our stay in many of the great cities of the world, the public clocks were
regulated by it; and as hundreds of thousands of private clocks and
watches were set and corrected in accordance with the public clocks, we
really furnished the standard time for the entire city.”
“Don’t tell me that He don’t do miracles any more! Blowing down the
walls of Jericho with rams’ horns wa’n’t as difficult, in my opinion.”
“And that is not all,” said Angelo. “A thing that is even more
marvelous, perhaps, is the fact that the change takes note of longitude
and fits itself to the meridian we are on. Luigi is in command this
week. Now, if on Saturday night at a moment before midnight we could fly
in an instant to a point fifteen degrees west of here, he would hold
possession of the power another hour, for the change observes local time
and no other.”
Betsy Hale was deeply impressed, and said with solemnity:
“Patsy Cooper, for detail it lays over the Passage of the Red Sea.”
“Now, I shouldn’t go as far as that,” said Aunt Patsy, “but if you’ve a
mind to say Sodom and Gomorrah, I am with you, Betsy Hale.”
“I am agreeable, then, though I do think I was right, and I believe
Parson Maltby would say the same. Well, now, there’s another thing.
Suppose one of you wants to borrow the legs a minute from the one that’s
got them, could he let him?”
“Yes, but we hardly ever do that. There were disagreeable results,
several times, and so we very seldom ask or grant the privilege,
nowadays, and we never even think of such a thing unless the case is
extremely urgent. Besides, a week’s possession at a time seems so little
that we can’t bear to spare a minute of it. People who have the use of
their legs all the time never think of what a blessing it is, of course.
It never occurs to them; it’s just their natural ordinary condition,
and so it does not excite them at all. But when I wake up, on Sunday
morning, and it’s my week and I feel the power all through me, oh, such a
wave of exultation and thanksgiving goes surging over me, and I want to
shout ‘I can walk! I can walk!’ Madam, do you ever, at your uprising,
want to shout ‘I can walk! I can walk!’?”
“No, you poor unfortunate cretur’, but I’ll never get out of my bed again
without doing it! Laws, to think I’ve had this unspeakable blessing all
my long life and never had the grace to thank the good Lord that gave it
to me!”
Tears stood in the eyes of both the old ladies and the widow said,
softly:
“Betsy Hale, we have learned something, you and me.”
The conversation now drifted wide, but by and by floated back once more
to that admired detail, the rigid and beautiful impartiality with which
the possession of power had been distributed, between the twins. Aunt
Betsy saw in it a far finer justice than human law exhibits in related
cases. She said:
“In my opinion it ain’t right no, and never has been right, the way a
twin born a quarter of a minute sooner than the other one gets all the
land and grandeurs and nobilities in the old countries and his brother
has to go bare and be a nobody. Which of you was born first?”
Angelo’s head was resting against Luigi’s; weariness had overcome him,
and for the past five minutes he had been peacefully sleeping. The old
ladies had dropped their voices to a lulling drone, to help him to steal
the rest his brother wouldn’t take him up-stairs to get. Luigi listened
a moment to Angelo’s regular breathing, then said in a voice barely
audible:
“We were both born at the same time, but I am six months older than he
is.”
“For the land’s sake!”
“‘Sh! don’t wake him up; he wouldn’t like my telling this. It has
always been kept secret till now.”
“But how in the world can it be? If you were both born at the same time,