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Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven
Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven
CHAPTER I
Well, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a little
anxious. Mind you, had been whizzing through space all that time,
like a comet. LIKE a comet! Why, Peters, I laid over the lot of
them! Of course there warn't any of them going my way, as a steady
thing, you know, because they travel in a long circle like the loop of
a lasso, whereas I was pointed as straight as a dart for the
Hereafter; but I happened on one every now and then that was going my
way for an hour or so, and then we had a bit of a brush together. But
it was generally pretty one-sided, because I sailed by them the same
as if they were standing still. An ordinary comet don't make more
than about 200,000 miles a minute. Of course when I came across one of
that sort--like Encke's and Halley's comets, for instance--it warn't
anything but just a flash and a vanish, you see. You couldn't rightly
call it a race. It was as if the comet was a gravel-train and I was a
telegraph despatch. But after I got outside of our astronomical
system, I used to flush a comet occasionally that was something LIKE.
WE haven't got any such comets--ours don't begin. One night I was
swinging along at a good round gait, everything taut and trim, and the
wind in my favor--I judged I was going about a million miles a
minute--it might have been more, it couldn't have been less--when I
flushed a most uncommonly big one about three points off my starboard
bow. By his stern lights I judged he was bearing about
northeast-and-by-north-half-east. Well, it was so near my course that
I wouldn't throw away the chance; so I fell off a point, steadied my
helm, and went for him. You should have heard me whiz, and seen the
electric fur fly! In about a minute and a half I was fringed out with
an electrical nimbus that flamed around for miles and miles and lit up
all space like broad day. The comet was burning blue in the distance,
like a sickly torch, when I first sighted him, but he begun to grow
bigger and bigger as I crept up on him. I slipped up on him so fast
that when I had gone about 150,000,000 miles I was close enough to be
swallowed up in the phosphorescent glory of his wake, and I couldn't
see anything for the glare. Thinks I, it won't do to run into him, so
I shunted to one side and tore along. By and by I closed up abreast
of his tail. Do you know what it was like? It was like a gnat
closing up on the continent of America. I forged along. By and by I
had sailed along his coast for a little upwards of a hundred and fifty
million miles, and then I could see by the shape of him that I hadn't
even got up to his waistband yet. Why, Peters, WE don't know anything
about comets, down here. If you want to see comets that ARE comets,
you've got to go outside of our solar system-- where there's room for
them, you understand. My friend, I've seen comets out there that
couldn't even lay down inside the ORBITS of our noblest comets without
their tails hanging over.
Well, I boomed along another hundred and fifty million miles, and got
up abreast his shoulder, as you may say. I was feeling pretty fine, I
tell you; but just then I noticed the officer of the deck come to the
side and hoist his glass in my direction. Straight off I heard him
sing out--"Below there, ahoy! Shake her up, shake her up! Heave on a
hundred million billion tons of brimstone!"
"Ay-ay, sir!"
"Pipe the stabboard watch! All hands on deck!"
"Ay-ay, sir!"
"Send two hundred thousand million men aloft to shake out royals and
sky-scrapers!"
"Ay-ay, sir!"
"Hand the stuns'ls! Hang out every rag you've got! Clothe her from
stem to rudder-post!"
"Ay-ay, sir!"
In about a second I begun to see I'd woke up a pretty ugly customer,
Peters. In less than ten seconds that comet was just a blazing cloud
of red-hot canvas. It was piled up into the heavens clean out of
sight--the old thing seemed to swell out and occupy all space; the
sulphur smoke from the furnaces--oh, well, nobody can describe the way
it rolled and tumbled up into the skies, and nobody can half describe
the way it smelt. Neither can anybody begin to describe the way that
monstrous craft begun to crash along. And such another
powwow--thousands of bo's'n's whistles screaming at once, and a crew
like the populations of a hundred thousand worlds like ours all
swearing at once. Well, I never heard the like of it before.
