“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.”
CHAPTER II
I had been having considerable trouble with my wings. The day
after I helped the choir I made a dash or two with them, but was
not lucky. First off, I flew thirty yards, and then fouled an
Irishman and brought him down – brought us both down, in fact.
Next, I had a collision with a Bishop – and bowled him down, of
course. We had some sharp words, and I felt pretty cheap, to come
banging into a grave old person like that, with a million strangers
looking on and smiling to themselves.
I saw I hadn’t got the hang of the steering, and so couldn’t
rightly tell where I was going to bring up when I started. I went
afoot the rest of the day, and let my wings hang. Early next
morning I went to a private place to have some practice. I got up
on a pretty high rock, and got a good start, and went swooping
down, aiming for a bush a little over three hundred yards off; but
I couldn’t seem to calculate for the wind, which was about two
points abaft my beam. I could see I was going considerable to
looard of the bush, so I worked my starboard wing slow and went
ahead strong on the port one, but it wouldn’t answer; I could see I
was going to broach to, so I slowed down on both, and lit. I went
back to the rock and took another chance at it. I aimed two or
three points to starboard of the bush – yes, more than that –
enough so as to make it nearly a head-wind. I done well enough,
but made pretty poor time. I could see, plain enough, that on a
head-wind, wings was a mistake. I could see that a body could sail
pretty close to the wind, but he couldn’t go in the wind’s eye. I
could see that if I wanted to go a-visiting any distance from home,
and the wind was ahead, I might have to wait days, maybe, for a
change; and I could see, too, that these things could not be any
use at all in a gale; if you tried to run before the wind, you
would make a mess of it, for there isn’t anyway to shorten sail –
like reefing, you know – you have to take it ALL in – shut your
feathers down flat to your sides. That would LAND you, of course.
You could lay to, with your head to the wind – that is the best you
could do, and right hard work you’d find it, too. If you tried any
other game, you would founder, sure.
I judge it was about a couple of weeks or so after this that I