Latest / Classic Adventure Audiobooks: Lost Worlds, Treasure Hunts & Survival Stories / 🟡 Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven (Full Audiobook) | Mark Twain

Transcript

🟡 Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven (Full Audiobook) | Mark Twain · Classic Adventure Audiobooks: Lost Worlds, Treasure Hunts & Survival Stories

0:02
Speaker 1: CHAPTER I. READING BY Kevin Laverne. Well, when I had
0:38
Speaker 1: been dead about thirty years, I begun to get a
0:41
Speaker 1: little anxious. Mind you, had been whizzing through space all
0:45
Speaker 1: that time like a comet. Like a comet. Why, Peters,
0:50
Speaker 1: I laid over the lot of them. Of course, there
0:54
Speaker 1: warrant any of them going my way, as a steady thing,
0:57
Speaker 1: you know, because they travel in a long circle like
1:00
Speaker 1: the loop of a lasso. whereas I was pointed as
1:03
Speaker 1: straight as a dart for the hereafter. But I happened
1:07
Speaker 1: on one every now and then that was going my
1:10
Speaker 1: way for an hour or so, and then we had
1:13
Speaker 1: a bit of a brush together. But it was generally
1:16
Speaker 1: pretty one-sided, because I sailed by them the same as
1:20
Speaker 1: if they were standing still. An ordinary comet don't make
1:26
Speaker 1: more than about 200,000 miles a minute. Of course, when
1:30
Speaker 1: I came across one of that sort... Like Inks and
1:33
Speaker 1: Halley's comets, for instance. It weren't anything but just a
1:37
Speaker 1: flash and a vanish, you see. You couldn't rightly call
1:40
Speaker 1: it a race. It was as if the comet was
1:43
Speaker 1: a gravel train, and I was a telegraph dispatch. But
1:47
Speaker 1: after I got outside our astronomical system, I used to
1:51
Speaker 1: flush a comet occasionally that was something like, We haven't
1:55
Speaker 1: got any such comets. Ours don't begin. One night I
2:00
Speaker 1: was swinging along at a good round gate, everything taut
2:04
Speaker 1: and trim, and the wind in my favor. I judged
2:07
Speaker 1: I was going about a million miles a minute. It
2:10
Speaker 1: might have been more. It couldn't have been less. When
2:13
Speaker 1: I flushed a most uncommonly big one about three points
2:16
Speaker 1: off my starboard bow. By his stern lights I judged
2:20
Speaker 1: he was bearing about northeast and by north-half-east. Well, it
2:25
Speaker 1: was so near my course that I wouldn't throw away
2:28
Speaker 1: the chance. So I fell off a point, steadied my helm,
2:32
Speaker 1: and went for him. You should have heard me whiz
2:36
Speaker 1: and seen the electric fur fly. In about a minute
2:39
Speaker 1: and a half, I was fringed out with an electrical
2:42
Speaker 1: nimbus that flamed around for miles and miles and lit
2:45
Speaker 1: up all space like broad day. The comet was burning
2:48
Speaker 1: blue in the distance like a sickly torch when I
2:51
Speaker 1: first sighted him, but he began to grow bigger and
2:54
Speaker 1: bigger as I crept up on him. I slipped up
2:57
Speaker 1: on him so fast that when I had gone about
2:59
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty million miles, I was close enough
3:03
Speaker 1: to be swallowed up in the phosphorescent glory of his wake,
3:06
Speaker 1: and I couldn't see anything for the glare. Thinks I,
3:10
Speaker 1: it won't do to run into him, so I shunted
3:13
Speaker 1: to one side and tore along. By and by I
3:16
Speaker 1: closed up a breast of his tail. Do you know
3:19
Speaker 1: what it was like? It was like a gnat closing
3:22
Speaker 1: up on the continent of America. I forged along. By
3:26
Speaker 1: and by, I had sailed along his coast for a
3:28
Speaker 1: little upwards of 150 million miles, and then I could
3:32
Speaker 1: see by the shape of him that I hadn't even
3:35
Speaker 1: got up to his waistband yet. Why, Peters, we don't
3:38
Speaker 1: know anything about comets down here. If you want to
3:42
Speaker 1: see comets that are comets, you've got to go outside
3:45
Speaker 1: of our solar system, where there's room for them, you understand?
3:49
Speaker 1: My friend... I've seen comets out there that couldn't even
3:52
Speaker 1: lay down inside the orbits of our noblest comets without
3:56
Speaker 1: their tails hanging over. Well, I boomed along another hundred
4:01
Speaker 1: and fifty million miles, and got up abreast his shoulder,
4:05
Speaker 1: as you may say. I was feeling pretty fine, I
4:08
Speaker 1: tell you, but just then I noticed the officer of
4:10
Speaker 1: the deck come to the side and hoist his glass
4:12
Speaker 1: in my direction. Straight off, I heard him sing out,
4:16
Speaker 1: Below there, ahoy! Shake her up, shake her up! Heave
4:20
Speaker 1: on a hundred million billion tons of brimstone. Aye, aye, sir.
4:26
Speaker 1: Pipe the starboard watch, all hands on deck. Aye, aye, sir.
4:31
Speaker 1: Send two hundred thousand million men aloft to shake out
4:34
Speaker 1: royals and skyscrapers. Aye, aye, sir. Hand the stencils. Hang
4:39
Speaker 1: out every rag you've got. Clothe her from stem to
4:42
Speaker 1: rudder post. Aye, aye, sir. In about a second, I
4:47
Speaker 1: begun to see I'd woke up a pretty ugly customer, Peters.
4:51
Speaker 1: In less than ten seconds, that comet was just a
4:53
Speaker 1: blazing cloud of red-hot canvas. It was piled up into
4:57
Speaker 1: the heavens, clean out of sight. The old things seemed
5:00
Speaker 1: to swell out and occupy all space. The sulfur smoke
5:04
Speaker 1: from the furnaces. Oh, well, nobody can describe the way
5:07
Speaker 1: it rolled and tumbled up into the skies, and nobody
5:10
Speaker 1: can half describe the way it smelt. neither can anybody
5:14
Speaker 1: begin to describe the way that monstrous craft begun to
5:17
Speaker 1: crash along. And such another pow-wow, thousands of bosun's whistles
5:22
Speaker 1: screaming at once, and a crew like the populations of
5:25
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand worlds like ours all swearing at once, well,
5:29
Speaker 1: I never heard the like of it before. We roared
5:33
Speaker 1: and thundered along side by side, both doing our level best,
5:37
Speaker 1: because I'd never struck a comet before that could lay
5:39
Speaker 1: over me, and so I was bound to beat this
5:42
Speaker 1: one or break something. I judged I had some reputation
5:46
Speaker 1: in space, and I calculated to keep it. I noticed
5:50
Speaker 1: I wasn't gaining as fast now as I was before,
5:53
Speaker 1: but still I was gaining. There was a power of
5:56
Speaker 1: excitement on board the comet. Upwards of a hundred billion
6:00
Speaker 1: passengers swarmed up from below and rushed to the side
6:03
Speaker 1: and begun to bet on the race. Of course, this
6:06
Speaker 1: careened her and damaged her speed. My, but wasn't the
6:09
Speaker 1: mate mad? he jumped at that crowd with his trumpet
6:12
Speaker 1: in his hand and sung out, Amid ships, amid ships, you! Blank,
6:17
Speaker 1: or I'll brain the last idiot of you! Footnote. The
6:21
Speaker 1: captain could not remember what this word was. He said
6:25
Speaker 1: it was in a foreign tongue. Well, sir, I gained
6:30
Speaker 1: and gained, little by little, till at last I went
6:33
Speaker 1: skimming sweetly by the magnificent old conflagration's nose. By this
6:37
Speaker 1: time the captain of the comet had been rousted out,
6:40
Speaker 1: and he stood there in the red glare forward by
6:42
Speaker 1: the mate in his shirt-sleeves and slippers, his hair all
6:45
Speaker 1: rat's nests and one suspender hanging, and how sick those
6:50
Speaker 1: two men did look. I just simply couldn't help putting
6:53
Speaker 1: my thumb to my nose as I glided away and
6:55
Speaker 1: singing out, Ta-ta, ta-ta, any word to send to your family? Peters,
7:02
Speaker 1: it was a mistake. Yes, sir, I've often regretted that.
7:06
Speaker 1: It was a mistake. You see, the captain had given
7:09
Speaker 1: up the race. but that remark was too tedious for him.
7:13
Speaker 1: He couldn't stand it. He turned to the mate and
7:15
Speaker 1: says he, Have we got brimstone enough of our own
7:18
Speaker 1: to make the trip? Yes, sir. Sure? Yes, sir. More
7:23
Speaker 1: than enough. How much have we got in cargo for Satan?
7:28
Speaker 1: Eighteen hundred thousand billion quintillions of kazarks. Very well, then.
7:34
Speaker 1: Let his borders freeze till the next comet comes. Lighten ship.
7:37
Speaker 1: Lively now. Lively men. HEAVE THE WHOLE CARGO OVERBOARD. PETERS,
7:42
Speaker 1: LOOK ME IN THE EYE AND BE CALM. I FOUND
7:45
Speaker 1: OUT OVER THERE THAT A KAZARK IS EXACTLY THE BULK
7:49
Speaker 1: OF A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINE WORLDS LIKE OURS. THEY HOVE
7:53
Speaker 1: ALL THAT LOAD OVERBOARD. WHEN IT FELL, IT WIPED OUT
7:56
Speaker 1: A CONSIDERABLE RAFT OF STARS, JUST AS CLEAN AS IF
7:59
Speaker 1: THEY'D BEEN CANDLES AND SOMEBODY BLOWED THEM OUT. AS FOR
8:03
Speaker 1: THE RACE, THAT WAS AT AN END. The minute she
8:06
Speaker 1: was lightened, the comet swung along by me the same
8:09
Speaker 1: as if I was anchored. The captain stood on the
8:11
Speaker 1: stern by the after Davids and put his thumb to
8:15
Speaker 1: his nose and sung out, Ta-ta, ta-ta, maybe you've got
8:19
Speaker 1: some message to send to your friends in the everlasting tropics.
8:24
Speaker 1: Then he hove up his other suspender and started forward,
8:27
Speaker 1: and inside of three-quarters of an hour his craft was
8:30
Speaker 1: only a pale torch in the distance. Yes, it was
8:33
Speaker 1: a mistake, Peters, that remark of mine. I don't reckon
8:37
Speaker 1: I'll ever get over being sorry about it. I'd have
8:40
Speaker 1: beat the bully of the firmament if I'd kept my
8:43
Speaker 1: mouth shut. But I've wandered a little off the track
8:47
Speaker 1: of my tail. I'll get back on my course again.
8:51
Speaker 1: Now you see what kind of speed I was making. So,
8:53
Speaker 1: as I said, when I had been tearing along this
8:56
Speaker 1: way about thirty years, I'd begun to get uneasy. Oh,
9:00
Speaker 1: it was pleasant enough, with a good deal to find out,
9:03
Speaker 1: but then it was kind of lonesome, you know. Besides,
9:06
Speaker 1: I wanted to get somewhere. I hadn't shipped with the
9:10
Speaker 1: idea of cruising forever. First off, I liked the delay,
9:14
Speaker 1: because I judged I was going to fetch up in
9:16
Speaker 1: pretty warm quarters when I got through. But towards the last,
9:20
Speaker 1: I began to feel that I'd rather go to, well,
9:23
Speaker 1: most any place, so as to finish up the uncertainty. Well,
9:28
Speaker 1: one night, it was always night, except when I was
9:31
Speaker 1: rushing by some star that was occupying the whole universe
9:34
Speaker 1: with its fire and its glare. Light enough then, of course,
9:38
Speaker 1: but I necessarily left it behind in a minute or
9:41
Speaker 1: two and plunged into a solid week of darkness again.
9:44
Speaker 1: The stars ain't so close together as they look to be.
9:47
Speaker 1: Where was I? Oh, yes, one night I was sailing
9:50
Speaker 1: along when I discovered a tremendous long row of blinking
9:54
Speaker 1: lights away on the horizon ahead. As I approached, they
9:58
Speaker 1: began to tower and swell, and look like mighty furnaces.
10:02
Speaker 1: Says I to myself, By George, I've arrived at last,
10:05
Speaker 1: and at the wrong place, just as I expected. Then
10:09
Speaker 1: I fainted. I don't know how long I was insensible,
10:13
Speaker 1: but it must have been a good while, for when
10:16
Speaker 1: I came to— The darkness was all gone, and there
10:18
Speaker 1: was the loveliest sunshine and the balmiest, fragrantest air in
10:22
Speaker 1: its place. And there was such a marvelous world spread
10:26
Speaker 1: out before me, such a glowing, beautiful, bewitching country. The
10:31
Speaker 1: things I took for furnaces were gates, miles high, made
10:34
Speaker 1: all of flashing jewels, and they pierced a wall of
10:37
Speaker 1: solid gold that you couldn't see the top of, nor
10:40
Speaker 1: yet the end of, in either direction. I was pointed
10:44
Speaker 1: straight for one of these gates, and a coming like
10:46
Speaker 1: a house of fire. Now I noticed that the skies
10:50
Speaker 1: were black with millions of people, pointed for those gates.
10:54
Speaker 1: What a roar they made, rushing through the air. The
10:57
Speaker 1: ground was as thick as ants with people too, billions
11:00
Speaker 1: of them, I judge. I lit. I drifted up to
11:04
Speaker 1: a gate with a swarm of people, and when it
11:07
Speaker 1: was my turn, the head clerk says, in a business-like way, Well, quick,
11:11
Speaker 1: where are you from? San Francisco, says I. San Fran-what?
11:16
Speaker 1: says he. San Francisco. He scratched his head and looked puzzled.
