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