We roared and thundered along side by side, both doing our level best,
because I'd never struck a comet before that could lay over me, and so
I was bound to beat this one or break something. I judged I had some
reputation in space, and I calculated to keep it. I noticed I wasn't
gaining as fast, now, as I was before, but still I was gaining. There
was a power of excitement on board the comet. Upwards of a hundred
billion passengers swarmed up from below and rushed to the side and
begun to bet on the race. Of course this careened her and damaged her
speed. My, but wasn't the mate mad! He jumped at that crowd, with his
trumpet in his hand, and sung out--
"Amidships! amidships, you! {1} or I'll brain the last idiot of you!"
Well, sir, I gained and gained, little by little, till at last I went
skimming sweetly by the magnificent old conflagration's nose. By this
time the captain of the comet had been rousted out, and he stood there
in the red glare for'ard, by the mate, in his shirt- sleeves and
slippers, his hair all rats' nests and one suspender hanging, and how
sick those two men did look! I just simply couldn't help putting my
thumb to my nose as I glided away and singing out:
"Ta-ta! ta-ta! Any word to send to your family?"
Peters, it was a mistake. Yes, sir, I've often regretted that--it was
a mistake. You see, the captain had given up the race, but that
remark was too tedious for him--he couldn't stand it. He turned to
the mate, and says he--
"Have we got brimstone enough of our own to make the trip?"
"Yes, sir."
"Sure?"
"Yes, sir--more than enough."
"How much have we got in cargo for Satan?"
"Eighteen hundred thousand billion quintillions of kazarks."
"Very well, then, let his boarders freeze till the next comet comes.
Lighten ship! Lively, now, lively, men! Heave the whole cargo
overboard!"
Peters, look me in the eye, and be calm. I found out, over there,
that a kazark is exactly the bulk of a HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINE WORLDS
LIKE OURS! They hove all that load overboard. When it fell it wiped
out a considerable raft of stars just as clean as if they'd been
candles and somebody blowed them out. As for the race, that was at an
end. The minute she was lightened the comet swung along by me the
same as if I was anchored. The captain stood on the stern, by the
after-davits, and put his thumb to his nose and sung out--
"Ta-ta! ta-ta! Maybe YOU'VE got some message to send your friends in
the Everlasting Tropics!"
Then he hove up his other suspender and started for'ard, and inside of
three-quarters of an hour his craft was only a pale torch again in the
distance. Yes, it was a mistake, Peters--that remark of mine. I
don't reckon I'll ever get over being sorry about it. I'd 'a' beat
the bully of the firmament if I'd kept my mouth shut.
But I've wandered a little off the track of my tale; I'll get back on
my course again. Now you see what kind of speed I was making. So, as
I said, when I had been tearing along this way about thirty years I
begun to get uneasy. Oh, it was pleasant enough, with a good deal to
find out, but then it was kind of lonesome, you know. Besides, I
wanted to get somewhere. I hadn't shipped with the idea of cruising
forever. First off, I liked the delay, because I judged I was going
to fetch up in pretty warm quarters when I got through; but towards
the last I begun to feel that I'd rather go to--well, most any place,
so as to finish up the uncertainty.
Well, one night--it was always night, except when I was rushing by
some star that was occupying the whole universe with its fire and its
glare--light enough then, of course, but I necessarily left it behind
in a minute or two and plunged into a solid week of darkness again.
The stars ain't so close together as they look to be. Where was I? Oh
yes; one night I was sailing along, when I discovered a tremendous
long row of blinking lights away on the horizon ahead. As I
approached, they begun to tower and swell and look like mighty
furnaces. Says I to myself--
"By George, I've arrived at last--and at the wrong place, just as I
expected!"
Then I fainted. I don't know how long I was insensible, but it must
have been a good while, for, when I came to, the darkness was all gone
and there was the loveliest sunshine and the balmiest, fragrantest air
in its place. And there was such a marvellous world spread out before
me--such a glowing, beautiful, bewitching country. The things I took
for furnaces were gates, miles high, made all of flashing jewels, and
they pierced a wall of solid gold that you couldn't see the top of,
nor yet the end of, in either direction. I was pointed straight for
one of these gates, and a- coming like a house afire. Now I noticed
that the skies were black with millions of people, pointed for those
gates. What a roar they made, rushing through the air! The ground
was as thick as ants with people, too--billions of them, I judge.