11:21
Speaker 1: Then he says, Is it a planet? By George Peters,
11:25
Speaker 1: think of it. Planet? says I. It's a city. And moreover,
11:30
Speaker 1: it's one of the biggest and finest, and- There, there,
11:32
Speaker 1: says he. No time here for conversation. We don't deal
11:36
Speaker 1: in cities here. Where are you from, in a general way? Oh,
11:40
Speaker 1: I says. I beg your pardon. Put me down for California.
11:44
Speaker 1: I had him again, Peters. He puzzled a second. Then
11:47
Speaker 1: he says, sharp and irritable, I don't know any such planet.
11:52
Speaker 1: Is it a constellation? Oh, my goodness, says I. Constellation,
11:57
Speaker 1: says you? No, it's a state. Man, we don't deal
12:01
Speaker 1: in states here. Will you tell me where you are
12:04
Speaker 1: from in general? At large, don't you understand? Oh, now
12:09
Speaker 1: I get your idea, I says. I'm from America, the
12:13
Speaker 1: United States of America. Peters, do you know I had
12:17
Speaker 1: him again? If I hadn't, I'm a clam. His face
12:21
Speaker 1: was as blank as a target after a malicious shooting match.
12:25
Speaker 1: He turned to an underclerk and says, Where is America?
12:29
Speaker 1: What is America? The underclerk answered up prompt and says,
12:35
Speaker 1: There ain't any such orb. Orb, says I. What are
12:39
Speaker 1: you talking about, young man? It ain't an orb. It's
12:42
Speaker 1: a country. It's a continent. Columbus discovered it. I reckon,
12:47
Speaker 1: likely you've heard of him, anyway. America. Why, sir, America. Silence,
12:53
Speaker 1: says the head clerk. Once for all, where are you from? Well,
13:01
Speaker 1: says I, I don't know anything more to say, unless
13:04
Speaker 1: I lump things and just say I'm from the world. Ah,
13:09
Speaker 1: says he, brightening up. Now that's something like, what world? Peters,
13:16
Speaker 1: he had me that time. I looked at him, puzzled.
13:19
Speaker 1: He looked at me, worried. Then he burst out. Come, come,
13:23
Speaker 1: what world? Says I, why, the world, of course. The world,
13:29
Speaker 1: he says. Hmm, there's billions of them. Next. That meant
13:35
Speaker 1: for me to stand aside. I done so, and a
13:38
Speaker 1: sky-blue man with seven heads and only one leg hopped
13:41
Speaker 1: into my place. I took a walk. It just occurred
13:44
Speaker 1: to me then that all the myriads I have seen
13:47
Speaker 1: swarming to that gate up to this time were just
13:50
Speaker 1: like that creature. I tried to run across somebody I
13:53
Speaker 1: was acquainted with, but they were out of acquaintances of
13:56
Speaker 1: mine just then. So I thought the thing all over
13:59
Speaker 1: and finally sidled back there, pretty meek and feeling rather stumped,
14:03
Speaker 1: as you may say.' Well?' said the head clerk. Well, sir,
14:10
Speaker 1: I says, pretty humble, I don't seem to make out
14:12
Speaker 1: which world it is I'm from, but you may know
14:15
Speaker 1: it from this. It's the one the Savior saved. He
14:20
Speaker 1: bent his head at the name. Then he says gently,
14:24
Speaker 1: The worlds he has saved are like to the gates
14:26
Speaker 1: of heaven in number. None can count them. What astronomical
14:31
Speaker 1: system is your world in? Perhaps that may assist. It's
14:37
Speaker 1: the one that has the sun in it, and the moon,
14:40
Speaker 1: and Mars. He shook his head at each name. Hadn't
14:44
Speaker 1: ever heard of them, you see. And Neptune, and Uranus,
14:47
Speaker 1: and Jupiter. Hold on, says he. Hold on a minute. Jupiter. Jupiter.
14:55
Speaker 1: Seems to me we had a man from there eight
14:58
Speaker 1: or nine hundred years ago. But people from that system
15:01
Speaker 1: very seldom enter by this gate. All of a sudden,
15:04
Speaker 1: he began to look me so straight in the eye
15:06
Speaker 1: that I thought he was going to bore through me.
15:09
Speaker 1: Then he says, very deliberate, Did you come straight here
15:13
Speaker 1: from your system? Yes, sir, I says, but I blushed
15:18
Speaker 1: the least little bit in the world when I said it.
15:21
Speaker 1: He looked at me very stern and says, That is
15:24
Speaker 1: not true, and this is not the place for prevarication.
15:29
Speaker 1: You wandered from your course. How did that happen? says I,
15:34
Speaker 1: blushing again. I'm sorry, and I take back what I said,
15:38
Speaker 1: and confess. I raced a little with a comet one day,
15:41
Speaker 1: only just the least little bit, only the tiniest lit so, so,
15:46
Speaker 1: says he, and without any sugar in his voice to
15:49
Speaker 1: speak of. I went on, and says, But I only
15:54
Speaker 1: fell off just a bare point, and I went right
15:56
Speaker 1: back on my course again the minute the race was over.
16:00
Speaker 1: No matter. That divergence has made all this trouble. It
16:04
Speaker 1: has brought you to a gate that is billions of
16:06
Speaker 1: leagues from the right one. If you had gone to
16:08
Speaker 1: your own gate, they would have known all about your
16:10
Speaker 1: world at once, and there would have been no delay.
16:13
Speaker 1: But we will try to accommodate you. He turned to
16:16
Speaker 1: an underclerk and says, What system is Jupiter in? I
16:21
Speaker 1: don't remember, sir, but I think there is such a
16:24
Speaker 1: planet in one of the little new systems away out
16:26
Speaker 1: in one of the thinly-worlded corners of the universe. I
16:29
Speaker 1: will see. He got a balloon and sailed up and
16:33
Speaker 1: up and up in front of a map that was
16:35
Speaker 1: as big as Rhode Island. He went on up till
16:39
Speaker 1: he was out of sight, and by and by he
16:41
Speaker 1: came down and got something to eat and went up again.
16:44
Speaker 1: To cut a long story short, he kept on doing
16:47
Speaker 1: this for a day or two, and finally he came
16:49
Speaker 1: down and said he thought he had found that solar system,
16:52
Speaker 1: but it might be fly specks. So he got a
16:55
Speaker 1: microscope and went back. It turned out better than he feared.
16:59
Speaker 1: He had rousted out our system sure enough, He got
17:02
Speaker 1: me to describe our planet and its distance from the sun,
17:05
Speaker 1: and then he says to his chief, Oh, I know
17:07
Speaker 1: the one he means now, sir. It is on the map.
17:10
Speaker 1: It is called the Wart, says I to myself. Young man,
17:15
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be wholesome for you to go down there
17:17
Speaker 1: and call it the Wart. Well, they let me in
17:21
Speaker 1: then and told me I was safe forever and wouldn't
17:23
Speaker 1: have any more trouble. Then they turned from me and
17:27
Speaker 1: went on with their work, the same as if they
17:30
Speaker 1: considered my case all complete and ship-shape. I was a
17:34
Speaker 1: good deal surprised at this, but I was diffident about
17:36
Speaker 1: speaking up and reminding them. I did so hate to
17:39
Speaker 1: do it, you know. It seemed a pity to bother them.
17:42
Speaker 1: They had so much on their hands. Twice I thought
17:45
Speaker 1: I would give up and let the thing go. So
17:47
Speaker 1: twice I started to leave. But immediately I thought what
17:50
Speaker 1: a figure I should cut, stepping out amongst the redeemed
17:53
Speaker 1: in such a rig. and that made me hang back
17:56
Speaker 1: and come to anchor again. People got to eyeing me. Clerks,
17:59
Speaker 1: you know. Wondering why I didn't get underway. I couldn't
18:03
Speaker 1: stand this long. It was too uncomfortable. So at last
18:07
Speaker 1: I plucked up courage and tipped the head clerk a signal.
18:11
Speaker 1: He says, What? You here yet? What's wanting? Says I
18:15
Speaker 1: in a low and very confidential, making a trumpet with
18:19
Speaker 1: my hands at his ear. I beg pardon. and you
18:22
Speaker 1: mustn't mind my reminding you and seeming to meddle, but
18:26
Speaker 1: ain't you forgot something? He studied a second and says,
18:31
Speaker 1: Forgot something? No, not that I know of. Think, says I.
18:36
Speaker 1: He thought. Then he says, No, I can't seem to
18:40
Speaker 1: have forgot anything. What is it? Look at me, says I.
18:44
Speaker 1: Look me all over. He done it. Well, says he. Well,
18:50
Speaker 1: says I, you don't notice anything? If I branched out
18:54
Speaker 1: amongst the elect looking like this, wouldn't I attract considerable attention?
18:58
Speaker 1: Wouldn't I be a little conspicuous? Well, he says, I
19:02
Speaker 1: don't see anything the matter. What do you lack? Lack? Why,
19:07
Speaker 1: I lack my harp, and my wreath, and my halo,
19:10
Speaker 1: and my hymn book, and my palm branch. I lack
19:13
Speaker 1: everything that a body naturally requires up here, my friend. Puzzled?' Peters,
19:19
Speaker 1: he was the worst puzzled man you ever saw.' Finally,'
19:23
Speaker 1: he says,' well, you seem to be a curiosity every
19:26
Speaker 1: way a body takes you.' I never heard of these
19:29
Speaker 1: things before.'' I looked at the man a while in
19:33
Speaker 1: solid astonishment.' Then I says,' Now, I hope you don't
19:37
Speaker 1: take it as an offence,' for I don't mean any,
19:40
Speaker 1: but really,' for a man that has been in the
19:42
Speaker 1: kingdom as long as I reckon you have,' you do
19:45
Speaker 1: seem to know powerful little about its customs.' It's kind of...
19:50
Speaker 1: says he.' Heaven is a large place, good friend.' Large
19:54
Speaker 1: empires have many and diverse customs.' Even small dominions have,
19:58
Speaker 1: as you doubtless know' by what you have seen of
20:00
Speaker 1: the matter on a small scale in the wart.' How
20:03
Speaker 1: can you imagine I could ever learn' the varied customs
20:06
Speaker 1: of the countless kingdoms of heaven?' It makes my head
20:09
Speaker 1: ache to think of it. I know the customs that
20:12
Speaker 1: prevail in those portions inhabited by peoples that are appointed
20:16
Speaker 1: to enter by my own gate. And, hark ye, that
20:19
Speaker 1: is quite enough knowledge for one individual to try to
20:22
Speaker 1: pack into his head in the thirty-seven millions of years
20:25
Speaker 1: I have devoted night and day to that study. But
20:28
Speaker 1: the idea of learning the customs of the whole appalling
20:31
Speaker 1: expanse of heaven, O man, how insanely you talk! Now
20:35
Speaker 1: I don't doubt that this odd costume you talk about
20:37
Speaker 1: is the fashion in that district of heaven you belong to,
20:41
Speaker 1: but you won't be conspicuous in this section without it.
20:46
Speaker 1: I felt all right if that was the case, so
20:48
Speaker 1: I bade him good day and left. All day I
20:50
Speaker 1: walked towards the far end of a prodigious hall of
20:53
Speaker 1: the office, hoping to come out into heaven any moment,
20:57
Speaker 1: but it was a mistake. That hall was built on
20:59
Speaker 1: the general heavenly plan. It naturally couldn't be small. At
21:04
Speaker 1: last I got so tired I couldn't go any farther.
21:08
Speaker 1: So I sat down to rest and began to tackle
21:10
Speaker 1: the queerest sort of strangers and ask for information. But
21:13
Speaker 1: I didn't get any. They couldn't understand my language, and
21:17
Speaker 1: I could not understand theirs. I got dreadfully lonesome. I
21:21
Speaker 1: was so downhearted and homesick I wished a hundred times
21:24
Speaker 1: I never had died. I turned back, of course. About
21:28
Speaker 1: noon next day I got back at last and was
21:31
Speaker 1: on hand at the booking office once more. says I
21:34
Speaker 1: to the head clerk. I begin to see that a
21:37
Speaker 1: man's got to be in his own heaven to be happy.
21:40
Speaker 1: Perfectly correct, says he. Did you imagine the same heaven
21:43
Speaker 1: would suit all sorts of men? Well, I had that idea,
21:47
Speaker 1: but I see the foolishness of it. Which way am
21:50
Speaker 1: I to go to get to my district? He called
21:54
Speaker 1: the underclerk that had examined the map, and he gave
21:56
Speaker 1: me general directions. I thanked him and started, but he says,
22:01
Speaker 1: Wait a minute. It is millions of leagues from here.
22:03
Speaker 1: Go outside and stand on that red wishing carpet. Shut
22:07
Speaker 1: your eyes, hold your breath, and wish yourself there. I'm
22:11
Speaker 1: much obliged, says I. Why didn't you dart me through
22:15
Speaker 1: when I first arrived? We have a good deal to
22:18
Speaker 1: think of here. It was your place to think of
22:20
Speaker 1: it and ask for it. Goodbye. We probably shan't see
22:23
Speaker 1: you in this region for a thousand centuries or so.
22:27
Speaker 1: In that case, au revoir, says I. I hopped onto
22:33
Speaker 1: the carpet and held my breath and shut my eyes
22:35
Speaker 1: and wished I was in the booking office of my
22:37
Speaker 1: own section. The very next instant a voice I knew
22:41
Speaker 1: sung out in a business kind of way. A harp
22:44
Speaker 1: and a hymn book, pair of wings and a halo,
22:46
Speaker 1: size 13 for Cap'n Eli Stormfield of San Francisco. Make
22:51
Speaker 1: him out a clean bill of health and let him in.
22:53
Speaker 1: I opened my eyes. Sure enough, it was a P.
