Please, quiet Please.

The usual broadcasting System presents Quiet Fleas, which is written and directed by Willis Cooper and which features earliest chapel Quiet Fleas Fortnight is called Clarissa.

No, he was dead before the fire started.

I've told you that a dozen times.

No, I can't prove it.

Of course, nod it.

You just have to believe me, take my word for it.

I can't prove he was dead.

You can't prove he what and anyway?

What difference does it make?

Now?

I'm sorry, I I can't hear you very well, yes, well, alright.

It was an old black shell of a house, the house that has lived too long, The house where the floors groaned in pain at night, where the window shuttered at the gentlest touch of the wind, where doorlatches suddenly gave up their grip and let the knight come snipping into the house to paw at your eyes and wake you to the other silences that lay around you.

It was never warm there him, and when her old hinds kept the fire going in the fireplace near old sitting room with the the logs were scrawling in, the draft was bad, and the flames seemed to grudge us their warmth, so that we shivered all through the day.

We're glad when night came and we could escape to the meager comfort of the drafty bedrooms.

And in the summer there was a dampness about the place.

An unhealthy clamminess drifted from the walls and stirred uneasily among the ancient smells of decay that clung to the place.

Oh, I suppose you could call old Hinds the the characters he said.

You didn't know him ammogrant from the Rhine Lion sometime in the early seventies.

That would make him.

Uh, let me see how old he was?

Fine, were unlunkable, And in the outside we fight sick, that's right.

Uh, eighteen hundred sixty two.

He was an old man, but he never appeared old.

You might have taken him for a vigorous man of sixty.

His hair and his scraggly mustache where jet black.

I suspect he died them regularly, and his blue eyes seemed as keen as those of a boy of eighteen.

And he'd never been away from the house for a single night, he used to say, from the day he bought it and moved into it, in eighteen hundred and eighty eight, and there was an old house then.

Yes, I spent some very dreary days and nights in that house.

Huh, I couldn't afford a better place to live.

No, people don't go to live in a haunted house if they can find another place, you know why.

Yes, of course i'd heard it was haunted before I went there to live.

Do you believe in hunted houses?

No?

Weave it to die.

Of course.

Well I had really did look like a haunted house.

I tought you about the sounds in the night.

I mean, I've told you about some of the sounds of the night.

Yes, of course there were other sounds.

Well, please let me tell it my home way, well, Clarissa for instance, Clarissa in particular, Clarissa above everything else.

I had lived there nearly a year.

Heins and I sat that first night alongside the fireplace.

I remember he'd asked me to share a bottle of bent Custer Doctor with him.

We sat in front of the stingy little fire, and there was a kerostene lamp on the table, and Heins and his old black coat with the sleeves that were too short.

He liked the ring Jersey.

Yeah, very much, very much.

I have not much left from before the all when it was easier to get your seat.

But now I it is almost figures last.

You shouldn't be so generous with it height h no, no, good wine always spek back out.

Then he made a friend.

You drink any s I had.

Little I had not brought.

Mother Banks has to sit by the fire and look down into the colds and see images of the moon spires, and drink wine.

And see the images go clearer.

And I just good thing.

Get old the age you live here?

Wolves for a long time.

Uh, for a long time, long long time.

I'm used to it, used to.

The knights and the little fire and the silences.

Yes, hings good, Yeah, it's cold for this time of the ys.

Oh what's the rose?

I thought I heard someone singing?

So did you hear anything?

He just Clarissa, What did you say, cloud sister?

My daughter?

Well, I didn't know you had a daughter, Hines.

Yeah, uh n h no, thanks, I I haven't seen her around.

No.

Well did she excuse me?

Hines?

And you reflective me, Jesse.

Uh, she's a child.

I do not wish you to be bothered.

Why she wouldn't bother me.

Heins are my children, y guys, I'm not left you, and the bottle for all one lad for each of us, hm h, thank you, hains.

I guess shop for it.

And I drank the last of the wine with the old man.

And then I climbed the creaking stores of the dreary little room, carrying the kerostine lamp in one hand and casting fabulous shadow was on the paling wallpaper, seeing the ancient plush covered rocking chair nodding away at me as I entered the room, as if a startled occupant had suddenly deserted.