I lit. I drifted up to a gate with a swarm of people, and when it was
my turn the head clerk says, in a business-like way--
"Well, quick! Where are you from?"
"San Francisco," says I.
"San Fran--WHAT?" says he.
"San Francisco."
He scratched his head and looked puzzled, then he says--
"Is it a planet?"
By George, Peters, think of it! "PLANET?" says I; "it's a city. And
moreover, it's one of the biggest and finest and--"
"There, there!" says he, "no time here for conversation. We don't
deal in cities here. Where are you from in a GENERAL way?"
"Oh," I says, "I beg your pardon. Put me down for California."
I had him AGAIN, Peters! He puzzled a second, then he says, sharp and
irritable--
"I don't know any such planet--is it a constellation?"
"Oh, my goodness!" says I. "Constellation, says you? No--it's a
State."
"Man, we don't deal in States here. WILL you tell me where you are
from IN GENERAL--AT LARGE, don't you understand?"
"Oh, now I get your idea," I says. "I'm from America,--the United
States of America."
Peters, do you know I had him AGAIN? If I hadn't I'm a clam! His
face was as blank as a target after a militia shooting-match. He
turned to an under clerk and says--
"Where is America? WHAT is America?"
The under clerk answered up prompt and says--
"There ain't any such orb."
"ORB?" says I. "Why, what are you talking about, young man? It ain't
an orb; it's a country; it's a continent. Columbus discovered it; I
reckon likely you've heard of HIM, anyway. America--why, sir,
America--"
"Silence!" says the head clerk. "Once for all, where--are--you--
FROM?"
"Well," says I, "I don't know anything more to say--unless I lump
things, and just say I'm from the world."
"Ah," says he, brightening up, "now that's something like! WHAT
world?"
Peters, he had ME, that time. I looked at him, puzzled, he looked at
me, worried. Then he burst out--
"Come, come, what world?"
Says I, "Why, THE world, of course."
"THE world!" he says. "H'm! there's billions of them! . . . Next!"
That meant for me to stand aside. I done so, and a sky-blue man with
seven heads and only one leg hopped into my place. I took a walk. It
just occurred to me, then, that all the myriads I had seen swarming to
that gate, up to this time, were just like that creature. I tried to
run across somebody I was acquainted with, but they were out of
acquaintances of mine just then. So I thought the thing all over and
finally sidled back there pretty meek and feeling rather stumped, as
you may say.
"Well?" said the head clerk.
"Well, sir," I says, pretty humble, "I don't seem to make out which
world it is I'm from. But you may know it from this--it's the one the
Saviour saved."
He bent his head at the Name. Then he says, gently--
"The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven in number-
-none can count them. What astronomical system is your world in?--
perhaps that may assist."
"It's the one that has the sun in it--and the moon--and Mars"--he
shook his head at each name--hadn't ever heard of them, you see-- "and
Neptune--and Uranus--and Jupiter--"
"Hold on!" says he--"hold on a minute! Jupiter . . . Jupiter . . .
Seems to me we had a man from there eight or nine hundred years
ago--but people from that system very seldom enter by this gate." All
of a sudden he begun to look me so straight in the eye that I thought
he was going to bore through me. Then he says, very deliberate, "Did
you come STRAIGHT HERE from your system?"
"Yes, sir," I says--but I blushed the least little bit in the world
when I said it.
He looked at me very stern, and says--
"That is not true; and this is not the place for prevarication. You
wandered from your course. How did that happen?"
Says I, blushing again--
"I'm sorry, and I take back what I said, and confess. I raced a
little with a comet one day--only just the least little bit--only the
tiniest lit--"
"So--so," says he--and without any sugar in his voice to speak of.
I went on, and says--
"But I only fell off just a bare point, and I went right back on my
course again the minute the race was over."
"No matter--that divergence has made all this trouble. It has brought
you to a gate that is billions of leagues from the right one. If you
had gone to your own gate they would have known all about your world
at once and there would have been no delay. But we will try to
accommodate you." He turned to an under clerk and says--
"What system is Jupiter in?"
"I don't remember, sir, but I think there is such a planet in one of
the little new systems away out in one of the thinly worlded corners
of the universe. I will see."