22:58
Speaker 1: Ute engine I used to know in Tulare County, Mighty
23:02
Speaker 1: Goodfellow I remembered being at his funeral, which consisted of
23:05
Speaker 1: him being burnt and the other engines gomming their faces
23:08
Speaker 1: with his ashes and howling like wildcats. He was powerful
23:12
Speaker 1: glad to see me, and you may make up your
23:14
Speaker 1: mind I was just as glad to see him and
23:17
Speaker 1: feel that I was in the right kind of heaven
23:19
Speaker 1: at last. Just as far as your eye could reach,
23:23
Speaker 1: there were swarms of clerks running and bustling around, tricking
23:27
Speaker 1: out thousands of Yanks and Mexicans and English and Arabs
23:30
Speaker 1: and all sorts of people in their new outfits. And
23:33
Speaker 1: when they gave me my kit and I put on
23:35
Speaker 1: my halo and took a look in the glass, I
23:38
Speaker 1: could have jumped over a house for joy. I was
23:40
Speaker 1: so happy. Now this is something like, says I. Now,
23:45
Speaker 1: says I, I'm all right. Show me a cloud. Inside
23:50
Speaker 1: of 15 minutes, I was a mile on my way
23:53
Speaker 1: towards the cloud banks and about a million people along
23:56
Speaker 1: with me. Most of us tried to fly, but some
23:59
Speaker 1: got crippled and nobody made a success of it. So
24:02
Speaker 1: we concluded to walk for the present till we had
24:05
Speaker 1: some wing practice. We begun to meet swarms of folks
24:10
Speaker 1: who were coming back. Some had harps and nothing else.
24:13
Speaker 1: Some had hymn books and nothing else. Some had nothing
24:15
Speaker 1: at all. All of them looked meek and uncomfortable. One
24:20
Speaker 1: young fellow hadn't anything left but his halo, and he
24:23
Speaker 1: was carrying that in his hand. All of a sudden
24:26
Speaker 1: he offered it to me and says, Will you hold
24:28
Speaker 1: it for me for a minute? Then he disappeared in
24:31
Speaker 1: the crowd. I went on. A woman asked me to
24:35
Speaker 1: hold her palm branch, and then she disappeared. A girl
24:39
Speaker 1: got me to hold her heart for her, and by
24:41
Speaker 1: George she disappeared, and so on, and so on, till
24:44
Speaker 1: I was about loaded down to the guards. Then comes
24:47
Speaker 1: a smiling old gentleman and asks me to hold his things.
24:51
Speaker 1: I swabbed off the perspiration and says pretty tart, I'll
24:55
Speaker 1: have to get you to excuse me, my friend. I
24:57
Speaker 1: ain't no hat-rack. About this time, I begun to run
25:02
Speaker 1: across piles of those traps lying in the road. I
25:05
Speaker 1: just quietly dumped my extra cargo along with them. I
25:08
Speaker 1: looked around, and Peters, that whole nation that was following me,
25:12
Speaker 1: were loaded down the same as I'd been. The return
25:15
Speaker 1: crowd had got them to hold their things a minute,
25:17
Speaker 1: you see. They all dumped their loads, too, and we
25:20
Speaker 1: went on. When I found myself perched on a cloud
25:24
Speaker 1: with a million other people, I never felt so good
25:27
Speaker 1: in my life. Says I, now this is according to
25:30
Speaker 1: the promises. I've been having my doubts, but now I
25:33
Speaker 1: am in heaven sure enough. I gave my palm branch
25:37
Speaker 1: a wave or two for luck, and then I tautened
25:39
Speaker 1: up my harp strings and struck in. Well, Peters, you
25:42
Speaker 1: can't imagine anything like the row we made. It was
25:46
Speaker 1: grand to listen to, and made a body thrill all over,
25:50
Speaker 1: but there was considerable many tunes going on at once,
25:53
Speaker 1: and that was a drawback to the harmony, you understand.
25:57
Speaker 1: And then there was a lot of engine tribes. and
25:59
Speaker 1: they kept up such another war-whooping that they kind of
26:02
Speaker 1: took the tuck out of the music. By and by
26:06
Speaker 1: I quit performing, and judged I'd take a rest. There
26:10
Speaker 1: was quite a nice mild old gentleman sitting next me,
26:13
Speaker 1: and I noticed he didn't take a hand. I encouraged him,
26:17
Speaker 1: but he said he was naturally bashful, and was afraid
26:20
Speaker 1: to try before so many people. By and by the
26:24
Speaker 1: old gentleman said he never could seem to enjoy music somehow,
26:28
Speaker 1: The fact was, I was beginning to feel the same way,
26:31
Speaker 1: but I didn't say anything. Him and I had a
26:34
Speaker 1: considerable long silence then, but of course it weren't noticeable
26:37
Speaker 1: in that place. After about sixteen or seventeen hours, during
26:41
Speaker 1: which I played and sung a little, now and then,
26:44
Speaker 1: always the same tune, because I didn't know any other,
26:47
Speaker 1: I laid down my harp and begun to fan myself
26:50
Speaker 1: with my palm branch. Then we both got to sighing
26:53
Speaker 1: pretty regular. Finally, says he, Don't you know any tune
26:58
Speaker 1: but the one you've been pegging at all day? Not
27:02
Speaker 1: another blessed one, says I. Don't you reckon you could
27:06
Speaker 1: learn another one, says he? Never, says I. I've tried to,
27:11
Speaker 1: but I couldn't manage it. It's a long time to
27:14
Speaker 1: hang to the one. Eternity, you know. Don't break my heart,
27:19
Speaker 1: says I. I'm getting low-spirited enough already. After another long silence,
27:25
Speaker 1: says he, Are you glad to be here? Says I,
27:30
Speaker 1: Old man, I'll be frank with you. This ain't just
27:33
Speaker 1: as near my idea of bliss as I thought it
27:35
Speaker 1: was going to be when I used to go to church.
27:39
Speaker 1: Says he, What do you say to knocking off and
27:41
Speaker 1: calling it half a day? That's me, says I. I
27:45
Speaker 1: never wanted to get off watch so bad in my life.
27:49
Speaker 1: So we started. Millions were coming to the cloud bank
27:52
Speaker 1: all the time, happy and hosanna-ing, Millions were leaving it
27:55
Speaker 1: all the time, looking mighty quiet, I tell you. We
27:59
Speaker 1: laid for the newcomers, and pretty soon I'd got them
28:02
Speaker 1: to hold all my things a minute, and then I
28:04
Speaker 1: was a free man again, and most outrageously happy. Just
28:07
Speaker 1: then I ran across old Sam Bartlett, who had been
28:10
Speaker 1: dead a long time, and stopped to have a talk
28:12
Speaker 1: with him. Says I, Now tell me, is this to
28:16
Speaker 1: go on forever? Ain't there anything else for a change?
28:19
Speaker 1: Says he, I'll set you right on that point very quick.
28:23
Speaker 1: People take the figurative language of the Bible and the
28:26
Speaker 1: allegories for literal, and the first thing they ask for
28:29
Speaker 1: when they get here is a halo and a harp,
28:32
Speaker 1: and so on. Nothing that's harmless and reasonable is refused
28:35
Speaker 1: to body here, if he asks it in the right spirit.
28:39
Speaker 1: So they are outfitted with these things without a word.
28:42
Speaker 1: They go and sing and play just about one day,
28:45
Speaker 1: and that's the last you'll ever see them in the choir.
28:48
Speaker 1: They don't need anybody to tell them that that sort
28:50
Speaker 1: of thing wouldn't make a heaven. At least not a
28:53
Speaker 1: heaven that a sane man could stand a week and
28:55
Speaker 1: remain sane. That cloud bank is placed where the noise
28:58
Speaker 1: can't disturb the old inhabitants. And so there ain't any
29:02
Speaker 1: harm in letting everybody get up there and cure himself
29:04
Speaker 1: as soon as he comes. Now you just remember this.
29:09
Speaker 1: Heaven is as blissful and lovely as it can be.
29:12
Speaker 1: But it's just the busiest place you ever heard of.
29:15
Speaker 1: There ain't any idle people here after the first day.
29:18
Speaker 1: Singing hymns and waving palm branches through all eternity is
29:21
Speaker 1: pretty when you hear about it in the pulpit, but
29:24
Speaker 1: it's as poor a way to put in valuable time
29:26
Speaker 1: as a body could contrive. It would just make a
29:30
Speaker 1: heaven of warbling ignoramuses, don't you see? Eternal rest sounds
29:34
Speaker 1: comforting in the pulpit, too. Well, you try it once
29:38
Speaker 1: and see how heavy time will hang on you. hands.' Why, Stormfield,
29:42
Speaker 1: a man like you,' that had been active and stirring
29:44
Speaker 1: all his life,' would go mad in six months in
29:47
Speaker 1: a heaven where he hadn't anything to do.' Heaven is
29:50
Speaker 1: the very last place to come to rest in,' and
29:53
Speaker 1: don't you be afraid to bet on that.'' Says I,' Sam,
29:58
Speaker 1: I'm as glad to hear it as I thought I'd
30:00
Speaker 1: be sorry. I'm glad I come now. Says he, Cap'n,
30:04
Speaker 1: ain't you pretty physically tired? Says I, Sam, it ain't
30:09
Speaker 1: any name for it. I'm dog-tired. Just so, just so.
30:15
Speaker 1: You've earned a good sleep, and you'll get it. You've
30:17
Speaker 1: earned a good appetite, and you'll enjoy your dinner. It's
30:20
Speaker 1: the same here as it is on Earth. You've got
30:22
Speaker 1: to earn a thing, square and honest, before you enjoy it.
30:26
Speaker 1: You can't enjoy first and earn afterwards. But there's this
30:29
Speaker 1: difference here. You can choose your own occupation, and all
30:32
Speaker 1: the powers of heaven will be put forth to help
30:34
Speaker 1: you make a success of it, if you do your
30:36
Speaker 1: level best. The shoemaker on earth, that had the soul
30:39
Speaker 1: of a poet in him, won't have to make shoes here.
30:44
Speaker 1: Now that's all reasonable and right, says I. Plenty of work,
30:47
Speaker 1: and the kind you hanker after. No more pain, no
30:50
Speaker 1: more suffering. Oh, hold on, there's plenty of pain here,
30:54
Speaker 1: but it don't kill. There's plenty of suffering here, but
30:57
Speaker 1: it don't last. You see, happiness ain't a thing in itself.
31:02
Speaker 1: It's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant. That's
31:06
Speaker 1: all it is. There ain't a thing you can mention
31:09
Speaker 1: that is happiness in its own self. It's only so
31:12
Speaker 1: by contrast with the other thing. And so, as soon
31:16
Speaker 1: as the novelty is over and the force of the
31:18
Speaker 1: contrast dulled, it ain't happiness any longer, and you have
31:22
Speaker 1: to get something fresh. Well, there's plenty of pain and
31:25
Speaker 1: suffering in heaven. Consequently, there's plenty of contrasts, and just
31:30
Speaker 1: no end of happiness. Says I, it's the sensiblest heaven
31:35
Speaker 1: I've heard of yet, Sam, though it's about as different
31:38
Speaker 1: from the one I was brought up on as a
31:40
Speaker 1: live princess is different from her own wax figure. Along
31:45
Speaker 1: in the first months, I knocked around about the kingdom,
31:48
Speaker 1: making friends and looking at the country. and finally settled
31:51
Speaker 1: down in a pretty likely region to have a rest
31:54
Speaker 1: before taking another start. I went on making acquaintances and
31:58
Speaker 1: gathering up information. I had a good deal of talk
32:01
Speaker 1: with an old bald-headed angel by the name of Sandy McWilliams.
32:05
Speaker 1: He was from somewhere in New Jersey. I went about
32:07
Speaker 1: with him considerable. We used to lay around warm afternoons
32:11
Speaker 1: in the shade of a rock, on some meadow ground
32:14
Speaker 1: that was pretty high, and out of the marshy slush
32:17
Speaker 1: of his cranberry farm, And there we used to talk
32:19
Speaker 1: about all kinds of things and smoke pipes. One day,
32:23
Speaker 1: says I, about how old might you be, Sandy? Seventy-two.
32:29
Speaker 1: I judged so. How long you been in heaven? Twenty-seven
32:33
Speaker 1: years come Christmas. How old was you when you come up?
32:38
Speaker 1: Why seventy-two, of course. You can't mean it. Why can't
32:42
Speaker 1: I mean it? Because if you was seventy-two then, then
32:46
Speaker 1: you are naturally ninety-nine now. No, but I ain't. I
32:50
Speaker 1: stay the same age I was when I come. Well,
32:54
Speaker 1: says I, come to think, there's something just here that
32:57
Speaker 1: I want to ask about. Down below, I always had
33:01
Speaker 1: an idea that in heaven we would all be young
33:03
Speaker 1: and bright and spry. Well, you can be young if
33:06
Speaker 1: you want to. You've only got to wish. Well, then
33:09
Speaker 1: why didn't you wish? I did. They all do. You'll
33:14
Speaker 1: try it some day, like enough, but you'll get tired
33:16
Speaker 1: of the change pretty soon. Why? Well, I'll tell you.
33:21
Speaker 1: Now you've always been a sailor. Did you ever try
33:24
Speaker 1: some other business? Yes, I tried keeping grocery once, up
33:28
Speaker 1: in the mines, but I couldn't stand it. It was
33:31
Speaker 1: too dull. No stir, no storm, no life about it.
33:35
Speaker 1: It was like being part dead and part alive, both
33:37
Speaker 1: at the same time. I wanted to be one thing
33:40
Speaker 1: or t'other. I shut up shop pretty quick and went
33:43
Speaker 1: to sea. That's it. Grocery people like it, but you couldn't.