It that the sound of my footsteps on the stairs, and the cold spring rain drenching the window panes, and the murmured complaints of the means and raptures of the old house, the pleasant musty fumes of the wine I had drunk, I sleep away for a while.

When I'd blown out the lamp.

Well, they of our children's song flowed again across my mind.

As I laid in my thoughts, wandered that the only child that dwelt in the haunted house with the old man of the newcome students.

I smiled at myself as I thought.

Now, that set up the question of the house being haunted, doesn't it.

People have heard the little girls singing to herself in the night, maybe not know that a little girl lived here too, And yeah, that's the ghost.

And I smiled again at superstitions, and another writer of thought struck me, and I wondered at the child's age, ten or twelve years old?

But the sound of their voice, somewhere in the back of my drowsy mind, I seemed to remember that Heinz had told me that his wife had died.

Well, was it the year of San Francisco Lake wh That would be nineteen hundred and six, that would be forty.

Two years ago, And it was it was a child of ten or twelve.

But I must have been mistaken, and I was anged to be.

Why they ranged the well.

You wanted the whole story, I'm telling it to you.

In the morning, the Hines was working in his garden in the early sun made the old house seem a little more cheerful, a little more livable, And there was a tinge of green through the gray of the fields that surround the house.

And Hines told me to see the robin.

I stood and watching him a long time, But I don't think you noticed.

Time my eyes wandered at the windows of the old house, searching for a flash of color that might be a child's hair ribbon, or how I listened for the sound of a young boy singing a little song the children that danced so long ago on the bridges of a vil.

I didn't even notice that I was humming a song under my breath, sir, like, Oh that you found he's what?

Oh what that's called?

Sound?

Kids used to sing him when I was young.

Yeah, my wife is French.

She taught the song took like I said.

Oh yeah, I just an old song.

How old is your daughter, hans Em how old?

Oh she's young?

Did she pretty?

Oh?

Yeah, yeah?

But coffee I found it on the stove till I guess I made it.

Oh don she m think I got to work now?

Yes, I suppose so.

Uh.

You don't need to keep a little girl outside of my accout hides, I like your Oh she bother you.

Oh no, I've got a little sister back home.

Oh yeah, Miriam, she's eleven mm clad her sighs old.

Oh, Milliam's got bright yellow hair.

Clag her sighs.

Dark hair.

Yeah, I uh they got a picture of her hair.

Oh oh oh, yeah, she's very pretty.

I have a little picture of this.

Oh that's too bad, Uh I see huh, yes, yes, sure hi.

I should have let the thing dropped in in there.

If the old man felt that children should be kept away from the doubts, that was his privilege, of course.

Had Although I was often lonely for other company than the old man, I was a dweller in his house, naturally subject to his wishes.

My work, no, I never left the place.

Uh my book?

Oh, I was writing a book.

Well, not very exciting mathematics.

I have some theories.

No, the book is gone the fire, you remember.

I could understand Hines.

I thought he obviously had a great respect for a man's work, especially a work as such a parent.

Or addition, I must not be disturbed.

I might stay in my room day and night, with my slide rules and my profile paper, in my broken flower pot full of shopping pencils.

I was not to be disturbed.

But how many times I wished for the happy sound of my little sister marry Him's gale laughter.

Found myself listening for the little of the little Girl's song that she used to sing and let Clarissa knew too.

Hines mentioned Clarissa occasionally.

I sometimes wished that I could have send Clareta to school.

Yees, see why it's too glad you didn't mm all these There is never enough money.

Oh Ei, there are schools, public schools, hiins, No, not for letters, says free schools.

You know, I wondered.

Run.

Uh, well, you know, uh, children are supposed to go to school.

I'm surprised that the school authorities haven't been to Sea about sending her if he h hold on, not the police.

But there are lots about schools.

I mean, you might find yourself in trouble if they discover you have a daughter's school age.

They don't come here.

Yes, they find out because you will not tell when I look here, heines, Uh, you're not being faired of the child.

Yes, yeah, it's not really, I mean it.

Uh hasn't she ever been to school or I?

I teacher and the club?

Well he's, uh, it's none of my business, but you're doing her a very serious harm.