He got a balloon and sailed up and up and up, in front of a map that
was as big as Rhode Island. He went on up till he was out of sight,
and by and by he came down and got something to eat and went up again.
To cut a long story short, he kept on doing this for a day or two, and
finally he came down and said he thought he had found that solar
system, but it might be fly-specks. So he got a microscope and went
back. It turned out better than he feared. He had rousted out our
system, sure enough. He got me to describe our planet and its
distance from the sun, and then he says to his chief--
"Oh, I know the one he means, now, sir. It is on the map. It is
called the Wart."
Says I to myself, "Young man, it wouldn't be wholesome for you to go
down THERE and call it the Wart."
Well, they let me in, then, and told me I was safe forever and
wouldn't have any more trouble.
Then they turned from me and went on with their work, the same as if
they considered my case all complete and shipshape. I was a good deal
surprised at this, but I was diffident about speaking up and reminding
them. I did so hate to do it, you know; it seemed a pity to bother
them, they had so much on their hands. Twice I thought I would give
up and let the thing go; so twice I started to leave, but immediately
I thought what a figure I should cut stepping out amongst the redeemed
in such a rig, and that made me hang back and come to anchor again.
People got to eying me-- clerks, you know--wondering why I didn't get
under way. I couldn't stand this long--it was too uncomfortable. So
at last I plucked up courage and tipped the head clerk a signal. He
says--
"What! you here yet? What's wanting?"
Says I, in a low voice and very confidential, making a trumpet with my
hands at his ear--
"I beg pardon, and you mustn't mind my reminding you, and seeming to
meddle, but hain't you forgot something?"
He studied a second, and says--
"Forgot something? . . . No, not that I know of."
"Think," says I.
He thought. Then he says--
"No, I can't seem to have forgot anything. What is it?"
"Look at me," says I, "look me all over."
He done it.
"Well?" says he.
"Well," says I, "you don't notice anything? If I branched out amongst
the elect looking like this, wouldn't I attract considerable
attention?--wouldn't I be a little conspicuous?"
"Well," he says, "I don't see anything the matter. What do you lack?"
"Lack! Why, I lack my harp, and my wreath, and my halo, and my
hymn-book, and my palm branch--I lack everything that a body naturally
requires up here, my friend."
Puzzled? Peters, he was the worst puzzled man you ever saw. Finally
he says--
"Well, you seem to be a curiosity every way a body takes you. I never
heard of these things before."
I looked at the man awhile in solid astonishment; then I says--
"Now, I hope you don't take it as an offence, for I don't mean any,
but really, for a man that has been in the Kingdom as long as I reckon
you have, you do seem to know powerful little about its customs."
"Its customs!" says he. "Heaven is a large place, good friend. Large
empires have many and diverse customs. Even small dominions have, as
you doubtless know by what you have seen of the matter on a small
scale in the Wart. How can you imagine I could ever learn the varied
customs of the countless kingdoms of heaven? It makes my head ache to
think of it. I know the customs that prevail in those portions
inhabited by peoples that are appointed to enter by my own gate--and
hark ye, that is quite enough knowledge for one individual to try to
pack into his head in the thirty-seven millions of years I have
devoted night and day to that study. But the idea of learning the
customs of the whole appalling expanse of heaven--O man, how insanely
you talk! Now I don't doubt that this odd costume you talk about is
the fashion in that district of heaven you belong to, but you won't be
conspicuous in this section without it."
I felt all right, if that was the case, so I bade him good-day and
left. All day I walked towards the far end of a prodigious hall of
the office, hoping to come out into heaven any moment, but it was a
mistake. That hall was built on the general heavenly plan--it
naturally couldn't be small. At last I got so tired I couldn't go any
farther; so I sat down to rest, and begun to tackle the queerest sort
of strangers and ask for information, but I didn't get any; they
couldn't understand my language, and I could not understand theirs. I
got dreadfully lonesome. I was so down- hearted and homesick I wished
a hundred times I never had died. I turned back, of course. About
noon next day, I got back at last and was on hand at the
booking-office once more. Says I to the head clerk--
"I begin to see that a man's got to be in his own Heaven to be happy."