33:49
Speaker 1: You see, you wasn't used to it. Well, I wasn't
33:52
Speaker 1: used to being young, and I couldn't seem to take
33:55
Speaker 1: any interest in it. I was strong and handsome, and
33:58
Speaker 1: had curly hair. Yes, and wings, too. Gay wings like
34:02
Speaker 1: a butterfly. I went to picnics and dances and parties
34:05
Speaker 1: with the fellows, and tried to carry on and talk
34:08
Speaker 1: nonsense with the girls. But it wasn't any use. I
34:11
Speaker 1: couldn't take to it. Fact is, it was an awful bore.
34:16
Speaker 1: What I wanted was early to bed and early to
34:18
Speaker 1: rise and something to do. And when my work was done,
34:21
Speaker 1: I wanted to sit quiet and smoke and think, not
34:24
Speaker 1: tear around with a parcel of giddy young kids. You
34:27
Speaker 1: can't think what I suffered whilst I was young. How
34:32
Speaker 1: long was you young? Only two weeks. That was plenty
34:36
Speaker 1: for me. Laws, I was so lonesome. You see, I
34:40
Speaker 1: was full of the knowledge and experience of 72 years.
34:43
Speaker 1: The deepest subject those young folks could strike was only
34:46
Speaker 1: A-B-C to me. And to hear them argue, oh my,
34:51
Speaker 1: it would have been funny if it hadn't been so pitiful. Well,
34:55
Speaker 1: I was so hungry for the ways and the sober
34:58
Speaker 1: talk I was used to that I tried to ring
35:00
Speaker 1: in with the old people, but they wouldn't have it.
35:03
Speaker 1: They considered me a conceited young upstart and gave me
35:06
Speaker 1: the cold shoulder. Two weeks was a plenty for me.
35:10
Speaker 1: I was glad to get back my bald head again,
35:13
Speaker 1: and my pipe, and my old drowsy reflections in the
35:16
Speaker 1: shade of a rock or a tree. Well, says I,
35:20
Speaker 1: do you mean to say you're going to stand still
35:21
Speaker 1: at 72 forever? I don't know, and I ain't particular,
35:26
Speaker 1: but I ain't going to drop back to 25 anymore.
35:29
Speaker 1: I know that mighty well. I know a sight more
35:32
Speaker 1: than I did 27 years ago, and I enjoy learning
35:35
Speaker 1: all the time, but I don't seem to get any older.
35:38
Speaker 1: That is bodily. My mind gets older, and stronger, and
35:42
Speaker 1: better seasoned, and more satisfactory. Says I, if a man
35:47
Speaker 1: comes here at ninety, don't he ever set himself back?
35:51
Speaker 1: Of course he does. He sets himself back to fourteen,
35:54
Speaker 1: tries it a couple of hours, and feels like a fool.
35:57
Speaker 1: Sets himself forward to twenty. It ain't much improvement. Tries thirty, fifty, eighty,
36:02
Speaker 1: and finally ninety. Finds he is more at home and
36:06
Speaker 1: comfortable at the same old figure he is used to
36:08
Speaker 1: than any other way. or if his mind begun to
36:11
Speaker 1: fail him on earth at eighty, that's where he finally
36:14
Speaker 1: sticks up here. He sticks up at the place where
36:17
Speaker 1: his mind was last at its best, for there is
36:20
Speaker 1: where his enjoyment is best and his ways most set
36:23
Speaker 1: and established. Does a chap of twenty-five always stay twenty-five
36:28
Speaker 1: and look it? If he is a fool, yes, but
36:31
Speaker 1: if he is bright and ambitious and industrious, the knowledge
36:34
Speaker 1: he gains and the experience he has change his ways
36:37
Speaker 1: and thoughts and likings, and make him find his best
36:40
Speaker 1: pleasure in the company of people above that age, so
36:43
Speaker 1: he allows his body to take on that look of
36:46
Speaker 1: as many added years as he needs to make him
36:48
Speaker 1: comfortable and proper in that sort of society. He lets
36:51
Speaker 1: his body go on taking the look of age as
36:54
Speaker 1: he progresses, and by and by he will be bald
36:57
Speaker 1: and wrinkled outside and wise and deep within. Baby's the same?
37:03
Speaker 1: Baby's the same. Laws, what asses we used to be
37:06
Speaker 1: on earth about these things! We said we'd always be
37:09
Speaker 1: young in heaven. We didn't say how young. We didn't
37:12
Speaker 1: think of that, perhaps. That is, we didn't all think alike, anyway.
37:17
Speaker 1: When I was a boy of seven, I suppose I
37:19
Speaker 1: thought we'd all be twelve in heaven. When I was twelve,
37:23
Speaker 1: I suppose I thought we'd all be eighteen or twenty
37:25
Speaker 1: in heaven. When I was forty, I begun to go back.
37:29
Speaker 1: I remember I hoped we'd all be about thirty years
37:31
Speaker 1: old in heaven. Neither a man nor a boy ever
37:34
Speaker 1: thinks the age he has is exactly the best one.
37:38
Speaker 1: He puts the right age a few years older or
37:41
Speaker 1: a few years younger than he is. Then he makes
37:44
Speaker 1: that ideal age the general age of the heavenly people,
37:47
Speaker 1: and he expects everybody to stick at that age, stand
37:51
Speaker 1: stock still, and expects them to enjoy it. Now just
37:55
Speaker 1: think of the idea of standing still in heaven. Think
37:59
Speaker 1: of a heaven made up entirely of hoop-rolling, marble-playing cubs
38:02
Speaker 1: of seven years, or of awkward, diffident, sentimental immaturities of nineteen,
38:08
Speaker 1: or a vigorous people of thirty, healthy-minded, brimming with ambition,
38:13
Speaker 1: but chained hand and foot to that one age, and
38:15
Speaker 1: its limitations like so many helpless galley-slaves. Think of the
38:19
Speaker 1: dull sameness of a society made up of people all
38:23
Speaker 1: of one age and one set of looks, habits, tastes,
38:25
Speaker 1: and feelings. Think how superior to it earth would be,
38:29
Speaker 1: with its variety of types and faces and ages, and
38:32
Speaker 1: the enlivening attrition of the myriad interests that come into
38:35
Speaker 1: pleasant collision in such a variegated society. Look here, says I.
38:40
Speaker 1: Do you know what you're doing? Well, what am I doing?
38:45
Speaker 1: You are making heaven pretty comfortable in one way, but
38:48
Speaker 1: you are playing the mischief with it in another. How
38:51
Speaker 1: do you mean? Well, says I, take a young mother
38:55
Speaker 1: that's lost her child and shh, he says, look. It
39:00
Speaker 1: was a woman, middle-aged and had grizzled hair. She was
39:04
Speaker 1: walking slow and her head was bent down and her
39:06
Speaker 1: wings hanging limp and droopy. she looked ever so tired
39:10
Speaker 1: and was crying poor thing she passed along by with
39:14
Speaker 1: her head down that way and the tears running down
39:17
Speaker 1: her face and didn't see us then sandy said low
39:21
Speaker 1: and gentle and full of pity she's hunting for her
39:25
Speaker 1: child no found it I reckon Lord how she's changed!
39:31
Speaker 1: But I recognized her in a minute, though it's twenty-seven
39:34
Speaker 1: years since I saw her. A young mother she was,
39:38
Speaker 1: about twenty-two or four or along there, and blooming and
39:41
Speaker 1: lovely and sweet. Oh, just a flower! And all her
39:45
Speaker 1: heart and all her soul was wrapped up in her child.
39:48
Speaker 1: her little girl, two years old. And it died. And
39:52
Speaker 1: she went wild with grief, just wild. Well, the only
39:57
Speaker 1: comfort she had was that she'd see her child again
39:59
Speaker 1: in heaven. Never more to part, she said, and kept
40:03
Speaker 1: on saying it over and over. Never more to part.
40:07
Speaker 1: And the words made her happy. Yes, they did. They
40:10
Speaker 1: made her joyful. And when I was dying 27 years ago,
40:13
Speaker 1: she told me to find her child the first thing
40:16
Speaker 1: and say she was coming. Soon, soon, very soon, she
40:20
Speaker 1: hoped and believed. Why, it's pitiful, Sandy. He didn't say
40:26
Speaker 1: anything for a while, but sat looking at the ground, thinking.
40:30
Speaker 1: Then he says, kind of mournful. And now she's come. Well,
40:36
Speaker 1: go on. Stormfield, maybe she hasn't found the child. But
40:41
Speaker 1: I think she has. Looks so to me. I've seen
40:45
Speaker 1: cases before. You see, she's kept that child in her head,
40:49
Speaker 1: just the same as it was when she jounced it
40:51
Speaker 1: in her arms, a little chubby thing. But here, it
40:54
Speaker 1: didn't elect to stay a child. No, it elected to
40:58
Speaker 1: grow up, which it did. And in these 27 years,
41:02
Speaker 1: it has learned all the deep scientific learning there is
41:04
Speaker 1: to learn. And is studying and studying and learning and
41:08
Speaker 1: learning more and more, all the time. And don't give
41:11
Speaker 1: a damn for anything but learning. Just learning. and discussing
41:15
Speaker 1: gigantic problems with people like herself. Well, Stormfield, don't you see?
41:22
Speaker 1: Her mother knows cranberries, and how to tend them, and
41:25
Speaker 1: pick them, and put them up, and market them, and
41:28
Speaker 1: not another blamed thing. Her and her daughter can't be
41:31
Speaker 1: any more company for each other now than Mud Turtle
41:35
Speaker 1: and Bird of Paradise. Poor thing, she was looking for
41:38
Speaker 1: a baby to jounce. I think she's struck a disappointment. Sandy,
41:43
Speaker 1: what will they do, staying happy forever in heaven? No,
41:47
Speaker 1: they'll come together and get adjusted by and by. But
41:50
Speaker 1: not this year, and not next. By and by. End
41:57
Speaker 1: of chapter 1 CHAPTER II. READING BY Kevin Laverne I
42:48
Speaker 1: had been having considerable trouble with my wings. The day
42:51
Speaker 1: after I helped the choir, I made a dash or
42:53
Speaker 1: two with them, but was not lucky. First off, I
42:58
Speaker 1: flew thirty yards, and then fouled an Irishman and brought
43:00
Speaker 1: him down, brought us both down, in fact. Next I
43:04
Speaker 1: had a collision with a bishop, and bowled him down,
43:07
Speaker 1: of course. We had some sharp words, and I felt
43:11
Speaker 1: pretty cheap, to come banging into a grave old person
43:14
Speaker 1: like that, with a million strangers looking on and smiling
43:17
Speaker 1: to themselves. I saw I hadn't got the hang of
43:22
Speaker 1: the steering, and so couldn't rightly tell where I was
43:25
Speaker 1: going to bring up when I started. I went afoot
43:29
Speaker 1: the rest of the day, and let my wings hang.
43:32
Speaker 1: Early next morning I went to a private place to
43:35
Speaker 1: have some practice. I got up on a pretty high rock,
43:38
Speaker 1: and got a good start, and went swooping down aiming
43:41
Speaker 1: for a bush a little over three hundred yards off.
43:45
Speaker 1: But I couldn't seem to calculate for the wind, which
43:47
Speaker 1: was about two points abaft my beam. I could see
43:51
Speaker 1: I was going considerable to lowered of the bush, so
43:53
Speaker 1: I worked my starboard wing slow and went ahead strong
43:56
Speaker 1: on the port one, but it wouldn't answer. I could
43:59
Speaker 1: see I was going to broach two, so I slowed
44:01
Speaker 1: down on both and lit. I went back to the
44:04
Speaker 1: rock and took another chance at it. I aimed two
44:08
Speaker 1: or three points to starboard of the bush. Yes, more
44:11
Speaker 1: than that. Enough so as to make it nearly a headwind.
44:16
Speaker 1: I'd done well enough, but made pretty poor time. I
44:20
Speaker 1: could see, plain enough, that on a headwind, wings was
44:23
Speaker 1: a mistake. I could see that a body could sail
44:26
Speaker 1: pretty close to the wind, but it couldn't go in
44:28
Speaker 1: the wind's eye. I could see that if I wanted
44:31
Speaker 1: to go a-visiting any distance from home, and the wind
44:34
Speaker 1: was ahead... I might have to wait days, maybe, for
44:37
Speaker 1: a change. And I could see, too, that these things
44:41
Speaker 1: could not be of any use at all in a gale.
44:44
Speaker 1: If you tried to run before the wind, you would
44:46
Speaker 1: make a mess of it, for there isn't any way
44:49
Speaker 1: to shorten sail, like reefing, you know. You have to
44:51
Speaker 1: take it all in, shut your feathers down flat to
44:54
Speaker 1: your sides. That would land you, of course. You could
44:58
Speaker 1: lay to, with your head to the wind. That is
45:01
Speaker 1: the best you could do, and right hard work you'd
45:03
Speaker 1: find it, too. If you tried any other game, you
45:06
Speaker 1: would found her sure. I judge it was about a
45:10
Speaker 1: couple of weeks or so after this that I dropped
45:12
Speaker 1: old Sandy McWilliams a note one day. It was a Tuesday,
45:16
Speaker 1: and asked him to come over and take his manna
45:18
Speaker 1: and quails with me next day. And the first thing
45:21
Speaker 1: he did when he stepped in was to twinkle his
45:23
Speaker 1: eye in a sly way and say, Well, Cap, what
45:26
Speaker 1: you done with your wings? I saw in a minute
45:30
Speaker 1: that there was some sarcasm done up in that rag somewheres,
45:33
Speaker 1: but I never let on. I only says, gone to
45:36
Speaker 1: the wash. Yes, he says, in a dry sort of way.
45:41
Speaker 1: They mostly go to the wash, about this time. I've
45:44
Speaker 1: often noticed it. Fresh angels are powerful neat. When do
45:49
Speaker 1: you look for them back? Day after tomorrow, says I.
