Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 66 — page 33: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION through life without com- plaint so that I shouldn’t worry about him. Not that I ever did. Chil- dren have an impatient cruel- ness strange to an adult. It was hard for me to wait for him to catch up with me when we were out walking. I felt embarrassed at his slowness and ashamed of the way he would halt and clutch at the railings for support, with his poor face all blue and his poor hands all swollen and shapeless. Pain made him _ Short-tempered at times, so that we quarrelled bitterly as only youth and age can quarrel. I had no tolerance. I was young and fit, and knew everything in the world worth knowing. I had no time for his advice. I knew best, and so it was that, after being bruised by the world, I tended to blame him for what he could not do. I blamed him because we were poor while others were rich. I blamed him for his ill health and his apparent stubbornness, not realising 32 that, to the old and ill, small pleasures are valuable. So that, when he lay gasping and ill, I had no sympathy with him. It was his own fault, I said, for being so foolish. If he was ill then he should go into hospital and not stay at home making himself a burden to me and shaming me before my friends. I was hard. I was bitter. I was a child. Tolerance came with age, and I regretted the things I had done and the things I had said. Now, instead of as in the past, my plans in- cluded him as well as myself. But they were nebulous plans. One day I knew that I would have money. One day I would give him as much money as he needed to enjoy himself. One day, always one day. But that day never came. I was cautious and looked far ahead. A little now or a lot later? Should I dole out what I could afford now, or save it until a later date when I could afford more? Saving and thrift caught hold of me so that I almost begrudged comiclbooks.corn