, they vet were holding off, delaying the divine moment, dallying on the borderland of bliss. They dallied too long. The kiss was never consummated. Zingare, infuriated, snorting like a beast, burst into the kitch- en and tore them apart. With one hand he held Meeka. With the other he pushed Sarras three or four feet away, just far enough to swing on him with a full-sweeping blow. He _ then © struck him flush on the nose, the blood spurt- ing from it in a stream. Sarras dropped to the floor like a log. Meanwhile Meeka had freed one of her arms. She snatched an earthenware pot from the table and broke it on Zingare’s head. The blow would have knocked down an ordinary ComicbooOoks.€©