45:55
Speaker 1: He winked at me and smiled. Says I, Sandy, come
46:00
Speaker 1: out with it. Come, no secrets among friends. I notice
46:03
Speaker 1: you don't ever wear wings, and plenty others don't. I
46:07
Speaker 1: have been making an ass of myself. Is that it?
46:11
Speaker 1: That is about the size of it, but it is
46:13
Speaker 1: no harm. We all do it at first. It's perfectly natural.
46:19
Speaker 1: You see, on Earth, we jump to such foolish conclusions
46:21
Speaker 1: as to things up here. In the pictures, we always
46:24
Speaker 1: saw the angels with wings on, and that was all right.
46:28
Speaker 1: But we jump to the conclusion that that was their
46:30
Speaker 1: way of getting around, and that was all wrong. The
46:35
Speaker 1: wings ain't anything but a uniform, that's all. When they
46:37
Speaker 1: are in the field, so to speak, they always wear them.
46:41
Speaker 1: You never see an angel going with a message anywhere
46:44
Speaker 1: without his wings, any more than you would see a
46:46
Speaker 1: military officer presiding at a court-martial without his uniform, or
46:50
Speaker 1: a postman delivering letters, or a policeman walking his beat
46:53
Speaker 1: in plain clothes. But they ain't to fly with. The
46:58
Speaker 1: wings are for show, not for use. Old experienced angels
47:02
Speaker 1: are like officers of the regular army, They dress plain
47:05
Speaker 1: when they are off duty. New angels are like the militia,
47:10
Speaker 1: never shed the uniform, always fluttering and floundering around in
47:13
Speaker 1: their wings, butting people down, flapping here and there and everywhere,
47:17
Speaker 1: always imagining they are attracting the admiring eye. Well, they
47:21
Speaker 1: just think they are the very most important people in heaven.
47:25
Speaker 1: And when you see one of them come sailing around
47:27
Speaker 1: with one wing tipped up and tethered down, you make
47:30
Speaker 1: up your mind he is saying to himself, I wish
47:32
Speaker 1: Marianne in Arkansas could see me now, I reckon she'd
47:36
Speaker 1: wish she hadn't shook me.' No, they're just for show,
47:39
Speaker 1: that's all. Only just for show.'' I judge you've got
47:43
Speaker 1: it about right, Sandy,' says I.' Why, look at yourself,'
47:47
Speaker 1: says he.' You ain't built for wings. No man is.'
47:51
Speaker 1: You know what a grist of years it took you
47:54
Speaker 1: to come here from the earth?' And yet you were
47:56
Speaker 1: booming along faster than any cannonball could go.' Suppose you
48:00
Speaker 1: had to fly that distance with your wings.' Wouldn't eternity
48:04
Speaker 1: have been over before you got here? Certainly. Well, angels
48:09
Speaker 1: have to go to the earth every day, millions of them,
48:12
Speaker 1: to appear in visions to dying children and good people,
48:15
Speaker 1: you know. It's the heft of their business. They appear
48:18
Speaker 1: with their wings, of course, because they are on official service,
48:22
Speaker 1: and because the dying persons wouldn't know they were angels
48:25
Speaker 1: if they hadn't wings. But do you reckon they fly
48:28
Speaker 1: with them? It stands to reason they don't. the wings
48:32
Speaker 1: would wear out before they got halfway. Even the pin
48:36
Speaker 1: feathers would be gone. The wing frames would be as
48:39
Speaker 1: bare as kite sticks before the paper is pasted on.
48:42
Speaker 1: The distances in heaven are billions of times greater. Angels
48:46
Speaker 1: have to go all over heaven every day. Could they
48:49
Speaker 1: do it with their wings alone? No, indeed. They wear
48:52
Speaker 1: the wings for style, but they travel any distance in
48:55
Speaker 1: an instant by wishing. The wishing carpet of the Arabian
48:59
Speaker 1: Nights was a sensible idea. but our earthly idea of
49:03
Speaker 1: angels flying these awful distances with their clumsy wings was foolish.
49:09
Speaker 1: Our young saints, of both sexes, wear wings all the time,
49:13
Speaker 1: blazing red ones and blue and green and gold and
49:16
Speaker 1: variegated and rainbowed and ring-streaked and striped ones and nobody
49:20
Speaker 1: finds fault. It is suitable to their time of life.
49:25
Speaker 1: The things are beautiful, and they set the young people off.
49:29
Speaker 1: They are the most striking and lovely part of their outfit,
49:32
Speaker 1: and a halo don't begin.' Well,' says I,' I' ve tucked
49:38
Speaker 1: mine away in the cupboard,' And I allow to let
49:41
Speaker 1: them lay there till there's mud. Yes, or a reception.
49:46
Speaker 1: What's that? Well, you can see one tonight if you
49:50
Speaker 1: want to. There's a barkeeper from Jersey City going to
49:53
Speaker 1: be received. Go on, tell me about it. This barkeeper
49:59
Speaker 1: got converted at a moody and sanky meeting in New
50:02
Speaker 1: York and started home on the ferry boat. And there
50:04
Speaker 1: was a collision and he got drowned. He is of
50:07
Speaker 1: a class that think all heaven goes wild with joy
50:09
Speaker 1: when a particularly hard lot like him is saved. They
50:13
Speaker 1: think all heaven turns out Hosanna-ing to welcome them. They
50:17
Speaker 1: think there isn't anything talked about in the realms of
50:19
Speaker 1: the blessed but their case for that day. This barkeeper
50:24
Speaker 1: thinks there hasn't been such another stir here in years
50:27
Speaker 1: as his coming is going to raise. And I've always
50:30
Speaker 1: noticed this peculiarity about a dead barkeeper. He not only
50:34
Speaker 1: expects all hands to turn out when he arrives, but
50:37
Speaker 1: he expects to be received with a torchlight procession. I
50:41
Speaker 1: reckon he is disappointed then. No, he isn't. No man
50:46
Speaker 1: is allowed to be disappointed here. Whatever he wants when
50:49
Speaker 1: he comes. That is any reasonable and unsacrilegious thing he
50:53
Speaker 1: can have. There's always a few millions or billions of
50:57
Speaker 1: young folks around who don't want any better entertainment than
51:00
Speaker 1: to fill up their lungs and swarm out with their
51:02
Speaker 1: torches and have a high time over the barkeeper. It
51:06
Speaker 1: tickles the barkeeper till he can't rest. It makes a
51:09
Speaker 1: charming lark for the young folks. It don't do anybody
51:12
Speaker 1: any harm. It don't cost a rap. And it keeps
51:16
Speaker 1: up the place's reputation for making all comers happy and content.
51:21
Speaker 1: Very good. I'll be on hand and see them land
51:24
Speaker 1: the barkeeper. It is manners to go in full dress.
51:28
Speaker 1: You want to wear your wings, you know, and your
51:31
Speaker 1: other things. Which ones? Halo and harp? and palm branch,
51:36
Speaker 1: and all that. Well, says I, I reckon I ought
51:41
Speaker 1: to be ashamed of myself. But the fact is, I
51:44
Speaker 1: left them laying around that day I resigned from the choir.
51:48
Speaker 1: I haven't got a rag to wear but this robe
51:50
Speaker 1: and the wings. That's all right. You'll find they've been
51:54
Speaker 1: raked up and saved for you. Send for them. I'll
51:59
Speaker 1: do it, Sandy. But what was it you were saying
52:01
Speaker 1: about unsacrilegious things, which people expect to get and will
52:04
Speaker 1: be disappointed about? Oh, there are a lot of such
52:08
Speaker 1: things that people expect and don't get. For instance, there's
52:12
Speaker 1: a Brooklyn preacher by the name of Talmage who is
52:14
Speaker 1: laying up a considerable disappointment for himself. He says every
52:18
Speaker 1: now and then in his sermons that the first thing
52:21
Speaker 1: he does when he gets to heaven will be to
52:23
Speaker 1: fling his arms around Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and kiss
52:26
Speaker 1: them and weep on them. There's millions of people down
52:30
Speaker 1: there on earth that are promising themselves the same thing.
52:33
Speaker 1: As many as 60,000 people arrive here every single day
52:36
Speaker 1: that want to run straight to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
52:39
Speaker 1: and hug them and weep on them. Now mind you, 60,000
52:43
Speaker 1: a day is a pretty heavy contract for those old people.
52:47
Speaker 1: If they were a mind to allow it, they wouldn't
52:49
Speaker 1: ever have anything to do, year in and year out,
52:52
Speaker 1: but stand up and be hugged and wept on 32
52:55
Speaker 1: hours in the 24th. They would be tired out and
52:58
Speaker 1: as wet as muskrats all the time. What would heaven
53:02
Speaker 1: be to them? It would be a mighty good place
53:05
Speaker 1: to get out of. You know that yourself. Those are
53:09
Speaker 1: kind and gentle old Jews, but they ain't any fonder
53:12
Speaker 1: of kissing the emotional highlights of Brooklyn than you be.
53:16
Speaker 1: You mark my words, Mr. T's endearments are going to
53:19
Speaker 1: be declined with thanks. There are limits to the privileges
53:22
Speaker 1: of the elect, even in heaven. Why, if Adam was
53:26
Speaker 1: to show himself to every newcomer that wants to call
53:29
Speaker 1: and gaze at him and strike him for his autograph,
53:32
Speaker 1: He would never have time to do anything else but
53:34
Speaker 1: just that. Talmage has said he is going to give
53:38
Speaker 1: Adam some of his attentions, as well as A, I,
53:41
Speaker 1: and J. But he will have to change his mind
53:44
Speaker 1: about that. Do you think Talmage will really come here? Why,
53:50
Speaker 1: certainly he will. But don't you be alarmed. He will
53:54
Speaker 1: run with his own kind, and there's plenty of them.
53:57
Speaker 1: That is the main charm of heaven. There's all kinds here.
54:01
Speaker 1: which wouldn't be the case if you let the preachers
54:03
Speaker 1: tell it. Anybody can find the sort he prefers here,
54:07
Speaker 1: and he just lets the others alone, and they let
54:10
Speaker 1: him alone. When the deity builds a heaven, it is
54:14
Speaker 1: built right, and on a liberal plan. Sandy sent home
54:20
Speaker 1: for his things, and I sent for mine, and about
54:22
Speaker 1: nine in the evening we begun to dress. Sandy says,
54:27
Speaker 1: This is going to be a grand time for you, Stormy.
54:31
Speaker 1: Like as not, some of the patriarchs will turn out. No,
54:34
Speaker 1: but will they? Like as not. Of course, they are
54:39
Speaker 1: pretty exclusive. They hardly ever show themselves to the common public.
54:44
Speaker 1: I believe they never turn out, except for an eleventh-hour convert.
54:48
Speaker 1: They wouldn't do it then. Only earthly tradition makes a
54:51
Speaker 1: grand show pretty necessary on that kind of an occasion.
54:57
Speaker 1: Do they all turn out, Sandy? Who? Who? All the patriarchs? Oh, no,
55:04
Speaker 1: hardly ever more than a couple. You will be here
55:07
Speaker 1: fifty thousand years, maybe more, before you get a glimpse
55:10
Speaker 1: of all the patriarchs and prophets. Since I have been here,
55:15
Speaker 1: Job has been to the front once, and once Ham
55:18
Speaker 1: and Jeremiah both at the same time. But the finest
55:22
Speaker 1: thing that has happened in my day was a year
55:25
Speaker 1: or so ago. That was Charles Peace's reception. Him they
55:30
Speaker 1: called the Bannercross Murderer, an Englishman. There were four patriarchs
55:36
Speaker 1: and two prophets on the grandstand that time. There hasn't
55:39
Speaker 1: been anything like it since Captain Kidd came. Abel was there,
55:45
Speaker 1: the first time in twelve hundred years. A report got
55:49
Speaker 1: around that Adam was coming. Well, of course, Abel was
55:52
Speaker 1: enough to bring a crowd all by himself. But there
55:56
Speaker 1: is nobody that can draw like Adam. It was a
55:59
Speaker 1: false report, but it got around anyway, as I say,
56:03
Speaker 1: and it will be a long day before I see
56:05
Speaker 1: the like of it again. The reception was in the
56:08
Speaker 1: English department, of course, which is 811 million miles from
56:12
Speaker 1: the New Jersey line. I went along with a good
56:16
Speaker 1: many of my neighbors, and it was a sight to see,
56:18
Speaker 1: I can tell you. Flocks came from all the departments.
56:25
Speaker 1: I saw Eskimo there. and Tartars, Negroes, Chinamen, people from everywhere.
56:32
Speaker 1: You will see a mixture like that in the grand
56:34
Speaker 1: choir the first day you land here, but you hardly
56:38
Speaker 1: ever see it again. There were billions of people. When
56:42
Speaker 1: they were singing or hosanna-ing, the noise was wonderful, and
56:46
Speaker 1: even when their tongues were still, the drumming of the
56:48
Speaker 1: wings was nearly enough to burst your head, for all
56:51
Speaker 1: the sky was as thick as if it was snowing angel's.
56:55
Speaker 1: Although Adam was not there, it was a great time anyway,
56:58
Speaker 1: because we had three archangels on the grandstand. It is
57:02
Speaker 1: a seldom thing that even one comes out. What did
57:06
Speaker 1: they look like, Sandy? Well, they had shining faces and
57:10
Speaker 1: shining robes and wonderful rainbow wings, and they stood eighteen
57:13
Speaker 1: feet high and wore swords and held their heads up
57:16
Speaker 1: in a noble way and looked like soldiers. Did they
57:20
Speaker 1: have halos? No, anyway, not the hoop kind. The archangels
57:25
Speaker 1: and the upper-class patriarchs wear a finer thing than that.
