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I see from the current columns of the daily press that “Professor Plumb, of the University of Chicago, has just invented a highly concentrated form of food. All the essential nutritive elements are put together in the form of pellets, each of which contains from one to two hundred times as much nourishment as an ounce of an ordinary article of diet. These pellets, diluted with water, will form all that is necessary to support life. The professor looks forward confidently to revolutionizing the present food system.”

Now this kind of thing may be all very well in its way, but it is going to have its drawbacks as well. In the bright future anticipated by Professor Plumb, we can easily imagine such incidents as the following:

The smiling family were gathered round the hospitable board. The table was plenteously laid with a soup-plate in front of each beaming child, a bucket of hot water before the radiant mother, and at the head of the board the Christmas dinner of the happy home, warmly covered by a thimble and resting on a poker chip. The expectant whispers of the little ones were hushed as the father, rising from his chair, lifted the thimble and disclosed a small pill of concentrated nourishment on the chip before him. Christmas turkey, cranberry sauce, plum pudding, mince pie–it was all there, all jammed into that little pill and only waiting to expand. Then the father with deep reverence, and a devout eye alternating between the pill and heaven, lifted his voice in a benediction.

At this moment there was an agonized cry from the mother.

“Oh, Henry, quick! Baby has snatched the pill!” It was too true. Dear little Gustavus Adolphus, the golden-haired baby boy, had grabbed the whole Christmas dinner off the poker chip and bolted it. Three hundred and fifty pounds of concentrated nourishment passed down the oesophagus of the unthinking child.

“Clap him on the back!” cried the distracted mother. “Give him water!”

The idea was fatal. The water striking the pill caused it to expand. There was a dull rumbling sound and then, with an awful bang, Gustavus Adolphus exploded into fragments!

And when they gathered the little corpse together, the baby lips were parted in a lingering smile that could only be worn by a child who had eaten thirteen Christmas dinners.

When I go into a bank I get rattled. The clerks rattle me; the wickets rattle me; the sight of the money rattles me; everything rattles me.

The moment I cross the threshold of a bank and attempt to transact business there, I become an irresponsible idiot.

I knew this beforehand, but my salary had been raised to fifty dollars a month and I felt that the bank was the only place for it.

So I shambled in and looked timidly round at the clerks. I had an idea that a person about to open an account must needs consult the manager.

I went up to a wicket marked “Accountant.” The accountant was a tall, cool devil. The very sight of him rattled me. My voice was sepulchral.

“Can I see the manager?” I said, and added solemnly, “alone.” I don’t know why I said “alone.”

“Certainly,” said the accountant, and fetched him.

The manager was a grave, calm man. I held my fifty-six dollars clutched in a crumpled ball in my pocket.

“Are you the manager?” I said. God knows I didn’t doubt it.

“Yes,” he said.

“Can I see you,” I asked, “alone?” I didn’t want to say “alone” again, but without it the thing seemed self-evident.

The manager looked at me in some alarm. He felt that I had an awful secret to reveal.

“Come in here,” he said, and led the way to a private room. He turned the key in the lock.

“We are safe from interruption here,” he said; “sit down.”

We both sat down and looked at each other. I found no voice to speak.

“You are one of Pinkerton’s men, I presume,” he said.

He had gathered from my mysterious manner that I was a detective. I knew what he was thinking, and it made me worse.

“No, not from Pinkerton’s,” I said, seeming to imply that I came from a rival agency. “To tell the truth,” I went on, as if I had been prompted to lie about it, “I am not a detective at all. I have come to open an account. I intend to keep all my money in this bank.”

The manager looked relieved but still serious; he concluded now that I was a son of Baron Rothschild or a young Gould.

“A large account, I suppose,” he said.

“Fairly large,” I whispered. “I propose to deposit fifty-six dollars now and fifty dollars a month regularly.”

The manager got up and opened the door. He called to the accountant.

“Mr. Montgomery,” he said unkindly loud, “this gentleman is opening an account, he will deposit fifty-six dollars. Good morning.”

I rose.

A big iron door stood open at the side of the room.

“Good morning,” I said, and stepped into the safe.

“Come out,” said the manager coldly, and showed me the other way.

I went up to the accountant’s wicket and poked the ball of money at him with a quick convulsive movement as if I were doing a conjuring trick.

My face was ghastly pale.

“Here,” I said, “deposit it.” The tone of the words seemed to mean, “Let us do this painful thing while the fit is on us.”

He took the money and gave it to another clerk.

He made me write the sum on a slip and sign my name in a book. I no longer knew what I was doing. The bank swam before my eyes.

“Is it deposited?” I asked in a hollow, vibrating voice.

“It is,” said the accountant.

“Then I want to draw a cheque.”

My idea was to draw out six dollars of it for present use. Someone gave me a chequebook through a wicket and someone else began telling me how to write it out. The people in the bank had the impression that I was an invalid millionaire. I wrote something on the cheque and thrust it in at the clerk. He looked at it.

“What! are you drawing it all out again?” he asked in surprise. Then I realized that I had written fifty-six instead of six. I was too far gone to reason now. I had a feeling that it was impossible to explain the thing. All the clerks had stopped writing to look at me.

Reckless with misery, I made a plunge.

“Yes, the whole thing.”

“You withdraw your money from the bank?”

“Every cent of it.”

“Are you not going to deposit any more?” said the clerk, astonished.

“Never.”

An idiot hope struck me that they might think something had insulted me while I was writing the cheque and that I had changed my mind. I made a wretched attempt to look like a man with a fearfully quick temper.

The clerk prepared to pay the money.

“How will you have it?” he said.

“What?”

“How will you have it?”

“Oh”—I caught his meaning and answered without even trying to think—”in fifties.”

He gave me a fifty-dollar bill.

“And the six?” he asked dryly.

“In sixes,” I said.

He gave it me and I rushed out.

As the big door swung behind me I caught the echo of a roar of laughter that went up to the ceiling of the bank. Since then I bank no more. I keep my money in cash in my trousers pocket and my savings in silver dollars in a sock.