No, no, listen, you see you don't tell anybody about them.

Well, I don't know, heins, if they come and ask you.

Listen, I tell you something.

Well, Clarissa can't go to school.

Well why not?

I I told you it doesn't cost anything, it's not fucked Well then she she's not the Oh oh, I'm sorry, Hines.

Look uh uh would you like it if I give her at my time and and trought her some of the elements?

Please done?

Light be glad too?

No, well have it your white heints.

I don't mean to wing the too on your affairs.

But after all, her a child.

Sorry, h I see, I thank.

Him, but no, all right, I forget it, and I couldn't forget it.

The kindly old man.

Yes, he was kindly and a sick child who had never seen the inside of a schoolroom, who was growing up to become uh what in the atcha moldring house, a house that had lived too long alone with her father born eighty six years ago.

Allo d in the darkness, with the house grumbling and complaining around me, I thought about the plight of child out Sometimes I could hear a song follo away somewhere in the dank recesses of that crumbler house, and my thoughts revolved again about this mystery.

Heins said, she was not well.

Heins would not allow her to appear.

Was Choris is some misshapen monster child?

That she must be pent up and never see the sun when she I detest mysteries of that kind.

I love the good, clean mysteries of abscissa, and ordinate the logarithm and an ilogarithm of the calculus, and the grand old theorem's devised by the ancients.

But the best name mysteries of a human mind and a human behavior are alian to me.

And my hate and my thoughts crept further and further away from the ten numbers, as doubt and speculation of about the child laid hold of my mind.

And the night, how often I heard her sobs?

I thought, sometimes close outside my door, And therefore I opened the door.

There was nothing I knew of Hinds grew more and more taciturn.

He never spoke of his daughter.

He seemed to avoid me by day, and to disappear my night.

What the summer came then, and the fall head winter.

My look was going badly, and then my thoughts wandered.

I must leave this place, I thought it, I'll find out this mystery.

And again I asked the old man if there was not something I might do for this confected child, this invisible, haunting voice.

No, Jesse, there is nothing you could do.

But Christmas is coming.

Hints.

Uh, what can I get up their Christmas?

You know?

Why?

Nothing?

Jesse?

What my name?

She died?

How do you see of Christmas?

Well?

Uh, but Hines, you know it?

To the child, no, a little he speak of it again.

But to me, the thought of Christmas passing by it his child was unspeakable.

I determined that the old man would do nothing about it.

I would, you know.

I had little money, and there was so little I could do.

But I did come into the town here, and I found a toy for her.

I I found one I could afford, A little wood lamb, a little really white lamb with black buttons for eyes, and a a blue silk ribbon about its neck and a gay little blue flower in its mouth.

I hung a little card about its neck that said Merry Christmas to Carissa.

And on Christmas Eve, Hins and I shared the last bottle of ben customer doctor before the miserly little fire, and I gave him one of the handkerchiefs my little sister morning him it sent me, and he gave me an old stone crib with a hempipewter top that easaid came from Heidelberg, and we regretted that there was no creamy pilsner berg raw to drink from it.

Wished each other a happy Christmas.

And then in the night, I was awakened by a tiny sound, and I lay awake silently for a moment, and there was another sound, a hesitant little footsteps, and then rustling at the dresser across the room from me, and I then quietly and listened.

Is that you Chlarissa?

Is that you Clarissa?

Do you like it?

Good?

Happy Christmas?

I'm I'm sorry, that's all I could get you, but I hope you like it.

And I felt a touch of the tiny hand on my shoulder, and lips brushed my cheek, and the door closed, and the sound of her voice in a little song was happier now than I'd ever heard it, and so I knew at last Thatchlissa was not a ghost, but a living person, and I felt more peace with myself as I realized that this was what had been plucking at the corners of my mind.

And I was happy now that I knew she really lived, but I was not living in the mister fantasy.

I had wondered what Heints would say.

He was pretty natural about it.

Eat miss good of you?

Jesse good?

What to find a gift for class?

Oh?

Did you like it?

Ah?

I like that?

Uh?

She asked me to say an pushing to you?

How then I say, berkushing, I had this good.

You're a kind person, Jessie.

I wish it could have been more.

Would just a very rich gift?

Never has she had such a thing?

Uh?

Is she going to have Christmas dinner with his heights?

No?

Old.

So I had won a little victory in this conflict with the darkness, but I was to go no further.

I asked Hines about her.

Hinds answered shortly.

I suggested, with a birthday, if might be an order to if I only knew her birthday, I proposed running my own sister and begging her for out w story books that Courissa might read, even if she must stay alot from the rest of the house.

Hines did not reply.

Everything was as it had always been so long as the land of Colissa was not mentioned, but only came in the night spring when it was cold and windy again, and the raw snow pelted against the windows, and the whole house shivered.

I heard her crying again in the night, and there was a quality of voice this time that brought me out of the bed and into the hall.

I called in a while Colissa.

When I stepped back into my room and lit the kerosene map.

And as I stepped out again turned the hallway, heins confronted me.

Why can't you hear her hearts?

Something's wrong?

She said, Oh, go back by, go, Jesse said the high don't beat the Jessy, go back now he's listened to me.

Something's wroth me, wrong with that childhood.

I move, take care of my Jessie.

Please find no room, nothing here.

I take care of my own manhat I'm going.

I reached for the door at once, but there was locked from the outside, and I beat on it and stormed at it in the cold, but for once it held.

I screamed that the father threatening every kind of ventured to him, till at last I suddenly realized that I was being hysterically silly.

In the silence, I could hear nothing but the moan of the wind around the rusty cornices of the house, and the hiss of snowflakes against the window, and I sat down, shaken, bitter at myself for giving way to such an outburst over a child's crying in the night.

And the the last I lay down again, and then the frosty silence at the early dawn, I fell asleep.

And when I awoke hours later and found my door unlocked again, Hines was not to be found, not that day, not the next, I transfer the house, opening doors, calling him, calling Clarissa.

There was not a sound to answer me.

I found a little wood and made a miserable fire.

I suppose I ate.

I don't remember any too well.

And at night I went to bed, and I shivering for hours, straining my ears for a sound, the sound of a child's song, the sound of a father's footstep in the cold darkness.

And it was morning, and morning, morning, gray fingers of morning, looking at the frost drying windows, and I awoke to see how I standing beside my bed in the two days he seemed to evade twenty years.

He was an old, old man.

He spoke to me, Ye, see, my friend, what's the matter?

I don't know much?

Mother, Yes, I am fine, My hinds just finished.

No sheet see es istorry for here?

Uh uh it's down.

No, no, help me seek to Christmas wool you take it?

Hy?

Is she all right?

He too late for me.

Now go it's such room.

Do what is to be done.

I lifted him to the bed.

I bent over him.

I listened for his heart.

There was no sound.

Heights was dead.

Yes, just as I told you before he died.

He died there in my room.

Yes what oh?

Yes, he had a little half light.

I found the kerosene lamp and I heard it.

I took the key from the floor where he dropped it.

No, I I found the room very easily.

It was at the fire end of the hall.

I called Clarissa, Clarissa, and there was no answer.

So I unlocked the door, and holding the light above my head, I walked over to the bed, and there lying on the bed, dressed in a pinaphore that might've come out of a ten year old drawing and Alice in Wonderland, cutching a little wooly lamb to her breast.

There laying a tiny, old old woman with long white hair braided into pig tails.

Clarissa and I knew why I hadn't heard the little song fo days, and so when the lamp knocked out in my hand, h the flames started looking around the dry as dust draperies and the fragile old oaken boards on the floor.

I turned him out of the house, or what else was there to do?

The house had lived too long, and so I had the father and daughter who dwelt there.

Quiet Please for a night was called Clarissa Naverals book to you was Ernest Chapel, and Heintz was played by Brunovic, Clarissa by Peggy Stanley as usual.

Music for choir Please is by Albert Brimer now word for my writer, director Willis Cooper.

The characters in tonight's Chriat Please are not a living the dead Van Ginny of these interesting conditions, because they're so the invention of my own imagination intended to represent nobody at all.

Quiet please for next week.

It's called thirteen and eight, and so until next week at the same time, I am quiet.

Leaders Ernice Chapel Quietly as comes to you from New York.

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