57:29
Speaker 1: It is a round, solid, splendid glory of gold that
57:32
Speaker 1: is blinding to look at. You have often seen a
57:35
Speaker 1: patriarch in a picture on earth with that thing on.
57:38
Speaker 1: You remember it. He looks as if he had his
57:40
Speaker 1: head in a brass platter. That don't give you the
57:43
Speaker 1: right idea of it at all. It is much more
57:46
Speaker 1: shining and beautiful. Did you talk with those archangels and patriarchs, Sandy? Who, I? Why,
57:54
Speaker 1: what can you be thinking about, Stormy? I ain't worthy
57:57
Speaker 1: to speak to such as they. Is Talmage? Of course not.
58:01
Speaker 1: You have got the same mixed-up idea about these things
58:04
Speaker 1: that everybody has down there. I had it once, but
58:07
Speaker 1: I got over it. Down there, they talk of the
58:10
Speaker 1: Heavenly King, and that is right. But then they go
58:14
Speaker 1: right on speaking as if this was a republic and
58:16
Speaker 1: everybody was on a dead level with everybody else, and
58:19
Speaker 1: privileged to fling his arms around anybody he comes across.
58:23
Speaker 1: and be hail fellow well met with all the elect
58:26
Speaker 1: from the highest down. How tangled up and absurd that is!
58:30
Speaker 1: How are you going to have a republic under a king?
58:33
Speaker 1: How are you going to have a republic at all?
58:35
Speaker 1: Where the head of the government is absolute, holds his
58:37
Speaker 1: place forever, and has no parliament, no council to meddle
58:41
Speaker 1: or make in his affairs. Nobody voted for, nobody elected,
58:45
Speaker 1: nobody in the whole universe with a voice in the government,
58:48
Speaker 1: nobody asked to take a hand in its matters, and
58:50
Speaker 1: nobody allowed to do it. Fine republic, ain't it? Well, yes,
58:56
Speaker 1: it is a little different from the idea I had,
58:59
Speaker 1: but I thought I might go around and get acquainted
59:01
Speaker 1: with the grandees anyway. Not exactly splice the main brace
59:05
Speaker 1: with them, you know, but shake hands and pass the
59:08
Speaker 1: time of day. Could Tom, Dick, and Harry call on
59:12
Speaker 1: the cabinet of Russia and do that? On Prince Gortschakoff,
59:16
Speaker 1: for instance? I reckon not, Sandy. Well, this is Russia,
59:22
Speaker 1: only more so. There's not the shadow of a republic
59:26
Speaker 1: about it anywhere. There are ranks here, There are viceroys, princes, governors, sub-governors, sub-sub-governors,
59:34
Speaker 1: and a hundred orders of nobility, grading along down from
59:38
Speaker 1: grand ducal archangels, stage by stage, till the general level
59:43
Speaker 1: is struck, where there ain't any titles. Do you know
59:46
Speaker 1: what a prince of the blood is on earth? No? Well,
59:51
Speaker 1: a prince of the blood don't belong to the royal
59:53
Speaker 1: family exactly, and he don't belong to the mere nobility
59:57
Speaker 1: of the kingdom. He is lower than the one and
1:00:00
Speaker 1: higher than to other. That's about the position of the
1:00:03
Speaker 1: patriarchs and prophets here. There's some mighty high nobility here,
1:00:08
Speaker 1: people that you and I ain't worthy to polish sandals for,
1:00:12
Speaker 1: and they ain't worthy to polish sandals for the patriarchs
1:00:14
Speaker 1: and prophets. That gives you a kind of an idea
1:00:17
Speaker 1: of their rank, don't it? You begin to see how
1:00:20
Speaker 1: high up they are, don't you? Just to get a
1:00:23
Speaker 1: two-minute glimpse of one of them is a thing for
1:00:25
Speaker 1: a body to remember and tell about for a thousand years. Why, Captain,
1:00:29
Speaker 1: just think of this. If Abraham was to set his
1:00:32
Speaker 1: foot down here by this door, there would be a
1:00:34
Speaker 1: railing set up around that foot track right away and
1:00:37
Speaker 1: a shelter put over it, and people would flock here
1:00:40
Speaker 1: from all over heaven for hundreds and hundreds of years
1:00:43
Speaker 1: to look at it. Abraham is one of the parties
1:00:46
Speaker 1: that Mr. Talmage of Brooklyn is going to embrace and
1:00:49
Speaker 1: kiss and weep on when he comes. He wants to
1:00:52
Speaker 1: lay in a good stock of tears, you know, or
1:00:55
Speaker 1: five to one he will go dry before he gets
1:00:57
Speaker 1: a chance to do it. Sandy, says I. I had
1:01:02
Speaker 1: an idea that I was going to be equals with
1:01:04
Speaker 1: everybody here, too, but I will let that drop. It
1:01:07
Speaker 1: don't matter, and I am plenty happy enough anyway. Captain,
1:01:11
Speaker 1: you are happier than you would be the other way.
1:01:14
Speaker 1: These old patriarchs and prophets have got ages to start
1:01:17
Speaker 1: of you. They know more in two minutes than you
1:01:19
Speaker 1: know in a year. Did you ever try to have
1:01:22
Speaker 1: a sociable and proving time discussing winds and currents and
1:01:25
Speaker 1: variations of compass with an undertaker? I get your idea, Sandy.
1:01:30
Speaker 1: He couldn't interest me. He would be an ignoramus in
1:01:33
Speaker 1: such things. He would bore me, and I would bore him.
1:01:37
Speaker 1: You have got it. You would bore the patriarchs when
1:01:40
Speaker 1: you talked. And when they talked, they would shoot over
1:01:43
Speaker 1: your head. By and by you would say, Good morning,
1:01:47
Speaker 1: your eminence. I will call again. But you wouldn't. Did
1:01:51
Speaker 1: you ever ask the slush boy to come up in
1:01:53
Speaker 1: the cabin and take dinner with you? I get your
1:01:56
Speaker 1: drift again, Sandy. I wouldn't be used to such grand
1:01:59
Speaker 1: people as the patriarchs and prophets, and I would be
1:02:02
Speaker 1: sheepish and tongue-tied in their company, and mighty glad to
1:02:05
Speaker 1: get out of it. Sandy, which is the highest rank,
1:02:08
Speaker 1: patriarch or prophet? Oh, the prophets hold over the patriarchs.
1:02:13
Speaker 1: The newest prophet, even, is of a sight more consequence
1:02:17
Speaker 1: than the oldest patriarch. Yes, sir, Adam himself has to
1:02:21
Speaker 1: walk behind Shakespeare. Was Shakespeare a prophet? Of course he was.
1:02:27
Speaker 1: And so was Homer, and heaps more. But Shakespeare and
1:02:31
Speaker 1: the rest have to walk behind a common tailor from
1:02:33
Speaker 1: Tennessee by the name of Billings, and behind a horse
1:02:36
Speaker 1: doctor named Sokka from Afghanistan. Jeremiah and Billings and Buddha
1:02:41
Speaker 1: walk together, side by side, right behind a crowd from
1:02:44
Speaker 1: planets not in our astronomy. Next come a dozen or
1:02:48
Speaker 1: two from Jupiter and other worlds. Next come Daniel and
1:02:51
Speaker 1: Sokka and Confucius. Next a lot from systems outside of ours.
1:02:56
Speaker 1: Next come Ezekiel, and Mohammed, Zoroaster, and a knife-grinder from
1:03:01
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt. Then there is a long string, and after them,
1:03:05
Speaker 1: away down toward the bottom, come Shakespeare and Homer, and
1:03:08
Speaker 1: a shoemaker named Marais from the back settlements of France.
1:03:13
Speaker 1: Have they really rung in Mohammed and all those other heathens? Yes,
1:03:18
Speaker 1: they all had their message, and they all get their reward.
1:03:22
Speaker 1: The man who don't get his reward on earth needn't bother.
1:03:25
Speaker 1: He will get it here, sure. But why did they
1:03:29
Speaker 1: throw off on Shakespeare that way and put him way
1:03:31
Speaker 1: down there below those shoemakers and horse doctors and knife grinders?
1:03:35
Speaker 1: A lot of people nobody ever heard of. That is
1:03:39
Speaker 1: the heavenly justice of it. They weren't rewarded according to
1:03:42
Speaker 1: their desserts on earth, but here they get the rightful rank.
1:03:46
Speaker 1: That Taylor Billings from Tennessee wrote poetry that Homer and
1:03:50
Speaker 1: Shakespeare couldn't begin to come up to, but nobody would
1:03:53
Speaker 1: print it. Nobody read it but his neighbors, an ignorant lot.
1:03:58
Speaker 1: and they laughed at it. Whenever the village had a
1:04:01
Speaker 1: drunken frolic and a dance, they would drag him in
1:04:04
Speaker 1: and crown him with cabbage leaves and pretend to bow
1:04:06
Speaker 1: down to him. And one night, when he was sick
1:04:09
Speaker 1: and nearly starved to death, they had him out and
1:04:11
Speaker 1: crowned him, and then they rode him on a rail
1:04:14
Speaker 1: about the village, and everybody followed along, beating tin pans
1:04:17
Speaker 1: and yelling. Well, he died before morning. He wasn't ever
1:04:21
Speaker 1: expected to go to heaven, much less that there was
1:04:24
Speaker 1: going to be any fuss made over him, so I
1:04:26
Speaker 1: reckon he was a good deal surprised when the reception
1:04:28
Speaker 1: broke on him.' Was you there, Sandy?'' Bless you, no.'' Why,
1:04:35
Speaker 1: didn't you know it was going to come off?'' Well,
1:04:38
Speaker 1: I judge I did. It was the talk of these realms.
1:04:42
Speaker 1: Not for a day, like this barkeeper business, but for
1:04:45
Speaker 1: twenty years before the man died.'' Why the mischief didn't
1:04:49
Speaker 1: you go, then?'' Now how you talk! The like of
1:04:53
Speaker 1: me go meddling around at the reception of a prophet?'
1:04:56
Speaker 1: A mudsoul like me trying to push in and help
1:04:58
Speaker 1: receive an awful grandee like Edward J. Billings? Why, I
1:05:02
Speaker 1: should have been laughed at for a billion miles around.
1:05:05
Speaker 1: I shouldn't ever have heard the last of it. Well,
1:05:08
Speaker 1: who did go, then? Mighty few people that you and
1:05:12
Speaker 1: I will ever get a chance to see, Captain. Not
1:05:14
Speaker 1: a solitary commoner ever has the luck to see a
1:05:17
Speaker 1: reception of a prophet, I can tell you. All the nobility,
1:05:21
Speaker 1: and all the patriarchs and prophets, every last one of them.
1:05:24
Speaker 1: And all the archangels. and all the princes and governors
1:05:27
Speaker 1: and viceroys were there, and no small fry, not a
1:05:31
Speaker 1: single one. And mind you, I'm not talking about only
1:05:35
Speaker 1: the grandees from our world, but the princes and patriarchs
1:05:39
Speaker 1: and so on from all the worlds that shine in
1:05:41
Speaker 1: our sky, and from billions more that belong in systems
1:05:44
Speaker 1: upon systems away outside of the one our sun is in.
1:05:49
Speaker 1: There were some prophets and patriarchs there that ours ain't
1:05:52
Speaker 1: a circumstance to, for rank and illustriousness and all that,
1:05:56
Speaker 1: Some were from Jupiter, and other worlds in our own system,
1:05:59
Speaker 1: but the most celebrated were three poets, Saw, Bow, and Souf,
1:06:04
Speaker 1: from great planets in three different and very remote systems.
1:06:09
Speaker 1: These three names are common and familiar in every nook
1:06:12
Speaker 1: and corner of heaven, clear from one end of it
1:06:14
Speaker 1: to the other. Fully as well known as the eighty
1:06:17
Speaker 1: supreme archangels, in fact, whereas our Moses and Adam and
1:06:21
Speaker 1: the rest have not been heard of outside of our
1:06:24
Speaker 1: world's little corner of heaven, except by a very few
1:06:27
Speaker 1: learned men scattered here and there, and they always spell
1:06:30
Speaker 1: their names wrong, and get the performances of one mixed
1:06:33
Speaker 1: up with the doings of another, and they almost always
1:06:36
Speaker 1: locate them simply in our solar system, and think that
1:06:40
Speaker 1: is enough without going into little details such as naming
1:06:43
Speaker 1: the particular world they are from. It is like a
1:06:46
Speaker 1: learned Hindu showing off how much he knows by saying
1:06:49
Speaker 1: Longfellow lives in the United States. as if he lived
1:06:53
Speaker 1: all over the United States, and as if the country
1:06:55
Speaker 1: was so small, you couldn't throw a brick there without
1:06:58
Speaker 1: hitting him. Between you and me, it does gravel me,
1:07:01
Speaker 1: the cool way people from those monster worlds outside our
1:07:04
Speaker 1: system snub our little world, and even our system. Of course,
1:07:09
Speaker 1: we think a good deal of Jupiter, because our world
1:07:12
Speaker 1: is only a potato to it, for size. But then
1:07:15
Speaker 1: there are worlds and other systems that Jupiter isn't even
1:07:18
Speaker 1: a mustard seed to. Like the planet Goobra, for instance.