"Perfectly correct," says he. "Did you imagine the same heaven would
suit all sorts of men?"
"Well, I had that idea--but I see the foolishness of it. Which way am
I to go to get to my district?"
He called the under clerk that had examined the map, and he gave me
general directions. I thanked him and started; but he says--
"Wait a minute; it is millions of leagues from here. Go outside and
stand on that red wishing-carpet; shut your eyes, hold your breath,
and wish yourself there."
"I'm much obliged," says I; "why didn't you dart me through when I
first arrived?"
"We have a good deal to think of here; it was your place to think of
it and ask for it. Good-by; we probably sha'n't see you in this
region for a thousand centuries or so."
"In that case, o revoor," says I.
I hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my eyes and
wished I was in the booking-office of my own section. The very next
instant a voice I knew sung out in a business kind of a way--
"A harp and a hymn-book, pair of wings and a halo, size 13, for Cap'n
Eli Stormfield, of San Francisco!--make him out a clean bill of
health, and let him in."
I opened my eyes. Sure enough, it was a Pi Ute Injun I used to know
in Tulare County; mighty good fellow--I remembered being at his
funeral, which consisted of him being burnt and the other Injuns
gauming their faces with his ashes and howling like wildcats. He was
powerful glad to see me, and you may make up your mind I was just as
glad to see him, and feel that I was in the right kind of a heaven at
last.
Just as far as your eye could reach, there was swarms of clerks,
running and bustling around, tricking out thousands of Yanks and
Mexicans and English and Arabs, and all sorts of people in their new
outfits; and when they gave me my kit and I put on my halo and took a
look in the glass, I could have jumped over a house for joy, I was so
happy. "Now THIS is something like!" says I. "Now," says I, "I'm all
right--show me a cloud."
Inside of fifteen minutes I was a mile on my way towards the cloud-
banks and about a million people along with me. Most of us tried to
fly, but some got crippled and nobody made a success of it. So we
concluded to walk, for the present, till we had had some wing
practice.
We begun to meet swarms of folks who were coming back. Some had harps
and nothing else; some had hymn-books and nothing else; some had
nothing at all; all of them looked meek and uncomfortable; one young
fellow hadn't anything left but his halo, and he was carrying that in
his hand; all of a sudden he offered it to me and says--
"Will you hold it for me a minute?"
Then he disappeared in the crowd. I went on. A woman asked me to
hold her palm branch, and then SHE disappeared. A girl got me to hold
her harp for her, and by George, SHE disappeared; and so on and so on,
till I was about loaded down to the guards. Then comes a smiling old
gentleman and asked me to hold HIS things. I swabbed off the
perspiration and says, pretty tart--
"I'll have to get you to excuse me, my friend,--_I_ ain't no hat-
rack."
About this time I begun to run across piles of those traps, lying in
the road. I just quietly dumped my extra cargo along with them. I
looked around, and, Peters, that whole nation that was following me
were loaded down the same as I'd been. The return crowd had got them
to hold their things a minute, you see. They all dumped their loads,
too, and we went on.
When I found myself perched on a cloud, with a million other people, I
never felt so good in my life. Says I, "Now this is according to the
promises; I've been having my doubts, but now I am in heaven, sure
enough." I gave my palm branch a wave or two, for luck, and then I
tautened up my harp-strings and struck in. Well, Peters, you can't
imagine anything like the row we made. It was grand to listen to, and
made a body thrill all over, but there was considerable many tunes
going on at once, and that was a drawback to the harmony, you
understand; and then there was a lot of Injun tribes, and they kept up
such another war-whooping that they kind of took the tuck out of the
music. By and by I quit performing, and judged I'd take a rest.
There was quite a nice mild old gentleman sitting next me, and I
noticed he didn't take a hand; I encouraged him, but he said he was
naturally bashful, and was afraid to try before so many people. By
and by the old gentleman said he never could seem to enjoy music
somehow. The fact was, I was beginning to feel the same way; but I
didn't say anything. Him and I had a considerable long silence, then,
but of course it warn't noticeable in that place. After about sixteen
or seventeen hours, during which I played and sung a little, now and
then-- always the same tune, because I didn't know any other--I laid
down my harp and begun to fan myself with my palm branch. Then we
both got to sighing pretty regular. Finally, says he--
"Don't you know any tune but the one you've been pegging at all day?"
