dropped old Sandy McWilliams a note one day – it was a Tuesday –
and asked him to come over and take his manna and quails with me
next day; and the first thing he did when he stepped in was to
twinkle his eye in a sly way, and say, –
“Well, Cap, what you done with your wings?”
I saw in a minute that there was some sarcasm done up in that rag
somewheres, but I never let on. I only says, –
“Gone to the wash.”
“Yes,” he says, in a dry sort of way, “they mostly go to the wash –
about this time – I’ve often noticed it. Fresh angels are powerful
neat. When do you look for ’em back?”
“Day after to-morrow,” says I.
He winked at me, and smiled.
Says I, –
“Sandy, out with it. Come – no secrets among friends. I notice
you don’t ever wear wings – and plenty others don’t. I’ve been
making an ass of myself – is that it?”
“That is about the size of it. But it is no harm. We all do it at
first. It’s perfectly natural. You see, on earth we jump to such
foolish conclusions as to things up here. In the pictures we
always saw the angels with wings on – and that was all right; but
we jumped to the conclusion that that was their way of getting
around – and that was all wrong. The wings ain’t anything but a
uniform, that’s all. When they are in the field – so to speak, –
they always wear them; you never see an angel going with a message
anywhere without his wings, any more than you would see a military
officer presiding at a court-martial without his uniform, or a
postman delivering letters, or a policeman walking his beat, in
plain clothes. But they ain’t to FLY with! The wings are for
show, not for use. Old experienced angels are like officers of the
regular army – they dress plain, when they are off duty. New
angels are like the militia – never shed the uniform – always
fluttering and floundering around in their wings, butting people
down, flapping here, and there, and everywhere, always imagining
they are attracting the admiring eye – well, they just think they
are the very most important people in heaven. And when you see one
of them come sailing around with one wing tipped up and t’other
down, you make up your mind he is saying to himself: ‘I wish Mary
Ann in Arkansaw could see me now. I reckon she’d wish she hadn’t
shook me.’ No, they’re just for show, that’s all – only just for
show.”
“I judge you’ve got it about right, Sandy,” says I.
“Why, look at it yourself,” says he. “YOU ain’t built for wings –
no man is. You know what a grist of years it took you to come here
from the earth – and yet you were booming along faster than any
cannon-ball could go. Suppose you had to fly that distance with
your wings – wouldn’t eternity have been over before you got here?
Certainly. Well, angels have to go to the earth every day –
millions of them – to appear in visions to dying children and good
people, you know – it’s the heft of their business. They appear
with their wings, of course, because they are on official service,
and because the dying persons wouldn’t know they were angels if
they hadn’t wings – but do you reckon they fly with them? It
stands to reason they don’t. The wings would wear out before they
got half-way; even the pin-feathers would be gone; the wing frames
would be as bare as kite sticks before the paper is pasted on. The
distances in heaven are billions of times greater; angels have to
go all over heaven every day; could they do it with their wings
alone? No, indeed; they wear the wings for style, but they travel
any distance in an instant by WISHING. The wishing-carpet of the
Arabian Nights was a sensible idea – but our earthly idea of angels
flying these awful distances with their clumsy wings was foolish.