Marion Eggelby sat talking to Clovis on the only subject that she ever willingly talked about – her offspring and their varied perfections and accomplishments. Clovis was not in what could be called a receptive mood; the younger generation of Eggelby, depicted in the glowing improbable colours of parent impressionism, aroused in him no enthusiasm. Mrs. Eggelby, on the other hand, was furnished with enthusiasm enough for two.

“You would like Eric,” she said, argumentatively rather than hopefully. Clovis had intimated very unmistakably that he was unlikely to care extravagantly for either Amy or Willie. “Yes, I feel sure you would like Eric. Every one takes to him at once. You know, he always reminds me of that famous picture of the youthful David – I forget who it’s by, but it’s very well known.”

“That would be sufficient to set me against him, if I saw much of him,” said Clovis. “Just imagine at auction bridge, for instance, when one was trying to concentrate one’s mind on what one’s partner’s original declaration had been, and to remember what suits one’s opponents had originally discarded, what it would be like to have some one persistently reminding one of a picture of the youthful David. It would be simply maddening. If Eric did that I should detest him.”

“Eric doesn’t play bridge,” said Mrs. Eggelby with dignity.

“Doesn’t he?” asked Clovis; “why not?”

“None of my children have been brought up to play card games,” said Mrs. Eggelby; “draughts and halma and those sorts of games I encourage. Eric is considered quite a wonderful draughts-player.”

“You are strewing dreadful risks in the path of your family,” said Clovis; “a friend of mine who is a prison chaplain told me that among the worst criminal cases that have come under his notice, men condemned to death or to long periods of penal servitude, there was not a single bridge-player. On the other hand, he knew at least two expert draughts-players among them.”

“I really don’t see what my boys have got to do with the criminal classes,” said Mrs. Eggelby resentfully. “They have been most carefully brought up, I can assure you that.”

“That shows that you were nervous as to how they would turn out,” said Clovis. “Now, my mother never bothered about bringing me up. She just saw to it that I got whacked at decent intervals and was taught the difference between right and wrong; there is some difference, you know, but I’ve forgotten what it is.”

“Forgotten the difference between right and wrong!” exclaimed Mrs. Eggelby.

“Well, you see, I took up natural history and a whole lot of other subjects at the same time, and one can’t remember everything, can one? I used to know the difference between the Sardinian dormouse and the ordinary kind, and whether the wry-neck arrives at our shores earlier than the cuckoo, or the other way round, and how long the walrus takes in growing to maturity; I daresay you knew all those sorts of things once, but I bet you’ve forgotten them.”

“Those things are not important,” said Mrs. Eggelby, “but – ”

“The fact that we’ve both forgotten them proves that they are important,” said Clovis; “you must have noticed that it’s always the important things that one forgets, while the trivial, unnecessary facts of life stick in one’s memory. There’s my cousin, Editha Clubberley, for instance; I can never forget that her birthday is on the 12th of October. It’s a matter of utter indifference to me on what date her birthday falls, or whether she was born at all; either fact seems to me absolutely trivial, or unnecessary – I’ve heaps of other cousins to go on with. On the other hand, when I’m staying with Hildegarde Shrubley I can never remember the important circumstance whether her first husband got his unenviable reputation on the Turf or the Stock Exchange, and that uncertainty rules Sport and Finance out of the conversation at once. One can never mention travel, either, because her second husband had to live permanently abroad.”

“Mrs. Shrubley and I move in very different circles,” said Mrs. Eggelby stiffly.

“No one who knows Hildegarde could possibly accuse her of moving in a circle,” said Clovis; “her view of life seems to be a non-stop run with an inexhaustible supply of petrol. If she can get some one else to pay for the petrol so much the better. I don’t mind confessing to you that she has taught me more than any other woman I can think of.”

“What kind of knowledge?” demanded Mrs. Eggelby, with the air a jury might collectively wear when finding a verdict without leaving the box.

“Well, among other things, she’s introduced me to at least four different ways of cooking lobster,” said Clovis gratefully. “That, of course, wouldn’t appeal to you; people who abstain from the pleasures of the card- table never really appreciate the finer possibilities of the dining-table. I suppose their powers of enlightened enjoyment get atrophied from disuse.”

“An aunt of mine was very ill after eating a lobster,” said Mrs. Eggelby.

“I daresay, if we knew more of her history, we should find out that she’d often been ill before eating the lobster. Aren’t you concealing the fact that she’d had measles and influenza and nervous headache and hysteria, and other things that aunts do have, long before she ate the lobster? Aunts that have never known a day’s illness are very rare; in fact, I don’t personally know of any. Of course if she ate it as a child of two weeks old it might have been her first illness – and her last. But if that was the case I think you should have said so.”

“I must be going,” said Mrs. Eggelby, in a tone which had been thoroughly sterilised of even perfunctory regret.

Clovis rose with an air of graceful reluctance.

“I have so enjoyed our little talk about Eric,” he said; “I quite look forward to meeting him some day.”

“Good-bye,” said Mrs. Eggelby frostily; the supplementary remark which she made at the back of her throat was –

“I’ll take care that you never shall!”

The short essay on “The Improbability of the Infinite” which I was planning for you yesterday will now never be written. Last night my brain was crammed with lofty thoughts on the subject–and for that matter, on every other subject. My mind was never so fertile. Ten thousand words on any theme from Tin-tacks to Tomatoes would have been easy to me. That was last night. This morning I have only one word in my brain, and I cannot get rid of it. The word is “Teralbay.”

Teralbay is not a word which one uses much in ordinary life. Rearrange the letters, however, and it becomes such a word. A friend–no, I can call him a friend no longer–a person gave me this collection of letters as I was going to bed and challenged me to make a proper word of it. He added that Lord Melbourne–this, he alleged, is a well-known historical fact–Lord Melbourne had given this word to Queen Victoria once, and it had kept her awake the whole night. After this, one could not be so disloyal as to solve it at once. For two hours or so, therefore, I merely toyed with it. Whenever I seemed to be getting warm I hurriedly thought of something else. This quixotic loyalty has been the undoing of me; my chances of a solution have slipped by, and I am beginning to fear that they will never return. While this is the case, the only word I can write about is Teralbay.

Teralbay–what does it make? There are two ways of solving a problem of this sort. The first is to waggle your eyes and see what you get. If you do this, words like “alterably” and “laboratory” emerge, which a little thought shows you to be wrong. You may then waggle your eyes again, look at it upside down or sideways, or stalk it carefully from the southwest and plunge upon it suddenly when it is not ready for you. In this way it may be surprised into giving up its secret. But if you find that it cannot be captured by strategy or assault, then there is only one way of taking it. It must be starved into surrender. This will take a long time, but victory is certain.

There are eight letters in Teralbay and two of them are the same, so that there must be 181,440 ways of writing the letters out. This may not be obvious to you at once; you may have thought that it was only 181,439; but you may take my word for it that I am right. (Wait a moment while I work it out again…. Yes, that’s it.) Well, now suppose that you put down a new order of letters–such as “raytable”–every six seconds, which is very easy going, and suppose that you can spare an hour a day for it; then by the 303rd day–a year hence, if you rest on Sundays–you are bound to have reached a solution.

But perhaps this is not playing the game. This, I am sure, is not what Queen Victoria did. And now I think of it, history does not tell us what she did do, beyond that she passed a sleepless night. (And that she still liked Melbourne afterwards–which is surprising.) Did she ever guess it? Or did Lord Melbourne have to tell her in the morning, and did she say, “Why, of course!” I expect so. Or did Lord Melbourne say, “I’m awfully sorry, madam, but I find I put a ‘y’ in too many?” But no–history could not have remained silent over such a tragedy as that. Besides, she went on liking him.

When I die “Teralbay” will be written on my heart. While I live it shall be my telegraphic address. I shall patent a breakfast food called “Teralbay”; I shall say “Teralbay!” when I miss a 2-ft. putt; the Teralbay carnation will catch your eye at the Temple show. I shall write anonymous letters over the name. “Fly at once; all is discovered–Teralbay.” Yes, that would look rather well.

I wish I knew more about Lord Melbourne. What sort of words did he think of? The thing couldn’t he “aeroplane” or “telephone” or “googly,” because these weren’t invented in his time. That gives us three words less. Nor, probably, would it be anything to eat; a Prime Minister would hardly discuss such subjects with his Sovereign. I have no doubt that after hours of immense labour you will triumphantly suggest “rateably.” I suggested that myself, but it is wrong. There is no such word in the dictionary. The same objection applies to “bat-early”–it ought to mean something, but it doesn’t.

So I hand the word over to you. Please do not send the solution to me, for by the time you read this I shall either have found it out or else I shall be in a nursing home. In either case it will be of no use to me. Send it to the Postmaster-General or one of the Geddeses or Mary Pickford. You will want to get it off your mind.

As for myself I shall write to my fr—-, to the person who first said “Teralbay” to me, and ask him to make something of “sabet” and “donureb.” When he has worked out the corrections–which, in case he gets the wrong ones, I may tell him here are “beast” and “bounder”–I shall search the dictionary for some long word like “intellectual.” I shall alter the order of the letters and throw in a couple of “g’s” and a “k”. And then I shall tell them to keep a spare bed for him in my nursing home.

Well, I have got “Teralbay” a little off my mind. I feel better able now to think of other things. Indeed, I might almost begin my famous essay on “The Improbability of the Infinite.” It would be a pity for the country to lose such a masterpiece–she has had quite enough trouble already what with one thing and another. For my view of the Infinite is this: that although beyond the Finite, or, as one might say, the Commensurate, there may or may not be a—-

Just a moment. I think I have it now. T–R–A—-No….

In the northern part of Austin there once dwelt an honest family by the name of Smothers. The family consisted of John Smothers, his wife, himself, their little daughter, five years of age, and her parents, making six people toward the population of the city when counted for a special write-up, but only three by actual count.

One night after supper the little girl was seized with a severe colic, and John Smothers hurried down town to get some medicine.

He never came back.

The little girl recovered and in time grew up to womanhood.

The mother grieved very much over her husband’s disappearance, and it was nearly three months before she married again, and moved to San Antonio.

The little girl also married in time, and after a few years had rolled around, she also had a little girl five years of age.

She still lived in the same house where they dwelt when her father had left and never returned.

One night by a remarkable coincidence her little girl was taken with cramp colic on the anniversary of the disappearance of John Smothers, who would now have been her grandfather if he had been alive and had a steady job.

“I will go downtown and get some medicine for her,” said John Smith (for it was none other than he whom she had married).

“No, no, dear John,” cried his wife. “You, too, might disappear forever, and then forget to come back.”

So John Smith did not go, and together they sat by the bedside of little Pansy (for that was Pansy’s name).

After a little Pansy seemed to grow worse, and John Smith again attempted to go for medicine, but his wife would not let him.

Suddenly the door opened, and an old man, stooped and bent, with long white hair, entered the room.

“Hello, here is grandpa,” said Pansy. She had recognized him before any of the others.

The old man drew a bottle of medicine from his pocket and gave Pansy a spoonful.

She got well immediately.

“I was a little late,” said John Smothers, “as I waited for a street car.”

A certain Preacher became wise to the Fact that he was not making a Hit with his Congregation. The Parishioners did not seem inclined to seek him out after Services and tell him he was a Pansy. He suspected that they were Rapping him on the Quiet. The Preacher knew there must be something wrong with his Talk. He had been trying to Expound in a clear and straightforward Manner, omitting Foreign Quotations, setting up for illustration of his Points such Historical Characters as were familiar to his Hearers, putting the stubby Old English words ahead of the Latin, and rather flying low along the Intellectual Plane of the Aggregation that chipped in to pay his Salary. But the Pew-Holders were not tickled. They could Understand everything he said, and they began to think he was Common.

So he studied the Situation and decided that if he wanted to Win them and make everybody believe he was a Nobby and Boss Minister he would have to hand out a little Guff. He fixed it up Good and Plenty.

On the following Sunday Morning he got up in the Lookout and read a Text that didn’t mean anything, read from either Direction, and then he sized up his Flock with a Dreamy Eye and said: “We can not more adequately voice the Poetry and Mysticism of our Text than in those familiar Lines of the great Icelandic Poet, Ikon Navrojk:

 

"To hold is not to have—
Under the seared Firmament,
Where Chaos sweeps, and Vast Futurity
Sneers at these puny Aspirations—
There is the full Reprisal."

 

When the Preacher concluded this Extract from the Well-Known Icelandic Poet he paused and looked downward, breathing heavily through his Nose, like Camille in the Third Act.

A Stout Woman in the Front Row put on her Eye-Glasses and leaned forward so as not to miss Anything. A Venerable Harness Dealer over at the Right nodded his Head solemnly. He seemed to recognize the Quotation. Members of the Congregation glanced at one another as if to say: “This is certainly Hot Stuff!”

The Preacher wiped his Brow and said he had no Doubt that every one within the Sound of his Voice remembered what Quarolius had said, following the same Line of Thought. It was Quarolius who disputed the Contention of the great Persian Theologian Ramtazuk, that the Soul in its reaching out after the Unknowable was guided by the Spiritual Genesis of Motive rather than by mere Impulse of Mentality. The Preacher didn’t know what all This meant, and he didn’t care, but you can rest easy that the Pew-Holders were On in a minute. He talked it off in just the Way that Cyrano talks when he gets Roxane so Dizzy that she nearly falls off the Piazza.

The Parishioners bit their Lower Lips and hungered for more First-Class Language. They had paid their Money for Tall Talk and were prepared to solve any and all styles of Delivery. They held on to the Cushions and seemed to be having a Nice Time.

The Preacher quoted copiously from the Great Poet Amebius. He recited 18 lines of Greek and then said: “How true this is!” And not a Parishioner batted an Eye.

It was Amebius whose Immortal Lines he recited in order to prove the Extreme Error of the Position assumed in the Controversy by the Famous Italian, Polenta.

He had them Going, and there wasn’t a Thing to it. When he would get tired of faking Philosophy he would quote from a Celebrated Poet of Ecuador or Tasmania or some other Seaport Town. Compared with this Verse, all of which was of the same School as the Icelandic Masterpiece, the most obscure and clouded Passage in Robert Browning was like a Plate-Glass Front in a State Street Candy Store just after the Colored Boy gets through using the Chamois.

After that he became Eloquent, and began to get rid of long Boston Words that hadn’t been used before that Season. He grabbed a rhetorical Roman Candle in each Hand and you couldn’t see him for the Sparks.

After which he sank his Voice to a Whisper and talked about the Birds and the Flowers. Then, although there was no Cue for him to Weep, he shed a few real Tears. And there wasn’t a dry Glove in the church.

After he sat down he could tell by the Scared Look of the People in Front that he had made a Ten-Strike.

Did they give him the Joyous Palm that Day? Sure!

The Stout Lady could not control her Feelings when she told how much the Sermon had helped her. The venerable Harness Dealer said he wished to indorse the Able and Scholarly Criticism of Polenta.

In fact, every one said the Sermon was Superfine and Dandy. The only thing that worried the Congregation was the Fear that if it wished to retain such a Whale it might have to boost his Salary.

In the Meantime the Preacher waited for some one to come and ask about Polenta, Amebius, Ramtazuk, Quarolius and the great Icelandic Poet, Navrojk. But no one had the Face to step up and confess his Ignorance of these Celebrities. The Pew-Holders didn’t even admit among themselves that the Preacher had rung in some New Ones. They stood Pat, and merely said it was an Elegant Sermon.

Perceiving that they would stand for Anything, the Preacher knew what to do after that.

MORAL: Give the People what they Think they want.

When Narcissus died the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort.

And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair and cried to the pool and said, `We do not wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he.’

`But was Narcissus beautiful?’ said the pool.

`Who should know that better than you?’ answered the Oreads. `Us did he ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own beauty.’

And the pool answered, `But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored.’

Oh, dear! oh, dear! It’s snowing!”

“Hurrah! hurrah! It’s snowing!”

Massachusetts looked up from her algebra. She was the head of the school. She was rosy and placid as the apple she was generally eating when not in class. Apples and algebra were the things she cared most about in school life.

“Whence come these varying cries?” she said, taking her feet off the fender and trying to be interested, though her thoughts went on with “a 1/6 b =” etc.

“Oh, Virginia is grumbling because it is snowing, and Maine is feeling happy over it, that’s all!” said Rhode Island, the smallest girl in Miss Wayland’s school.

“Poor Virginia! It is rather hard on you to have snow in March, when you have just got your box of spring clothes from home.”

“It is atrocious!” said Virginia, a tall, graceful, languishing girl. “How could they send me to such a place, where it is winter all the spring? Why, at home the violets are in blossom, the trees are coming out, the birds singing–”

“And at home,” broke in Maine, who was a tall girl, too, but lithe and breezy as a young willow, with flyaway hair and dancing brown eyes, “at home all is winter–white, beautiful, glorious winter, with ice two or three feet thick on the rivers, and great fields and fields of snow, all sparkling in the sun, and the sky a vast sapphire overhead, without a speck. Oh, the glory of it, the splendor of it! And here–here it is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. A wretched, makeshift season, which they call winter because they don’t know what else to call it.”

“Come! come!” said Old New York, who was seventeen years old and had her own ideas of dignity. “Let us alone, you two outsiders! We are neither Eskimos nor Hindoos, it is true, but the Empire State would not change climates with either of you.”

“No, indeed!” chimed in Young New York, who always followed her leader in everything, from opinions down to hair-ribbons.

“No, indeed!” repeated Virginia, with languid scorn. “Because you couldn’t get any one to change with you, my dear.”

Young New York reddened. “You are so disagreeable, Virginia!” she said. “I am sure I am glad I don’t have to live with you all the year round–”

“Personal remarks!” said Massachusetts, looking up calmly. “One cent, Young New York, for the missionary fund. Thank you! Let me give you each half an apple, and you will feel better.”

She solemnly divided a large red apple, and gave the halves to the two scowling girls, who took them, laughing in spite of themselves, and went their separate ways.

“Why didn’t you let them have it out, Massachusetts?” said Maine, laughing. “You never let any one have a good row.”

“Slang!” said Massachusetts, looking up again. “One cent for the missionary fund. You will clothe the heathen at this rate, Maine. That is the fourth cent to-day.”

“‘Row’ isn’t slang!” protested Maine, feeling, however, for her pocket-book.

“Vulgar colloquial!” returned Massachusetts, quietly. “And perhaps you would go away now, Maine, or else be quiet. Have you learned–”

“No, I haven’t!” said Maine. “I will do it very soon, dear Saint Apple. I must look at the snow a little more.”

Maine went dancing off to her room, where she threw the window open and looked out with delight. The girl caught up a double handful and tossed it about, laughing for pure pleasure. Then she leaned out to feel the beating of the flakes on her face.

“Really quite a respectable little snowstorm!” she said, nodding approval at the whirling white drift. “Go on, and you will be worth while, my dear.” She went singing to her algebra, which she could not have done if it had not been snowing.

The snow went on increasing from hour to hour. By noon the wind began to rise; before night it was blowing a furious gale. Furious blasts clutched at the windows, and rattled them like castanets. The wind howled and shrieked and moaned, till it seemed as if the air were filled with angry demons fighting to possess the square white house.

Many of the pupils of Miss Wayland’s school came to the tea-table with disturbed faces; but Massachusetts was as calm as usual, and Maine was jubilant.

“Isn’t it a glorious storm?” she cried, exultingly. “I didn’t know there could be such a storm in this part of the country, Miss Wayland. Will you give me some milk, please?”

“There is no milk, my dear,” said Miss Wayland, who looked rather troubled. “The milkman has not come, and probably will not come to-night. There has never been such a storm here in my lifetime!” she added. “Do you have such storms at home, my dear?”

“Oh, yes, indeed!” Maine said, cheerfully. “I don’t know that we often have so much wind as this, but the snow is nothing out of the way. Why, on Palm Sunday last year our milkman dug through a drift twenty feet deep to get at his cows. He was the only milkman who ventured out, and he took me and the minister’s wife to church in his little red pung.

“We were the only women in church, I remember. Miss Betsy Follansbee, who had not missed going to church in fifteen years, started on foot, after climbing out of her bedroom window to the shed roof and sliding down. All her doors were blocked up, and she lived alone, so there was no one to dig her out. But she got stuck in a drift about half-way, and had to stay there till one of the neighbors came by and pulled her out.”

All the girls laughed at this, and even Miss Wayland smiled; but suddenly she looked grave again.

“Hark!” she said, and listened. “Did you not hear something?”

“We hear Boreas, Auster, Eurus, and Zephyrus,” answered Old New York. “Nothing else.”

At that moment there was a lull in the screeching of the wind; all listened intently, and a faint sound was heard from without which was not that of the blast.

“A child!” said Massachusetts, rising quickly. “It is a child’s voice. I will go, Miss Wayland.”

“I cannot permit it, Alice!” cried Miss Wayland, in great distress. “I cannot allow you to think of it. You are just recovering from a severe cold, and I am responsible to your parents. What shall we do? It certainly sounds like a child crying out in the pitiless storm. Of course it may be a cat–”

Maine had gone to the window at the first alarm, and now turned with shining eyes.

“It is a child!” she said, quietly. “I have no cold, Miss Wayland. I am going, of course.”

Passing by Massachusetts, who had started out of her usual calm and stood in some perplexity, she whispered, “If it were freezing, it wouldn’t cry. I shall be in time. Get a ball of stout twine.”

She disappeared. In three minutes she returned, dressed in her blanket coat, reaching half-way below her knees, scarlet leggings and gaily wrought moccasins; on her head a fur cap, with a band of sea-otter fur projecting over her eyes. In her hand she held a pair of snow-shoes. She had had no opportunity to wear her snow-shoeing suit all winter, and she was quite delighted.

“My child!” said Miss Wayland, faintly. “How can I let you go? My duty to your parents–what are those strange things, and what use are you going to make of them?”

By way of answer Maine slipped her feet into the snow-shoes, and, with Massachusetts’ aid, quickly fastened the thongs.

“The twine!” she said. “Yes, that will do; plenty of it. Tie it to the door-handle, square knot, so! I’m all right, dear; don’t worry.” Like a flash the girl was gone out into the howling night.

Miss Wayland wrung her hands and wept, and most of the girls wept with her. Virginia, who was curled up in a corner, really sick with fright, beckoned to Massachusetts.

“Is there any chance of her coming back alive?” she asked, in a whisper. “I wish I had made up with her. But we may all die in this awful storm.”

“Nonsense!” said Massachusetts. “Try to have a little sense, Virginia! Maine is all right, and can take care of herself; and as for whimpering at the wind, when you have a good roof over your head, it is too absurd.”

For the first time since she came to school Massachusetts forgot the study hour, as did every one else; and in spite of her brave efforts at cheerful conversation, it was a sad and an anxious group that sat about the fire in the pleasant parlor.

Maine went out quickly, and closed the door behind her; then stood still a moment, listening for the direction of the cry. She did not hear it at first, but presently it broke out–a piteous little wail, sounding louder now in the open air. The girl bent her head to listen. Where was the child? The voice came from the right, surely! She would make her way down to the road, and then she could tell better.

Grasping the ball of twine firmly, she stepped forward, planting the broad snow-shoes lightly in the soft, dry snow. As she turned the corner of the house an icy blast caught her, as if with furious hands, shook her like a leaf, and flung her roughly against the wall.

Her forehead struck the corner, and for a moment she was stunned; but the blood trickling down her face quickly brought her to herself. She set her teeth, folded her arms tightly, and stooping forward, measured her strength once more with that of the gale.

This time it seemed as if she were cleaving a wall of ice, which opened only to close behind her. On she struggled, unrolling her twine as she went.

The child’s cry sounded louder, and she took fresh heart. Pausing, she clapped her hand to her mouth repeatedly, uttering a shrill, long call. It was the Indian whoop, which her father had taught her in their woodland rambles at home.

The childish wail stopped; she repeated the cry louder and longer; then shouted, at the top of her lungs, “Hold on! Help is coming!”

Again and again the wind buffeted her, and forced her backward a step or two; but she lowered her head, and wrapped her arms more tightly about her body, and plodded on.

Once she fell, stumbling over a stump; twice she ran against a tree, for the white darkness was absolutely blinding, and she saw nothing, felt nothing but snow, snow. At last her snow-shoe struck something hard. She stretched out her hands–it was the stone wall. And now, as she crept along beside it, the child’s wail broke out again close at hand.

“Mother! O mother! mother!”

The girl’s heart beat fast.

“Where are you?” she cried. At the same moment she stumbled against something soft. A mound of snow, was it? No! for it moved. It moved and cried, and little hands clutched her dress.

She saw nothing, but put her hands down, and touched a little cold face. She dragged the child out of the snow, which had almost covered it, and set it on its feet.

“Who are you?” she asked, putting her face down close, while by vigorous patting and rubbing she tried to give life to the benumbed, cowering little figure, which staggered along helplessly, clutching her with half-frozen fingers.

“Benny Withers!” sobbed the child. “Mother sent me for the clothes, but I can’t get ’em!”

“Benny Withers!” cried Maine. “Why, you live close by. Why didn’t you go home, child?”

“I can’t!” cried the boy. “I can’t see nothing. I tried to get to the school, an’ I tried to get home, an’ I can’t get nowhere ‘cept against this wall. Let me stay here now! I want to rest me a little.”

He would have sunk down again, but Maine caught him up in her strong, young arms.

“Here, climb up on my back, Benny!” she said, cheerfully. “Hold on tight round my neck, and you shall rest while I take you home. So! That’s a brave boy! Upsy, now! there you are! Now put your head on my shoulder–close! and hold on!”

Ah! how Maine blessed the heavy little brother at home, who would ride on his sister’s back, long after mamma said he was too big. How she blessed the carryings up and down stairs, the “horsey rides” through the garden and down the lane, which had made her shoulders strong!

Benny Withers was eight years old, but he was small and slender, and no heavier than six-year-old Philip. No need of telling the child to hold on, once he was up out of the cruel snow bed. He clung desperately round the girl’s neck, and pressed his head close against the woollen stuff.

Maine pulled her ball of twine from her pocket–fortunately it was a large one, and the twine, though strong, was fine, so that there seemed to be no end to it–and once more lowered her head, and set her teeth, and moved forward, keeping close to the wall, in the direction of Mrs. Withers’s cottage.

For awhile she saw nothing, when she looked up under the fringe of otter fur, which, long and soft, kept the snow from blinding her; nothing but the white, whirling drift which beat with icy, stinging blows in her face. But at last her eyes caught a faint glimmer of light, and presently a brighter gleam showed her Mrs. Withers’s gray cottage, now white like the rest of the world.

Bursting open the cottage door, she almost threw the child into the arms of his mother.

The woman, who had been weeping wildly, could hardly believe her eyes. She caught the little boy and smothered him with kisses, chafing his cold hands, and crying over him.

“I didn’t know!” she said. “I didn’t know till he was gone. I told him at noon he was to go, never thinking ‘twould be like this. I was sure he was lost and dead, but I couldn’t leave my sick baby. Bless you, whoever you are, man or woman! But stay and get warm, and rest ye! You’re never going out again in this awful storm!”

But Maine was gone.

In Miss Wayland’s parlor the suspense was fast becoming unendurable. They had heard Maine’s Indian whoop, and some of them, Miss Wayland herself among the number, thought it was a cry of distress; but Massachusetts rightly interpreted the call, and assured them that it was a call of encouragement to the bewildered child.

Then came silence within the house, and a prolonged clamor–a sort of witches’ chorus, with wailing and shrieking without. Once a heavy branch was torn from one of the great elms, and came thundering down on the roof. This proved the finishing touch for poor Virginia. She went into violent hysterics, and was carried off to bed by Miss Way land and Old New York.

Massachusetts presently ventured to explore a little. She hastened through the hall to the front door, opened it a few inches, and put her hand on the twine which was fastened to the handle. What was her horror to find that it hung loose, swinging idly in the wind! Sick at heart, she shut the door, and pressing her hands over her eyes, tried to think.

Maine must be lost in the howling storm! She must find her; but where and how?

Oh! if Miss Wayland had only let her go at first! She was older; it would not have mattered so much.

But now, quick! she would wrap herself warmly, and slip out without any one knowing.

The girl was turning to fly up-stairs, when suddenly something fell heavily against the door outside. There was a fumbling for the handle; the next moment it flew open, and something white stumbled into the hall, shut the door, and sat down heavily on the floor.

“Personal–rudeness!” gasped Maine, struggling for breath. “You shut the door in my face! One cent for the missionary fund.”

The great storm was over. The sun came up, and looked down on a strange, white world. No fences, no walls; only a smooth ridge where one of these had been. Trees which the day before had been quite tall now looked like dwarfs, spreading their broad arms not far from the snow carpet beneath them. Road there was none; all was smooth, save where some huge drift nodded its crest like a billow curling for its downward rush.

Maine, spite of her scarred face, which showed as many patches as that of a court lady in King George’s times, was jubilant. Tired! not a bit of it! A little stiff, just enough to need “limbering out,” as they said at home.

“There is no butter!” she announced at breakfast. “There is no milk, no meat for dinner. Therefore, I go a-snow-shoeing. Dear Miss Wayland, let me go! I have learned my algebra, and I shall be discovering unknown quantities at every step, which will be just as instructive.”

Miss Wayland could refuse nothing to the heroine of last night’s adventure. Behold Maine, therefore, triumphant, sallying forth, clad once more in her blanket suit, and dragging her sled behind her.

There was no struggling now–no hand-to-hand wrestling with storm-demons. The sun laughed from a sky as blue and deep as her own sky of Maine, and the girl laughed with him as she walked along, the powdery snow flying in a cloud from her snow-shoes at every step.

Such a sight had never been seen in Mentor village before. The people came running to their upper windows–their lower ones were for the most part buried in snow–and stared with all their eyes at the strange apparition.

In the street, life was beginning to stir. People had found, somewhat to their own surprise, that they were alive and well after the blizzard; and knots of men were clustered here and there, discussing the storm, while some were already at work tunnelling through the drifts.

Mr. Perkins, the butcher, had just got his door open, and great was his amazement when Maine hailed him from the top of a great drift, and demanded a quarter of mutton with some soup meat.

“Yes, miss!” he stammered, open-mouthed with astonishment. “I–I’ve got the meat; but I wasn’t–my team isn’t out this morning. I don’t know about sending it.”

“I have a ‘team’ here!” said Maine, quietly, pulling her sled alongside. “Give me the mutton, Mr. Perkins; you may charge it to Miss Wayland, please, and I will take it home.”

The butter-man and the grocer were visited in the same way, and Maine, rather embarrassed by the concentrated observation of the whole village, turned to pull her laden sled back, when suddenly a window was thrown open, and a voice exclaimed:

“Young woman! I will give you ten dollars for the use of those snow-shoes for an hour!”

Maine looked up in amazement, and laughed merrily when she saw the well-known countenance of the village doctor.

“What! You, my dear young lady?” cried the good man. “This is ‘Maine to the Rescue,’ indeed! I might have known it was you. But I repeat my offer. Make it anything you please, only let me have the snow-shoes. I cannot get a horse out, and have two patients dangerously ill. What is your price for the magic shoes?”

“My price, doctor?” repeated Maine, looking up with dancing eyes. “My price is–one cent. For the Missionary Fund! The snow-shoes are yours, and I will get home somehow with my sled and the mutton.”

So she did, and Doctor Fowler made his calls with the snow-shoes, and saved a life, and brought cheer and comfort to many. But it was ten dollars, and not one cent, which he gave to the Missionary Fund.

All infants appear to have an impertinent and disagreeable fashion nowadays of saying “smart” things on most occasions that offer, and especially on occasions when they ought not to be saying anything at all. Judging by the average published specimens of smart sayings, the rising generation of children are little better than idiots. And the parents must surely be but little better than the children, for in most cases they are the publishers of the sunbursts of infantile imbecility which dazzle us from the pages of our periodicals. I may seem to speak with some heat, not to say a suspicion of personal spite; and I do admit that it nettles me to hear about so many gifted infants in these days, and remember that I seldom said anything smart when I was a child. I tried it once or twice, but it was not popular. The family were not expecting brilliant remarks from me, and so they snubbed me sometimes and spanked me the rest. But it makes my flesh creep and my blood run cold to think what might have happened to me if I had dared to utter some of the smart things of this generation’s “four-year-olds” where my father could hear me. To have simply skinned me alive and considered his duty at an end would have seemed to him criminal leniency toward one so sinning. He was a stern, unsmiling man, and hated all forms of precocity. If I had said some of the things I have referred to, and said them in his hearing, he would have destroyed me. He would, indeed. He would, provided the opportunity remained with him. But it would not, for I would have had judgment enough to take some strychnine first and say my smart thing afterward. The fair record of my life has been tarnished by just one pun. My father overheard that, and he hunted me over four or five townships seeking to take my life. If I had been full-grown, of course he would have been right; but, child as I was, I could not know how wicked a thing I had done.

I made one of those remarks ordinarily called “smart things” before that, but it was not a pun. Still, it came near causing a serious rupture between my father and myself. My father and mother, my uncle Ephraim and his wife, and one or two others were present, and the conversation turned on a name for me. I was lying there trying some India-rubber rings of various patterns, and endeavoring to make a selection, for I was tired of trying to cut my teeth on people’s fingers, and wanted to get hold of something that would enable me to hurry the thing through and get something else. Did you ever notice what a nuisance it was cutting your teeth on your nurse’s finger, or how back-breaking and tiresome it was trying to cut them on your big toe? And did you never get out of patience and wish your teeth were in Jerico long before you got them half cut? To me it seems as if these things happened yesterday. And they did, to some children. But I digress. I was lying there trying the India-rubber rings. I remember looking at the clock and noticing that in an hour and twenty-five minutes I would be two weeks old, and thinking how little I had done to merit the blessings that were so unsparingly lavished upon me. My father said:

“Abraham is a good name. My grandfather was named Abraham.”

My mother said:

“Abraham is a good name. Very well. Let us have Abraham for one of his names.”

I said:

“Abraham suits the subscriber.”

My father frowned, my mother looked pleased; my aunt said:

“What a little darling it is!”

My father said:

“Isaac is a good name, and Jacob is a good name.”

My mother assented, and said:

“No names are better. Let us add Isaac and Jacob to his names.”

I said:

“All right. Isaac and Jacob are good enough for yours truly. Pass me that rattle, if you please. I can’t chew India-rubber rings all day.”

Not a soul made a memorandum of these sayings of mine, for publication. I saw that, and did it myself, else they would have been utterly lost. So far from meeting with a generous encouragement like other children when developing intellectually, I was now furiously scowled upon by my father; my mother looked grieved and anxious, and even my aunt had about her an expression of seeming to think that maybe I had gone too far. I took a vicious bite out of an India-rubber ring, and covertly broke the rattle over the kitten’s head, but said nothing. Presently my father said:

“Samuel is a very excellent name.”

I saw that trouble was coming. Nothing could prevent it. I laid down my rattle; over the side of the cradle I dropped my uncle’s silver watch, the clothes-brush, the toy dog, my tin soldier, the nutmeg-grater, and other matters which I was accustomed to examine, and meditate upon and make pleasant noises with, and bang and batter and break when I needed wholesome entertainment. Then I put on my little frock and my little bonnet, and took my pygmy shoes in one hand and my licorice in the other, and climbed out on the floor. I said to myself, Now, if the worse comes to worst, I am ready. Then I said aloud, in a firm voice:

“Father, I cannot, cannot wear the name of Samuel.”

“My son!”

“Father, I mean it. I cannot.”

“Why?”

“Father, I have an invincible antipathy to that name.”

“My son, this is unreasonable. Many great and good men have been named Samuel.”

“Sir, I have yet to hear of the first instance.”

“What! There was Samuel the prophet. Was not he great and good?”

“Not so very.”

“My son! With His own voice the Lord called him.”

“Yes, sir, and had to call him a couple times before he could come!”

And then I sallied forth, and that stern old man sallied forth after me. He overtook me at noon the following day, and when the interview was over I had acquired the name of Samuel, and a thrashing, and other useful information; and by means of this compromise my father’s wrath was appeased and a misunderstanding bridged over which might have become a permanent rupture if I had chosen to be unreasonable. But just judging by this episode, what would my father have done to me if I had ever uttered in his hearing one of the flat, sickly things these “two-years-olds” say in print nowadays? In my opinion there would have been a case of infanticide in our family.

It wasquite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet. As yet, I haven’t done anything about it; I can’t think of anything to do. I wrote to the Government, and they sent back a pamphlet on the repair and maintenance of frame houses. Anyhow, the whole thing is known; I’m not the first to discover it. Maybe it’s even under control.

I was sitting in my easy-chair, idly turning the pages of a paperbacked book someone had left on the bus, when I came across the reference that first put me on the trail. For a moment I didn’t respond. It took some time for the full import to sink in. After I’d comprehended, it seemed odd I hadn’t noticed it right away.

The reference was clearly to a nonhuman species of incredible properties, not indigenous to Earth. A species, I hasten to point out, customarily masquerading as ordinary human beings. Their disguise, however, became transparent in the face of the following observations by the author. It was at once obvious the author knew everything. Knew everything–and was taking it in his stride. The line (and I tremble remembering it even now) read:

…his eyes slowly roved about the room.

Vague chills assailed me. I tried to picture the eyes. Did they roll like dimes? The passage indicated not; they seemed to move through the air, not over the surface. Rather rapidly, apparently. No one in the story was surprised. That’s what tipped me off. No sign of amazement at such an outrageous thing. Later the matter was amplified.

…his eyes moved from person to person.

There it was in a nutshell. The eyes had clearly come apart from the rest of him and were on their own. My heart pounded and my breath choked in my windpipe. I had stumbled on an accidental mention of a totally unfamiliar race. Obviously non-Terrestrial. Yet, to the characters in the book, it was perfectly natural–which suggested they belonged to the same species.

And the author? A slow suspicion burned in my mind. The author was taking it rather too easily in his stride. Evidently, he felt this was quite a usual thing. He made absolutely no attempt to conceal this knowledge. The story continued:

…presently his eyes fastened on Julia.

Julia, being a lady, had at least the breeding to feel indignant. She is described as blushing and knitting her brows angrily. At this, I sighed with relief. They weren’t all non-Terrestrials. The narrative continues:

…slowly, calmly, his eyes examined every inch of her.

Great Scott! But here the girl turned and stomped off and the matter ended. I lay back in my chair gasping with horror. My wife and family regarded me in wonder.

“What’s wrong, dear?” my wife asked.

I couldn’t tell her. Knowledge like this was too much for the ordinary run-of-the-mill person. I had to keep it to myself. “Nothing,” I gasped. I leaped up, snatched the book, and hurried out of the room.

In the garage, I continued reading. There was more. Trembling, I read the next revealing passage:

…he put his arm around Julia. Presently she asked him if he would remove his arm. He immediately did so, with a smile.

It’s not said what was done with the arm after the fellow had removed it. Maybe it was left standing upright in the corner. Maybe it was thrown away. I don’t care. In any case, the full meaning was there, staring me right in the face.

Here was a race of creatures capable of removing portions of their anatomy at will. Eyes, arms–and maybe more. Without batting an eyelash. My knowledge of biology came in handy, at this point. Obviously they were simple beings, uni-cellular, some sort of primitive single-celled things. Beings no more developed than starfish. Starfish can do the same thing, you know.

I read on. And came to this incredible revelation, tossed off coolly by the author without the faintest tremor:

…outside the movie theater we split up. Part of us went inside, part over to the cafe for dinner.

Binary fission, obviously. Splitting in half and forming two entities. Probably each lower half went to the cafe, it being farther, and the upper halves to the movies. I read on, hands shaking. I had really stumbled onto something here. My mind reeled as I made out this passage:

…I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it. Poor Bibney has lost his head again.

Which was followed by:

…and Bob says he has utterly no guts.

Yet Bibney got around as well as the next person. The next person, however, was just as strange. He was soon described as:

…totally lacking in brains.

There was no doubt of the thing in the next passage. Julia, whom I had thought to be the one normal person, reveals herself as also being an alien life form, similar to the rest:

…quite deliberately, Julia had given her heart to the young man.

It didn’t relate what the final disposition of the organ was, but I didn’t really care. It was evident Julia had gone right on living in her usual manner, like all the others in the book. Without heart, arms, eyes, brains, viscera, dividing up in two when the occasion demanded. Without a qualm.

…thereupon she gave him her hand.

I sickened. The rascal now had her hand, as well as her heart. I shudder to think what he’s done with them, by this time.

…he took her arm.

Not content to wait, he had to start dismantling her on his own. Flushing crimson, I slammed the book shut and leaped to my feet. But not in time to escape one last reference to those carefree bits of anatomy whose travels had originally thrown me on the track:

…her eyes followed him all the way down the road and across the meadow.

I rushed from the garage and back inside the warm house, as if the accursed things were following me. My wife and children were playing Monopoly in the kitchen. I joined them and played with frantic fervor, brow feverish, teeth chattering.

I had had enough of the thing. I want to hear no more about it. Let them come on. Let them invade Earth. I don’t want to get mixed up in it.

I have absolutely no stomach for it.