1:07:22
Speaker 1: which you couldn't squeeze inside the orbit of Halley's Comet
1:07:25
Speaker 1: without straining the rivets. Tourists from Goobra, I mean parties
1:07:30
Speaker 1: that lived and died there, natives, come here now and
1:07:34
Speaker 1: then and inquire about our world, and when they find
1:07:37
Speaker 1: out it is so little that a streak of lightning
1:07:40
Speaker 1: can flash clear around it in the eighth of a second,
1:07:43
Speaker 1: they have to lean up against something to laugh. Then
1:07:46
Speaker 1: they screw a glass into their eye and go to
1:07:49
Speaker 1: examining us, as if we were a curious kind of
1:07:52
Speaker 1: foreign bug, or something of that sort. One of them
1:07:55
Speaker 1: asked me how long our day was, and when I
1:07:58
Speaker 1: told him it was twelve hours long, as a general thing,
1:08:01
Speaker 1: he asked me if people where I was from considered
1:08:04
Speaker 1: it worthwhile to get up and wash for such a
1:08:06
Speaker 1: day as that. That is the way with those Goobra people.
1:08:11
Speaker 1: They can't seem to let a chance go by to
1:08:13
Speaker 1: throw it in your face that their day is three
1:08:15
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty-two of our years long. This young snob
1:08:20
Speaker 1: was just of age. He was six or seven thousand
1:08:23
Speaker 1: of his days old, say two million of ours, and
1:08:27
Speaker 1: he had all the puppy airs that belonged to that
1:08:30
Speaker 1: time of life, that turning point when a person has
1:08:33
Speaker 1: got over being a boy, and yet ain't quite a
1:08:35
Speaker 1: man exactly. If it had been anywhere else but in heaven,
1:08:39
Speaker 1: I would have given him a piece of my mind. Well, anyway...
1:08:43
Speaker 1: Billings had the grandest reception that has been seen in
1:08:46
Speaker 1: thousands of centuries, and I think it will have a
1:08:49
Speaker 1: good effect. His name will be carried pretty far, and
1:08:53
Speaker 1: it will make our system talked about, and maybe our world, too,
1:08:56
Speaker 1: and raise us in the respect of the general public
1:08:59
Speaker 1: of heaven. Why, look here. Shakespeare walked backwards before that
1:09:03
Speaker 1: tailor from Tennessee and scattered flowers for him to walk on,
1:09:07
Speaker 1: and Homer stood behind his chair and waited on him
1:09:09
Speaker 1: at the banquet. Of course, that didn't go much for
1:09:13
Speaker 1: him there, amongst all those big forerunners from other systems,
1:09:17
Speaker 1: as they hadn't heard of Shakespeare or Homer either. but
1:09:21
Speaker 1: it would amount to considerable down there on our little
1:09:23
Speaker 1: earth if they could know about it. I wish there
1:09:26
Speaker 1: were something in that miserable spiritualism so we could send
1:09:29
Speaker 1: them word. That Tennessee village would set up a monument
1:09:33
Speaker 1: to Billings then, and his autograph would outsell Satan's. Well,
1:09:38
Speaker 1: they had grand times at that reception. A small-frying noble
1:09:41
Speaker 1: from Hoboken told me all about it, Sir Richard Duffer, Baronet. What, Sandy?
1:09:48
Speaker 1: A nobleman from Hoboken? How was that? Easy enough. Duffer
1:09:54
Speaker 1: kept a sausage shop and never saved a cent in
1:09:57
Speaker 1: his life because he used to give all his spare
1:09:59
Speaker 1: meat to the poor in a quiet way. Not tramps. No,
1:10:04
Speaker 1: the other sort. The sort that will starve before they
1:10:07
Speaker 1: will beg. Honest, square people out of work. Dick used
1:10:12
Speaker 1: to watch hungry-looking men and women and children and track
1:10:15
Speaker 1: them home and find out all about them from the neighbor's.
1:10:19
Speaker 1: and then feed them and find them work. As nobody
1:10:22
Speaker 1: ever saw him give anything to anybody, he had the
1:10:25
Speaker 1: reputation of being mean. He died with it, too, and
1:10:29
Speaker 1: everybody said it was a good riddance. But the minute
1:10:32
Speaker 1: he landed here, they made him a baronet, and the
1:10:35
Speaker 1: very first words Dick, the sausage-maker of Hoboken, heard when
1:10:38
Speaker 1: he stepped upon the heavenly shore were, Welcome, Sir Richard Duffer.
1:10:43
Speaker 1: It surprised him some, because he thought he had reasons
1:10:45
Speaker 1: to believe he was pointed for a warmer climate than
1:10:48
Speaker 1: this one. All of a sudden, the whole region fairly
1:10:53
Speaker 1: rocked under the crash of 1101 thunder blasts. All let
1:10:57
Speaker 1: off at once, and Sandy says, There, that's for the barkeep.
1:11:02
Speaker 1: I jumped up and says, Then let's be moving along, Sandy.
1:11:05
Speaker 1: We don't want to miss any of this thing, you know.
1:11:09
Speaker 1: Keep your seat, he says. He has only just telegraphed,
1:11:13
Speaker 1: that is all. How? That blast only means that he
1:11:17
Speaker 1: has been sighted from the signal station. He is off
1:11:21
Speaker 1: Sandy Hook. The committees will go down to meet him
1:11:23
Speaker 1: now and escort him in. There will be ceremonies and delays.
1:11:28
Speaker 1: They won't be coming up the bay for a considerable
1:11:30
Speaker 1: time yet. It is several billion miles away, anyway. I
1:11:36
Speaker 1: could have been a barkeeper and a hard lot just
1:11:38
Speaker 1: as well as not, says I, remembering the lonesome way
1:11:41
Speaker 1: I arrived and how there wasn't any committee nor anything.
1:11:46
Speaker 1: I notice some regret in your voice, says Sandy, and
1:11:49
Speaker 1: it is natural enough. but let bygones be bygones you
1:11:53
Speaker 1: went according to your lights and it is too late
1:11:56
Speaker 1: now to mend the thing no let it slide sandy
1:12:00
Speaker 1: i don't mind but you've got a sandy hook here
1:12:03
Speaker 1: too have you we've got everything here just as it
1:12:06
Speaker 1: is below all the states and territories of the union
1:12:10
Speaker 1: and all the kingdoms of the earth and the islands
1:12:12
Speaker 1: of the sea are laid out here just as they
1:12:14
Speaker 1: are on the globe all the same shape they are
1:12:17
Speaker 1: down there and all graded to the relative size Only
1:12:21
Speaker 1: each state and realm and island is a good many
1:12:24
Speaker 1: billion times bigger here than it is below. There goes
1:12:27
Speaker 1: another blast. What is that one for? That is only
1:12:32
Speaker 1: another fort, answering the first one. They each fire eleven
1:12:36
Speaker 1: hundred and one thunder blasts at a single dash. It
1:12:39
Speaker 1: is the usual salute for an eleventh-hour guest. A hundred
1:12:43
Speaker 1: for each hour, and an extra one for the guest's sex.
1:12:47
Speaker 1: If it was a woman, we would know it by
1:12:48
Speaker 1: their leaving off the extra guns. How do we know
1:12:52
Speaker 1: there's 1101, Sandy, when they all go off at once?
1:12:56
Speaker 1: And yet we certainly do know. Our intellects are a
1:13:00
Speaker 1: good deal sharpened up here in some ways, and that
1:13:03
Speaker 1: is one of them. Numbers and sizes and distances are
1:13:06
Speaker 1: so great here that we have to be made so
1:13:09
Speaker 1: we can feel them. Our old ways of counting and
1:13:11
Speaker 1: measuring and ciphering wouldn't ever give us an idea of them,
1:13:15
Speaker 1: but would only confuse us and oppress us and make
1:13:17
Speaker 1: our heads ache. After some more talk about this, I says, Sandy,
1:13:24
Speaker 1: I notice that I hardly ever see a white angel.
1:13:27
Speaker 1: Where I run across one white angel, I strike as
1:13:30
Speaker 1: many as a hundred million copper-colored ones, people that can't
1:13:34
Speaker 1: speak English. How is that? Well, you will find it
1:13:40
Speaker 1: the same in any state or territory of the American
1:13:43
Speaker 1: corner of heaven you choose to go to. I have
1:13:46
Speaker 1: shot along a whole week on a stretch and gone
1:13:48
Speaker 1: millions and millions of miles through perfect swarms of angels
1:13:52
Speaker 1: without ever seeing a single white one or hearing a
1:13:55
Speaker 1: word I could understand. You see, America was occupied a
1:13:59
Speaker 1: billion years and more by Indians and Aztecs and that
1:14:02
Speaker 1: sort of folks before a white man ever set his
1:14:05
Speaker 1: foot in it. During the first 300 years after Columbus's discovery,
1:14:10
Speaker 1: there wasn't ever more than one good lecture audience of
1:14:13
Speaker 1: white people all put together in America. I mean the
1:14:17
Speaker 1: whole thing, British possessions and all. In the beginning of
1:14:21
Speaker 1: our century, there were only 6 million or 7 million,
1:14:23
Speaker 1: say 7, 12 million or 14 million in 1825, say
1:14:25
Speaker 1: 23 million in 1850, 40 million in 1875. Our death
1:14:28
Speaker 1: rate has always been 20 in 1,000 per annum. Well, 140,000
1:14:45
Speaker 1: died the first year of the century, 280,000 the 25th year, 500,000
1:14:50
Speaker 1: the 50th year, about a million the 75th year. Now,
1:14:56
Speaker 1: I am going to be liberal about this thing and
1:14:59
Speaker 1: consider that 50 million whites have died in America from
1:15:01
Speaker 1: the beginning up to today. Make it 60 if you
1:15:05
Speaker 1: want to. Make it 100 million. It's no difference about
1:15:10
Speaker 1: a few millions one way or the other. Well, now
1:15:13
Speaker 1: you can see yourself that when you come to spread
1:15:16
Speaker 1: a little dab of people like that over these hundreds
1:15:18
Speaker 1: of billions of miles of American territory here in heaven,
1:15:21
Speaker 1: it is like scattering a ten-cent box of homeopathic pills
1:15:24
Speaker 1: over the Great Sahara and expecting to find them again.
1:15:28
Speaker 1: You can't expect us to amount to anything in heaven,
1:15:31
Speaker 1: and we don't. Now that is a simple fact, and
1:15:34
Speaker 1: we have got to do the best we can with it.
1:15:38
Speaker 1: The learned men from other planets and other systems come
1:15:41
Speaker 1: here and hang around a while when they are touring
1:15:43
Speaker 1: around the kingdom, and then go back to their own
1:15:46
Speaker 1: section of heaven and write a book of travels. And
1:15:49
Speaker 1: they give America about five lines in it. And what
1:15:52
Speaker 1: do they say about us? They say this wilderness is
1:15:55
Speaker 1: populated with a scattering few hundred thousand billions of red angels,
1:16:00
Speaker 1: with now and then a curiously complicated diseased one. You see,
1:16:05
Speaker 1: they think we whites and the occasional nigger are engines
1:16:08
Speaker 1: that have been bleached out or blackened by some leprous
1:16:10
Speaker 1: disease or other, for some peculiarly rascally sin, mind you.
1:16:16
Speaker 1: It is a mighty sour pill for us all, my friend,
1:16:19
Speaker 1: even the modestest of us, let alone the other kind,
1:16:23
Speaker 1: that think they are going to be received like a
1:16:25
Speaker 1: long-lost government bond and hug Abraham into the bargain. I
1:16:30
Speaker 1: haven't asked you any of the particulars, Captain, but I
1:16:33
Speaker 1: judge it goes without saying if my experience is worth anything,
1:16:36
Speaker 1: that there wasn't much of a hoorah made over you
1:16:39
Speaker 1: when you arrived, now was there? Don't mention it, Sandy,
1:16:44
Speaker 1: says I, coloring up a little. I wouldn't have had
1:16:48
Speaker 1: the family see it for any amount you are a
1:16:50
Speaker 1: mind to name. Change the subject, Sandy, change the subject. Well,
1:16:56
Speaker 1: do you think of settling in the California Department of Bliss?
1:17:00
Speaker 1: I don't know. I wasn't calculating on doing anything really
1:17:04
Speaker 1: definite in that direction till the family come. I thought
1:17:07
Speaker 1: I would just look around meantime in a quiet way
1:17:10
Speaker 1: and make up my mind. Besides, I know a good
1:17:13
Speaker 1: many dead people, and I was calculating to hunt them
1:17:16
Speaker 1: up and swap a little gossip with them about friends
1:17:18
Speaker 1: and old times and one thing or another and ask
1:17:22
Speaker 1: them how they like it here as far as they
1:17:24
Speaker 1: have got. I reckon my wife will want to camp
1:17:26
Speaker 1: in the California range, though, because most all her departed
1:17:29
Speaker 1: will be there, and she likes to be with folks
1:17:31
Speaker 1: she knows. Don't you let her. You see what the
1:17:35
Speaker 1: Jersey district of heaven is, for whites. Well, the Californian
1:17:39
Speaker 1: district is a thousand times worse. It swarms with a
1:17:43
Speaker 1: mean kind of leather-headed, mud-colored angels, and your nearest white
1:17:47
Speaker 1: neighbor is likely to be a million miles away. What
1:17:50
Speaker 1: a man mostly misses in heaven is company. company of
1:17:53
Speaker 1: his own sort and color and language i have come
1:17:56
Speaker 1: near settling in the european part of heaven once or
1:17:58
Speaker 1: twice on that account well why didn't you sandy oh
1:18:03
Speaker 1: various reasons for one thing although you see plenty of
1:18:06
Speaker 1: whites there you can't understand any of them hardly and
1:18:09
Speaker 1: so you go about as hungry for talk as you
1:18:11
Speaker 1: do here i like to look at a russian or
1:18:14
Speaker 1: a german or an italian I even like to look
1:18:18
Speaker 1: at a Frenchman, if I ever have the luck to
1:18:20
Speaker 1: catch him engaged in anything that ain't indelicate. But looking
1:18:24
Speaker 1: don't cure the hunger. What you want is talk. Well,
1:18:28
Speaker 1: there's England, Sandy. The English district of heaven. Yes, but
1:18:33
Speaker 1: it is not so very much better than this end
1:18:35
Speaker 1: of the heavenly domain. As long as you run across
1:18:38
Speaker 1: Englishmen born this side of three hundred years ago, you
1:18:40
Speaker 1: are all right. but the minute you get back to
1:18:43
Speaker 1: Elizabeth's time, the language begins to fog up, and the
1:18:45
Speaker 1: further back you go, the foggier it gets. I had
1:18:48
Speaker 1: some talk with one language teacher. and a man by
1:18:51
Speaker 1: the name of chaucer old-time poets but it was no
1:18:54
Speaker 1: use i couldn't quite understand them and they couldn't quite
1:18:57
Speaker 1: understand me i have had letters from them since but
1:19:00
Speaker 1: it is such broken english i can't make it out
1:19:03
Speaker 1: back of those men's time the english are just simply
1:19:06
Speaker 1: foreigners nothing more nothing less They talk Danish, German, Norman, French,
1:19:11
Speaker 1: and sometimes a mixture of all three. Back of then,
1:19:14
Speaker 1: they talk Latin and ancient British, Irish, and Gaelic. And then,
1:19:19
Speaker 1: back of these, come billions and billions of pure savages
1:19:22
Speaker 1: that talk a gibberish that Satan himself couldn't understand. The
1:19:26
Speaker 1: fact is, where you strike one man in the English
1:19:28
Speaker 1: settlements that you can understand, you wade through awful swarms
1:19:31
Speaker 1: that talk something you can't make head nor tail of.