"Not another blessed one," says I.
"Don't you reckon you could learn another one?" says he.
"Never," says I; "I've tried to, but I couldn't manage it."
"It's a long time to hang to the one--eternity, you know."
"Don't break my heart," says I; "I'm getting low-spirited enough
already."
After another long silence, says he--
"Are you glad to be here?"
Says I, "Old man, I'll be frank with you. This AIN'T just as near my
idea of bliss as I thought it was going to be, when I used to go to
church."
Says he, "What do you say to knocking off and calling it half a day?"
"That's me," says I. "I never wanted to get off watch so bad in my
life."
So we started. Millions were coming to the cloud-bank all the time,
happy and hosannahing; millions were leaving it all the time, looking
mighty quiet, I tell you. We laid for the new-comers, and pretty soon
I'd got them to hold all my things a minute, and then I was a free man
again and most outrageously happy. Just then I ran across old Sam
Bartlett, who had been dead a long time, and stopped to have a talk
with him. Says I--
"Now tell me--is this to go on forever? Ain't there anything else for
a change?"
Says he--
"I'll set you right on that point very quick. People take the
figurative language of the Bible and the allegories for literal, and
the first thing they ask for when they get here is a halo and a harp,
and so on. Nothing that's harmless and reasonable is refused a body
here, if he asks it in the right spirit. So they are outfitted with
these things without a word. They go and sing and play just about one
day, and that's the last you'll ever see them in the choir. They
don't need anybody to tell them that that sort of thing wouldn't make
a heaven--at least not a heaven that a sane man could stand a week and
remain sane. That cloud-bank is placed where the noise can't disturb
the old inhabitants, and so there ain't any harm in letting everybody
get up there and cure himself as soon as he comes.
"Now you just remember this--heaven is as blissful and lovely as it
can be; but it's just the busiest place you ever heard of. There
ain't any idle people here after the first day. Singing hymns and
waving palm branches through all eternity is pretty when you hear
about it in the pulpit, but it's as poor a way to put in valuable time
as a body could contrive. It would just make a heaven of warbling
ignoramuses, don't you see? Eternal Rest sounds comforting in the
pulpit, too. Well, you try it once, and see how heavy time will hang
on your hands. Why, Stormfield, a man like you, that had been active
and stirring all his life, would go mad in six months in a heaven
where he hadn't anything to do. Heaven is the very last place to come
to REST in,--and don't you be afraid to bet on that!"
Says I--
"Sam, I'm as glad to hear it as I thought I'd be sorry. I'm glad I
come, now."
Says he--
"Cap'n, ain't you pretty physically tired?"
Says I--
"Sam, it ain't any name for it! I'm dog-tired."
"Just so--just so. You've earned a good sleep, and you'll get it.
You've earned a good appetite, and you'll enjoy your dinner. It's the
same here as it is on earth--you've got to earn a thing, square and
honest, before you enjoy it. You can't enjoy first and earn
afterwards. But there's this difference, here: you can choose your
own occupation, and all the powers of heaven will be put forth to help
you make a success of it, if you do your level best. The shoe-maker
on earth that had the soul of a poet in him won't have to make shoes
here."
"Now that's all reasonable and right," says I. "Plenty of work, and
the kind you hanker after; no more pain, no more suffering--"
"Oh, hold on; there's plenty of pain here--but it don't kill. There's
plenty of suffering here, but it don't last. You see, happiness ain't
a THING IN ITSELF--it's only a CONTRAST with something that ain't
pleasant. That's all it is. There ain't a thing you can mention that
is happiness in its own self--it's only so by contrast with the other
thing. And so, as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the
contrast dulled, it ain't happiness any longer, and you have to get
something fresh. Well, there's plenty of pain and suffering in
heaven--consequently there's plenty of contrasts, and just no end of
happiness."
Says I, "It's the sensiblest heaven I've heard of yet, Sam, though
it's about as different from the one I was brought up on as a live
princess is different from her own wax figger."
Along in the first months I knocked around about the Kingdom, making
friends and looking at the country, and finally settled down in a
pretty likely region, to have a rest before taking another start. I
went on making acquaintances and gathering up information. I had a
good deal of talk with an old bald-headed angel by the name of Sandy
McWilliams. He was from somewhere in New Jersey. I went about with
him, considerable. We used to lay around, warm afternoons, in the
shade of a rock, on some meadow- ground that was pretty high and out
of the marshy slush of his cranberry-farm, and there we used to talk
about all kinds of things, and smoke pipes. One day, says I--
"About how old might you be, Sandy?"
"Seventy-two."
"I judged so. How long you been in heaven?"
"Twenty-seven years, come Christmas."
"How old was you when you come up?"
"Why, seventy-two, of course."
"You can't mean it!"
"Why can't I mean it?"
"Because, if you was seventy-two then, you are naturally ninety- nine
now."
"No, but I ain't. I stay the same age I was when I come."
"Well," says I, "come to think, there's something just here that I
want to ask about. Down below, I always had an idea that in heaven we
would all be young, and bright, and spry."
"Well, you can be young if you want to. You've only got to wish."
"Well, then, why didn't you wish?"
"I did. They all do. You'll try it, some day, like enough; but
you'll get tired of the change pretty soon."
"Why?"
"Well, I'll tell you. Now you've always been a sailor; did you ever
try some other business?"
"Yes, I tried keeping grocery, once, up in the mines; but I couldn't
stand it; it was too dull--no stir, no storm, no life about it; it was
like being part dead and part alive, both at the same time. I wanted
to be one thing or t'other. I shut up shop pretty quick and went to
sea."
"That's it. Grocery people like it, but you couldn't. You see you
wasn't used to it. Well, I wasn't used to being young, and I couldn't
seem to take any interest in it. I was strong, and handsome, and had
curly hair,--yes, and wings, too!--gay wings like a butterfly. I went
to picnics and dances and parties with the fellows, and tried to carry
on and talk nonsense with the girls, but it wasn't any use; I couldn't
take to it--fact is, it was an awful bore. What I wanted was early to
bed and early to rise, and something to DO; and when my work was done,
I wanted to sit quiet, and smoke and think--not tear around with a
parcel of giddy young kids. You can't think what I suffered whilst I
was young."
"How long was you young?"
"Only two weeks. That was plenty for me. Laws, I was so lonesome!
You see, I was full of the knowledge and experience of seventy-two
years; the deepest subject those young folks could strike was only
a-b-c to me. And to hear them argue--oh, my! it would have been
funny, if it hadn't been so pitiful. Well, I was so hungry for the
ways and the sober talk I was used to, that I tried to ring in with
the old people, but they wouldn't have it. They considered me a
conceited young upstart, and gave me the cold shoulder. Two weeks was
a-plenty for me. I was glad to get back my bald head again, and my
pipe, and my old drowsy reflections in the shade of a rock or a tree."
"Well," says I, "do you mean to say you're going to stand still at
seventy-two, forever?"
"I don't know, and I ain't particular. But I ain't going to drop back
to twenty-five any more--I know that, mighty well. I know a sight
more than I did twenty-seven years ago, and I enjoy learning, all the
time, but I don't seem to get any older. That is, bodily-- my mind
gets older, and stronger, and better seasoned, and more satisfactory."
Says I, "If a man comes here at ninety, don't he ever set himself
back?"
"Of course he does. He sets himself back to fourteen; tries it a
couple of hours, and feels like a fool; sets himself forward to
twenty; it ain't much improvement; tries thirty, fifty, eighty, and
finally ninety--finds he is more at home and comfortable at the same
old figure he is used to than any other way. Or, if his mind begun to
fail him on earth at eighty, that's where he finally sticks up here.
He sticks at the place where his mind was last at its best, for
there's where his enjoyment is best, and his ways most set and
established."
"Does a chap of twenty-five stay always twenty-five, and look it?"
"If he is a fool, yes. But if he is bright, and ambitious and
industrious, the knowledge he gains and the experiences he has, change
his ways and thoughts and likings, and make him find his best pleasure
in the company of people above that age; so he allows his body to take
on that look of as many added years as he needs to make him
comfortable and proper in that sort of society; he lets his body go on
taking the look of age, according as he progresses, and by and by he
will be bald and wrinkled outside, and wise and deep within."
"Babies the same?"
"Babies the same. Laws, what asses we used to be, on earth, about
these things! We said we'd be always young in heaven. We didn't say
HOW young--we didn't think of that, perhaps--that is, we didn't all
think alike, anyway. When I was a boy of seven, I suppose I thought
we'd all be twelve, in heaven; when I was twelve, I suppose I thought
we'd all be eighteen or twenty in heaven; when I was forty, I begun to
go back; I remember I hoped we'd all be about THIRTY years old in
heaven. Neither a man nor a boy ever thinks the age he HAS is exactly
the best one--he puts the right age a few years older or a few years
younger than he is. Then he makes that ideal age the general age of
the heavenly people. And he expects everybody TO STICK at that
age--stand stock-still--and expects them to enjoy it!--Now just think
of the idea of standing still in heaven! Think of a heaven made up
entirely of hoop-rolling, marble-playing cubs of seven years!--or of
awkward, diffident, sentimental immaturities of nineteen!--or of
vigorous people of thirty, healthy-minded, brimming with ambition, but
chained hand and foot to that one age and its limitations like so many
helpless galley-slaves! Think of the dull sameness of a society made
up of people all of one age and one set of looks, habits, tastes and
feelings. Think how superior to it earth would be, with its variety
of types and faces and ages, and the enlivening attrition of the
myriad interests that come into pleasant collision in such a
variegated society."
"Look here," says I, "do you know what you're doing?"
"Well, what am I doing?"
"You are making heaven pretty comfortable in one way, but you are
playing the mischief with it in another."
"How d'you mean?"
"Well," I says, "take a young mother that's lost her child, and--"
"Sh!" he says. "Look!"
It was a woman. Middle-aged, and had grizzled hair. She was walking
slow, and her head was bent down, and her wings hanging limp and
droopy; and she looked ever so tired, and was crying, poor thing! She
passed along by, with her head down, that way, and the tears running
down her face, and didn't see us. Then Sandy said, low and gentle,
and full of pity:
"SHE'S hunting for her child! No, FOUND it, I reckon. Lord, how
she's changed! But I recognized her in a minute, though it's
twenty-seven years since I saw her. A young mother she was, about
twenty two or four, or along there; and blooming and lovely and sweet?
oh, just a flower! And all her heart and all her soul was wrapped up
in her child, her little girl, two years old. And it died, and she
went wild with grief, just wild! Well, the only comfort she had was
that she'd see her child again, in heaven-- 'never more to part,' she
said, and kept on saying it over and over, 'never more to part.' And
the words made her happy; yes, they did; they made her joyful, and
when I was dying, twenty-seven years ago, she told me to find her
child the first thing, and say she was coming--'soon, soon, VERY soon,
she hoped and believed!'"
"Why, it's pitiful, Sandy."
He didn't say anything for a while, but sat looking at the ground,
thinking. Then he says, kind of mournful:
"And now she's come!"
"Well? Go on."
"Stormfield, maybe she hasn't found the child, but _I_ think she has.
Looks so to me. I've seen cases before. You see, she's kept that
child in her head just the same as it was when she jounced it in her
arms a little chubby thing. But here it didn't elect to STAY a child.
No, it elected to grow up, which it did. And in these twenty-seven
years it has learned all the deep scientific learning there is to
learn, and is studying and studying and learning and learning more and
more, all the time, and don't give a damn for anything BUT learning;
just learning, and discussing gigantic problems with people like
herself."
"Well?"
"Stormfield, don't you see? Her mother knows CRANBERRIES, and how to
tend them, and pick them, and put them up, and market them; and not
another blamed thing! Her and her daughter can't be any more company
for each other NOW than mud turtle and bird o' paradise. Poor thing,
she was looking for a baby to jounce; _I_ think she's struck a
disapp'intment."
"Sandy, what will they do--stay unhappy forever in heaven?"
"No, they'll come together and get adjusted by and by. But not this
year, and not next. By and by."