1:19:34
Speaker 1: You see, every country on earth has been overlaid so
1:19:37
Speaker 1: often in the course of a billion years with different
1:19:40
Speaker 1: kinds of people and different sorts of languages that this
1:19:42
Speaker 1: sort of mongrel business was bound to be the result
1:19:44
Speaker 1: in heaven. Sandy, says I, did you see a good
1:19:48
Speaker 1: many of the great people history tells about? Yes, plenty.
1:19:53
Speaker 1: I saw kings and all sorts of distinguished people. Do
1:19:57
Speaker 1: the kings rank just as they did below? No, a
1:20:02
Speaker 1: body can't bring his rank up here with him. Divine
1:20:05
Speaker 1: Right is a good enough earthly romance, but it don't
1:20:08
Speaker 1: go here. Kings drop down to the general level as
1:20:12
Speaker 1: soon as they reach the realms of grace. I knew
1:20:15
Speaker 1: Charles II very well, one of the most popular comedians
1:20:18
Speaker 1: in the English section. Draws first rate. There are better,
1:20:22
Speaker 1: of course. People that were never heard of on earth.
1:20:25
Speaker 1: But Charles is making a very good reputation indeed, and
1:20:28
Speaker 1: is considered a rising man. Richard the Lionhearted is in
1:20:31
Speaker 1: the prize ring and coming into considerable favor. Henry VIII
1:20:35
Speaker 1: is a tragedian, and the scenes where he kills people
1:20:38
Speaker 1: are done to the very life. Henry VI keeps a
1:20:41
Speaker 1: religious book stand. Did you ever see Napoleon, Sandy? Often.
1:20:48
Speaker 1: Sometimes in the Corsican range, sometimes in the French. He
1:20:51
Speaker 1: always hunts up a conspicuous place, and goes frowning around
1:20:55
Speaker 1: with his arms folded and his field glass under his arm,
1:20:58
Speaker 1: looking as grand, gloomy, and peculiar as his reputation calls for.
1:21:02
Speaker 1: and very much bothered because he don't stand as high
1:21:05
Speaker 1: here for a soldier as he expected to. Why, who
1:21:09
Speaker 1: stands higher? Oh, a lot of people we never heard
1:21:13
Speaker 1: of before. The shoemaker and horse doctor and knife grinder kind,
1:21:18
Speaker 1: you know, clodhoppers from goodness knows where that never handled
1:21:21
Speaker 1: a sword or fired a shot in their lives. But
1:21:24
Speaker 1: the soldier ship was in them, though they never had
1:21:27
Speaker 1: a chance to show it. But here they take the
1:21:29
Speaker 1: right place, and Caesar and Napoleon and Alexander have to
1:21:33
Speaker 1: take a back seat. The greatest military genius our world
1:21:37
Speaker 1: ever produced was a bricklayer from somewhere back of Boston,
1:21:41
Speaker 1: died during the Revolution by the name of Absalom Jones.
1:21:45
Speaker 1: Wherever he goes, crowds flock to see him. You see,
1:21:50
Speaker 1: everybody knows that if he had had a chance, he
1:21:52
Speaker 1: would have shown the world some generalship that would have
1:21:55
Speaker 1: made all generalship before look like child's play and apprentice work.
1:22:00
Speaker 1: But he never got a chance. He tried heaps of
1:22:02
Speaker 1: times to enlist as a private, but he had lost
1:22:05
Speaker 1: both thumbs and a couple of front teeth, and the
1:22:07
Speaker 1: recruiting sergeant wouldn't pass him. However, as I say, everybody
1:22:11
Speaker 1: knows now what he would have been, and so they
1:22:15
Speaker 1: flock by the million to get a glimpse of him
1:22:16
Speaker 1: whenever they hear he is going to be anywhere. Caesar
1:22:20
Speaker 1: and Hannibal and Alexander and Napoleon are all on his staff,
1:22:24
Speaker 1: and ever so many more great generals, but the public
1:22:27
Speaker 1: hardly care to look at them when he is around. Boom!
1:22:31
Speaker 1: There goes another salute. The barkeeper's off quarantine now. Sandy
1:22:36
Speaker 1: and I put on our things. Then we made a wish,
1:22:39
Speaker 1: and in a second we were at the reception place.
1:22:42
Speaker 1: We stood on the edge of the ocean of space
1:22:45
Speaker 1: and looked out over the dimness, but couldn't make out anything.
1:22:49
Speaker 1: Close by us was the grandstand, tier on tier of
1:22:52
Speaker 1: dim thrones rising up toward the zenith. From each side
1:22:56
Speaker 1: of it spread away the tiers of seats for the
1:22:58
Speaker 1: general public. They spread away for leagues and leagues. You
1:23:02
Speaker 1: couldn't see the ends. They were empty and still and
1:23:05
Speaker 1: hadn't a cheerful look, but looked dreary, like a theater
1:23:08
Speaker 1: before anybody comes, gas turned down. Sandy says, We'll sit
1:23:16
Speaker 1: here and wait. WE'LL SEE THE HEAD OF THE PROCESSION
1:23:18
Speaker 1: COME IN SIGHT AWAY OFF YONDER PRETTY SOON NOW. SAYS I.
1:23:24
Speaker 1: IT'S PRETTY LONESOME, SANDY. I RECKON THERE'S A HITCH SOMEWHERE'S.
1:23:27
Speaker 1: NOBODY BUT JUST YOU AND ME? IT AIN'T MUCH OF
1:23:30
Speaker 1: A DISPLAY FOR THE BAR KEEPER. DON'T YOU FRET. IT'S
1:23:34
Speaker 1: ALL RIGHT. THERE'LL BE ONE MORE GUNFIRE. THEN YOU'LL SEE.
1:23:39
Speaker 1: IN A LITTLE WHILE WE NOTICED A SORT OF LIGHTISH
1:23:42
Speaker 1: FLUSH AWAY OFF ON THE HORIZON. HEAD OF THE TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION,
1:23:47
Speaker 1: SAYS SANDY. IT SPREAD AND GOT LIGHTER AND BRIGHTER. SOON
1:23:53
Speaker 1: IT HAD A STRONG GLARE LIKE A LOCOMOTIVE HEADLIGHT. IT
1:23:56
Speaker 1: KEPT ON GETTING BRIGHTER AND BRIGHTER TILL IT WAS LIKE
1:23:58
Speaker 1: THE SUN PEEPING OVER THE HORIZON LINE AT SEA. THE
1:24:01
Speaker 1: BIG RED RAYS SHOT HIGH UP INTO THE SKY. KEEP
1:24:06
Speaker 1: YOUR EYES ON THE GRANDSTAND AND THE MILES OF SEATS. SHARP,
1:24:09
Speaker 1: SAYS SANDY, AND LISTEN FOR THE GUNFIRE. Just then it
1:24:14
Speaker 1: burst out, boom, boom, boom, like a million thunderstorms in one,
1:24:19
Speaker 1: and made the whole heavens rock. Then there was a
1:24:23
Speaker 1: sudden and awful glare of light all about us, and
1:24:26
Speaker 1: in that very instant every one of the millions of
1:24:28
Speaker 1: seats was occupied, and as far as you could see
1:24:31
Speaker 1: in both directions was just a solid pack of people,
1:24:35
Speaker 1: and the place was all splendidly lit up. It was
1:24:38
Speaker 1: enough to take a body's breath away. Sandy says, That
1:24:42
Speaker 1: is the way we do it here. No time fooled away.
1:24:45
Speaker 1: Nobody straggling in after the curtain's up. Wishing is quicker
1:24:49
Speaker 1: work than traveling. A quarter of a second ago, these
1:24:52
Speaker 1: folks were millions of miles from here. When they heard
1:24:54
Speaker 1: the last signal, all they had to do was wish,
1:24:57
Speaker 1: and here they are. The prodigious choir struck up. We
1:25:03
Speaker 1: long to hear thy voice, to see thee face to face.
1:25:08
Speaker 1: It was noble music. but the uneducated chipped in and
1:25:12
Speaker 1: spoiled it, just as the congregations used to do on earth.
1:25:16
Speaker 1: The head of the procession began to pass now, and
1:25:19
Speaker 1: it was a wonderful sight. It swept along, thick and solid,
1:25:23
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand angels abreast, and every angel carrying a
1:25:26
Speaker 1: torch and singing. The whirring thunder of the wings made
1:25:30
Speaker 1: a body's headache. You could follow the line of the
1:25:33
Speaker 1: procession back, and slanting upward into the sky, far away
1:25:37
Speaker 1: in a glittering, snaky rope, till it was only a
1:25:40
Speaker 1: faint streak in the distance. The rush went on and
1:25:43
Speaker 1: on for a long time, and at last, sure enough,
1:25:47
Speaker 1: along comes the barkeeper, and then everybody rose, and a
1:25:50
Speaker 1: cheer went up that made the heavens shake, I tell you.
1:25:54
Speaker 1: He was all smiles, and had his halo tilted over
1:25:57
Speaker 1: one ear in a cocky way, and was the most
1:25:59
Speaker 1: satisfied-looking saint I ever saw. While he marched up the
1:26:03
Speaker 1: steps of the grandstand, the choir struck up. The whole
1:26:07
Speaker 1: wide heaven groans and waits to hear that voice. There
1:26:13
Speaker 1: were four gorgeous tents standing side by side in the
1:26:15
Speaker 1: Place of Honor, on a broad railed platform in the
1:26:18
Speaker 1: center of the grandstand, with a shining guard of honor
1:26:21
Speaker 1: round about them. The tents had been shut up all
1:26:24
Speaker 1: this time. As the barkeeper climbed along up, bowing and
1:26:28
Speaker 1: smiling to everybody, and at last got to the platform—
1:26:32
Speaker 1: These tents were jerked up aloft all of a sudden,
1:26:34
Speaker 1: and we saw four noble thrones of gold all caked
1:26:37
Speaker 1: with jewels, and in the two middle ones sat old
1:26:41
Speaker 1: white-whiskered men, and in the two others a couple of
1:26:44
Speaker 1: the most glorious and gaudy giants with platter halos and
1:26:47
Speaker 1: beautiful armor. All the millions went down on their knees
1:26:51
Speaker 1: and stared and looked glad and burst out into a
1:26:54
Speaker 1: joyful kind of murmurs. They said, Two archangels! That is splendid!
1:27:01
Speaker 1: Who can the others be? The archangels gave the barkeeper
1:27:06
Speaker 1: a stiff little military bow. The two old men rose.
1:27:10
Speaker 1: One of them said, Moses and Esau welcome thee. And
1:27:15
Speaker 1: then all four vanished, and the thrones were empty. The
1:27:19
Speaker 1: barkeeper looked a little disappointed, for he was calculating to
1:27:22
Speaker 1: hug these old people, I judge. But it was the
1:27:24
Speaker 1: gladdest and proudest multitude you ever saw, because they had
1:27:28
Speaker 1: seen Moses and Esau. Everybody was saying, Did you see them?
1:27:33
Speaker 1: I did. Esau's face was to me, but I saw
1:27:36
Speaker 1: Moses full in the face, just as plain as I
1:27:38
Speaker 1: see you this minute. The procession took up the barkeeper
1:27:43
Speaker 1: and moved on with him again, and the crowd broke
1:27:46
Speaker 1: up and scattered. As we went along home, Sandy said
1:27:50
Speaker 1: it was a great success, and the barkeeper would have
1:27:52
Speaker 1: a right to be proud of it forever. And he
1:27:56
Speaker 1: said we were in luck, too, and we might attend
1:27:58
Speaker 1: receptions for forty thousand years to come. and not have
1:28:01
Speaker 1: a chance to see a brace of such grand moguls
1:28:04
Speaker 1: as Moses and Esau. We found afterwards that we had
1:28:08
Speaker 1: come near seeing another patriarch, and likewise a genuine prophet besides,
1:28:13
Speaker 1: but at the last moment they sent regrets. Sandy said
1:28:17
Speaker 1: there would be a monument put up there where Moses
1:28:20
Speaker 1: and Esau had stood, with the date and circumstances, and
1:28:23
Speaker 1: all about the whole business, and travellers would come for
1:28:27
Speaker 1: thousands of years and gawk at it, and climb over it,
1:28:30
Speaker 1: and scribble their names on it. The End of Chapter
1:28:35
Speaker 1: 2 of Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven