 Chapter 1 of Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. Well, when I had been dead about thirty years I had 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 weren'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 two hundred thousand miles a minute. Of course, when I came across one of that sort, like inks and hallies comets, for instance, it warrant 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 dispatch. But after I got outside our astronomical system, I used to flush a comet occasionally that was something like. We haven't got any such comets. Hours don't begin. One night I was swinging along at a good round gate. Everything talked and trimmed, 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, steady 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 a hundred and fifty million 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. Things I—it won't do to run into him, so I shunted to one side and tore along. By and by I closed up a breast 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 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! Shaker up, shaker up, heave on a hundred million, billion tons of brimstone. Aye aye sir, pipe the stubborn watch, all hands on deck. Aye aye sir, send two hundred thousand million men aloft to shake out royals and skyscrapers. Aye aye sir, hand the stuntsles, hang out every rag you've got, clothe her from stem to rudder post. Aye aye sir. In about a second, I began 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 things seemed to swell out and occupy all space. The sulfur smoke from the furnaces. Oh, well, nobody can describe the way it rolled and tumbled up into the skies, and nobody can have to 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 bosons' 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, Amid ships, amid ships, you, blank, or I'll brain the last idiot of you. Footnote. The captain could not remember what this word was. He said it was in a foreign tongue. 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 forward by the mate in his shirt sleeves and slippers, his hair all rat's 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, anywhere 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 Khazarks. Very well, then. Let his borders 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 Khazark is exactly the bulk of a hundred and sixty-nine worlds like ours. They have 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-David's and put his thumb to his nose and sung out, Ta-ta, ta-ta, maybe you've got some message to send to your friends in the everlasting tropics. Then he hove up his other suspender and started forward, on the side of three-quarters of an hour his craft was only a pale torch 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 have beat the bully of the firmament if I'd kept my mouth shut. But I've wandered a little off the track of my tail. 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 began 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 began 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 began 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 marvelous 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 of fire. 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 licked. 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 malicious 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? 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. Hmm, 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. I looked at him puzzled. He looked at me worried. And only one leg hopped into my place. I took a walk. It just occurred to me then that all the myriads I have 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 Savior saved. He bent his head at the name. Then he says gently. The worlds he has saved are like to the gates of heaven and 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, he 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 entered by this gate. All of a sudden he began 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 a 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 has 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 underclerk 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 specs. 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 for me and went on with their work, the same as if they considered my case all complete and ship shape. 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 eyeing 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 hear yet? What's wanting? Says I in a low 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 ain'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? It doesn't 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 a while in solid astonishment. Then I says, Now, I hope you don't take it as an offense. 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 world. 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 37 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? Oh 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 downhearted 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 began 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. Goodbye, we'd probably shan't see you in this region for a thousand centuries or so. In that case, au revoir, 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 way. A harp and a hymnbook, pair of wings and a halo, size 13 for Cappanillae 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 P. Ute engine 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 engines gawming 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 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 and 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 15 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 some wing practice. We began 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 for a minute? Then he disappeared in the crowd. I went on. A woman and a man, I went on. A woman asked me to hold her palm branch and then she disappeared. A girl got me to hold her heart 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 in heaven sure enough. I gave my palm branch a way over two for like 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 army, you understand. And then there was a lot of engine 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 to 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 as anything. Him and I had a considerable long silence then but of course it weren't noticeable in that place. After about 16 or 17 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 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? 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 Hosanna-ing. Millions were leaving it all the time 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 in the presence 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 what you have. 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. Sam, I'm as glad to hear it as I thought I'd be sorry. I'm glad I come now. Says he, Captain, 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 and you'll get it. 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 shoemaker 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 ain't nothing left. 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 in the force of the contrast doled, it ain't happiness any longer and you have to get something fresh. Well, there's plenty of pain in heaven. Consequently, there's plenty of contrasts and just no end of happiness. Says I. It's the sensibilist 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 figure. 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 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, how old would you be, Sandy? 72. I judged so. How long you been in heaven? 27 years come Christmas. How old was you when you come up? Why 72, of course? You can't mean it. Why can't I mean it? Because if you was 72 then then you are naturally 99 now. No, but I ain't. I stay the same age I was when I come. Well, says I, 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. Yes, I tried keeping grocery once up in the mines, but I couldn't stand it. It was too dull. No stirrer, 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 another. 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 would get 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 72 years. The deepest subject those young folks could strike was only ABC 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 72 forever? I don't know and I ain't particular but I ain't going to drop back to 25 anymore. I know that mighty well. I know a sight more than I did 27 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 90 don't he ever set himself back? Of course he does. He sets himself back to 14 tries it a couple of hours and feels like a fool. Sets himself forward to 20 it ain't much improvement tries 30, 50, 80 and finally 90 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 80 that's where he finally sticks up here. He sticks up at the place where his mind was last at its best for there is where his enjoyment is best and his ways most set and established. Does a chap of 25 always stay 25 and look it? If he is a fool yes but if he is bright and ambitious and industrious the knowledge he gains and the experience he has 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 with him. Babies the same? Babies the same. When I was about these things we said we'd always be 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 7 I suppose I thought we'd all be 12 in heaven. When I was 12 I suppose I thought we'd all be 18 or 20 in heaven. When I was 40 I begun to go back. I remember I hoped we'd all be about 30 years old in heaven. Neither a man nor a boy is particularly 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 7 years with evident sentimental immaturities of 19 or a vigorous people of 30 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 the attrition of the myriad of 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 do you mean? Well, says I, take a young mother that's lost her child and shh, he says, look. It was a woman, 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 in a minute, though it's 27 years since I saw her. A young mother she was about 22 or 4 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, 2 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 and kept on saying it over and over, never more depart. And the words made her happy. Yes, they did. They made her joyful and when I was dying 27 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. And now she's come. Well, go on. Stormfield, maybe she hasn't found the child but I think she has. Look 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. There is no scientific learning there is to learn. And to 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 to them and pick them and put them in each other now than mud turtle and bird of paradise. Poor thing she was looking for a baby to jounce. I think she's struck a disappointment. Sandy, what will they do? Staying happy forever in heaven? No, they'll come together and get adjusted by and by but not this year and not next. Bye and a bye. End of chapter one. Chapter two of Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. By Mark Twain. Chapter two. Reading by Kevin Laverne. 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 enough to be able to do it. So, I had to do it because I had to do it because I had to do it because I had to do it. I had to do it too with them but was not lucky. First off, I flew thirty yards and then followed an Irishman and brought him down. Brought us both down, in fact. Next I had a collision with a bishop and bowed 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. Then 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 and went ahead strong on the port one but it wouldn't answer. I could see I was going to broach too 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 headwind. I'd done well enough but made pretty poor time. I could see, plain enough, that on a headwind 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 of 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 at 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 any way to shorten sail and you have to take it all in. Shut your feathers down flat to your sides. That would land you of course. You could lay too with your head to the wind. That is the best you could do and write hard work you'd find it to. If you tried any other game you would found her sure. I judge it was about a couple of weeks or so after this that I dropped old Sandy McWilliams a note one day. It was a Tuesday and asked him to come over 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 them back? Day after tomorrow, says I. He winked at me and smiled. Says I. Sandy come 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 the angels ask 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 face 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 wearing 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 tethered down you make up your mind he is saying to himself I wish Marianne in Arkansas 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 well I look at yourself says he has 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 to the earth 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 halfway 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 the 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 our young saints of both sexes were wings all the time blazing red ones the wings fall it is suitable to their time of life the things are beautiful and they set the young people off they are the most striking and lovely part of their outfit and a halo don't begin well says I I've tucked mine away in the cupboard and I allowed to let them lay there till there's mud yes or a reception what's that you can see one tonight if you want to there's a barkeeper from Jersey City going to be received go on tell me about it this barkeeper got converted at a moody and sanky meeting in New York and started home on the ferry boat and there was a collision and he got drowned he is of a class that think all heaven goes wild with joy when a particularly hard lot like him is saved they think all heaven turns out hosanna-ing to welcome them they think there isn't anything talked about in the realms of the blessed but their case for that day this barkeeper thinks there hasn't been such another stir here in years as his coming is going to raise and I've always noticed this peculiarity about a dead barkeeper he not only expects all hands to turn out when he arrives but he expects to be received with a torchlight procession I reckon he's disappointed then no he isn't no man is allowed to be disappointed here whatever he wants when he comes that is any reasonable and unsacrilegious thing he can have there's always a few millions or billions of young folks around who don't want any better entertainment than to fill up their lungs and swarm out with their torches and have a high time over the barkeeper it tickles the barkeeper till he can't rest it makes a charming lark for the young folks it don't do anybody any harm it don't cost a rap and it keeps up the place's reputation for making all comers happy and content very good I'll be on hand and see them land the barkeeper it is manners to go in full dress you want to wear your wings you know and your other things which ones halo and harp and palm branch and all that well says I I reckon I ought to be ashamed of myself but the fact is I left them laying around that day I resigned from the choir I haven't got a rag to wear but this robe and the wings that's all right you'll find they've been raked up and saved for you send for them I'll do it Sandy but what was it you were saying about unsacrilegious things which people expect to get and will be disappointed about oh there are a lot of such things that people expect and don't get that he is laying up a considerable disappointment for himself he says every now and then in his sermons that the first thing he does when he gets to heaven will be to fling his arms around Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and kiss them and weep on them there's millions of people down there on earth that are promising themselves the same thing as many as 60,000 people arrive here every single day that want to run straight to a heavy contract for those old people if they were a mind to allow it they wouldn't ever have anything to do year in and year out but stand up and be hugged and wept on 32 hours in the 24 they would be tired out and as wet as muskrats all the time what would heaven be to them it would be a mighty good place to get out of you know that yourself those are kind and gentle old Jews but they ain't any fonder of kissing the emotional highlights of Brooklyn than you be you mark my words Mr. T's endearments are going to be declined with thanks there are limits to the privileges of the elect even in heaven why if Adam was to show himself to every newcomer that wants to call and gaze at him and strike him for his autograph he would never have time to do anything else but just that tellmage has said he is going to give Adam but he will have to change his mind about that do you think tellmage will really come here why certainly he will but don't you be alarmed he will run with his own kind and there's plenty of them that is the main charm of heaven there's all kinds here which wouldn't be the case if you let the preachers tell it anybody can find the sort he prefers here and he just lets the others alone and they let him alone when the deity builds a heaven it is built right and on a liberal plan Sandy sent home for his things and I sent for mine and about nine in the evening we begun to dress Sandy says this is going to be a grand time for you stormy like is not some of the patriarchs will turn out no but will they like is not of course they are pretty exclusive they hardly ever show themselves to the common public I believe they never turn out except for an 11th hour convert they wouldn't do it then only earthly tradition makes a grand show pretty necessary on that kind of an occasion do they all turn out Sandy who all the patriarchs oh no hardly ever more than a couple you will be here fifty thousand years maybe more patriarchs and prophets since I have been here Job has been to the front once and once Ham and Jeremiah both at the same time but the finest thing that has happened in my day was a year or so ago that was Charles Peace's reception him they called the banner cross murderer and Englishman there were four patriarchs and two prophets on the grandstand that time there hasn't been a long time before Abel was there the first time in twelve hundred years a report got around that Adam was coming well of course Abel was enough to bring a crowd all by himself but there is nobody that can draw like Adam it was a false report but it got around anyway as I say and it will be a long day before I see the like of it again the reception was in the English department of course which is eight hundred and eleven million miles from the New Jersey line I went along with a good many of my neighbors and it was a sight to see I can tell you flocks came from all the departments I saw Eskimo there and Tartars, Negros, Chinaman people from everywhere you will see a mixture like that in the grand acquire the first day you land here but you hardly ever see it again there were billions of people when they were singing or Hosanna-ing the noise was wonderful and even when their tongues were still the drumming of the wings was nearly enough to burst your head for all the sky was as thick as if it was snowing angels although Adam was not there it was a great time anyway because we had three archangels on the grandstand it is a seldom thing that even one comes out what did they look like Sandy well they had shining faces and shining robes and wonderful rainbow wings and they stood 18 feet high and wore swords and held their heads up in a noble way and looked like soldiers did they have halos no anyway not the hoop kind the archangels in the upper class patriarchs were a finer thing than that it is a round, solid, splendid glory of gold that is blinding to look at you have often seen a patriarch in a picture on earth with that thing on you remember it he looks as if he had his head in a brass platter that don't give you the right idea of it at all it is much more shining and beautiful did you talk with those archangels in patriarch Sandy who I why what can you be thinking about stormy I ain't worthy to speak to such as they is Talmage of course not you have got the same mixed up idea about these things that everybody has down there I had it once but I got over it down there they talk of the heavenly king and that is right but then they go right on speaking as if this was a republic and everybody was on a dead level with everybody else and privileged to fling his arms around anybody he comes across and be hail fellow well met with all the elect from the highest down how tangled up and absurd that is how are you going to have a republic under a king how are you going to have a republic at all where the head of the government is absolute holds his place forever and has no parliament no council to metal or make in his affairs nobody voted for nobody elected nobody in the whole universe with a voice in the government nobody asked to take a hand in its matters and nobody allowed to do it fine republic ain't it well yes it is a little different from the idea I had but I thought I might go around and get acquainted with the grandees anyway not exactly spliced the main brace with them you know but shake hands and pass the time of day could Tom Dick and Harry call on the cabinet of Russia and do that on Prince Gorchakov for instance I reckon not Sandy well this is Russia only more so there's not the shadow of a republic about it anywhere there are ranks here there are viceroys princes, governors, sub-governors sub-sub-governors and a hundred orders of nobility grading along down from grand ducal archangels stage by stage to the general level is struck where there ain't any titles do you know what a prince of the blood is on earth no well a prince of the blood don't belong to the royal family exactly and he don't belong to the mere nobility of the kingdom he is lower than the one and higher than to other the position of the patriarchs and prophets here there's some mighty high nobility here people that you and I ain't worthy to polish sandals for and they ain't worthy to polish sandals for the patriarchs and prophets that gives you a kind of an idea of their rank don't it you begin to see how high up they are don't you just to get a two minute glimpse of one of them is a thing for a body to remember and tell about for a thousand years why captain just think of this if Abraham was to set his foot down here by this door there would be a railing set up around that foot track right away and a shelter put over it and people would flock here from all over heaven for hundreds and hundreds of years to look at it Abraham is one of the parties that Mr. Talmadge of Brooklyn is going to embrace and kiss and weep on when he comes he wants to lay in a good stock of tears you know or five to one he will go dry before he gets a chance to do it sandy says I don't want to be here too but I will let that drop it don't matter and I am plenty happy enough anyway captain you are happier than you would be the other way these old patriarchs and prophets have got ages to start of you they know more in two minutes than you know in a year did you ever try to have a sociable improving time discussing winds and currents and variations of compass with an undertaker I get your idea sandy he couldn't interest me he would bore me and I would bore him you have got it you would bore the patriarchs when you talked and when they talked they would shoot over your head by and by you would say good morning your eminence I will call again but you wouldn't did you ever ask the slush boy to come up in the cabin and take dinner with you I get your drift again sandy I wouldn't be used to such and mighty glad to get out of it sandy which is the highest rank patriarch or prophet oh the prophets hold over the patriarchs the newest prophet even is of a sight more consequence than the oldest patriarch yes sir Adam himself has to walk behind Shakespeare was Shakespeare a prophet of course he was and so was Homer and heaps more but Shakespeare and the rest was a common tailor from Tennessee by the name of Billings and behind a horse doctor named Saka from Afghanistan Jeremiah and Billings and Buddha walked together side by side right behind a crowd from planets not in our astronomy next come a dozen or two from Jupiter and other worlds next come Daniel and Saka and Confucius next a lot from systems outside of ours next come Ezekiel and Mohammed Zoroaster then there is a long string and after them away down toward the bottom come Shakespeare and Homer and a shoemaker named Marais from the back settlements of France have they really rung in Mohammed and all those other heathens yes they all had their message and they all get their reward the man who don't get his reward on earth needn't bother he will get it here sure but why did they throw off on Shakespeare that way they throw those shoemakers and horse doctors and knife grinders a lot of people nobody ever heard of that is the heavenly justice of it they weren't rewarded according to their desserts on earth but here they get the rightful rank that Taylor Billings from Tennessee wrote poetry that Homer and Shakespeare couldn't begin to come up to but nobody would print it nobody read it but his neighbors whenever the village had a drunken frolic and a dance they would drag him in and crown him with cabbage leaves and pretend to bow down to him and one night when he was sick and nearly starved to death they had him out and crowned him and then they rode him on a rail about the village and everybody followed along beating ten pans and yelling well he died before morning he wasn't ever expected to go to heaven was you there Sandy? bless you no why didn't you know it was going to come off? well I judge I did it was the talk of these realms not for a day like this barkeeper business but for twenty years before the man died why the mischief didn't you go then? now how you talk the lack of me go meddling around at the reception of a prophet a mudsill like me trying to push in and help receive an awful grandee billings why I should have been laughed at for a billion miles around I shouldn't ever heard the last of it well who did go then? mighty few people that you and I will ever get a chance to see captain not a solitary commoner ever has the luck to see a reception of a prophet I can tell you all the nobility and all the patriarchs and prophets every last one of them and all the archangels are there and no small fry not a single one and mind you I'm not talking about only the grandees from our world but the princes and patriarchs and so on from all the worlds that shine in our sky and from billions more that belong in systems upon systems away outside of the one hour sun is in there were some prophets and patriarchs there that ours ain't a circumstance to for rank and illustriousness and all that but the most celebrated were three poets saw, bow, and sooth from great planets in three different and very remote systems these three names are common and familiar in every nook and corner of heaven clear from one end of it to the other fully as well known as the eighty supreme archangels in fact whereas our moses and Adam and the rest have not been heard of outside of our worlds little corner of heaven they are gathered here and there and they always spell their names wrong and get the performances of one mixed up with the doings of another and they almost always locate them simply in our solar system and think that is enough without going into little details such as naming the particular world they are from it is like a learned hindu showing off how much he knows by saying long fellow lives in the United States as if he lived all over the kingdom between you and me it does gravel me the cool way people from those monster worlds outside our system snub our little world and even our system of course we think a good deal of Jupiter because our world is only a potato to it for size but then there are worlds and other systems that Jupiter isn't even a mustard seed too like the planet gubra for instance which you couldn't squeeze inside the orbit of Halley's Comet as from gubra I mean parties that lived and died there natives come here now and then and acquire about our world and when they find out it is so little that a streak of lightning can flash clear around it in the 8th of a second they have to lean up against something to laugh then they screw a glass into their eye and go to examining us as if we were a curious kind of foreign bug or something of that sort one of them asked me how long I told him it was 12 hours long as a general thing he asked me if people where I was from considered it worthwhile to get up and wash for such a day as that that is the way with those gubra people they can't seem to let a chance go by to throw it in your face that their day is 322 of our years long this young snob was just of age he was 6 or 7000 of his days old say 2 million of hours and he had all the puppy heirs that belonged to that time of life that turning point when a person has got over being a boy and yet ain't quite a man exactly if it had been anywhere else but in heaven I would have given him a piece of my mind well anyway billings had the grandest reception that has been seen in thousands of centuries and I think it will have a good effect his name will be carried pretty far and it will make our system talked about and it may be because we are world too and raise us in the respect of the general public of heaven why look here Shakespeare walked backwards before that tailor from Tennessee and scattered flowers for him to walk on and Homer stood behind his chair and waited on him at the banquet of course that didn't go much for him there amongst all those big foreigners from other systems as they hadn't heard of Shakespeare or Homer either but it would amount to considerable I wish there was something in that miserable spiritualism so we could send them word that Tennessee village would set up a monument to Billings then and his autograph would outsell Satan's well they had grand times at that reception a small fried noble from Hoboken told me all about it Sir Richard Duffer Baronet what Sandy a nobleman from Hoboken how was that easy enough to get into the present in his life because he used to give all his spare meat to the poor in a quiet way not tramps no the other sort the sort that will starve before they will beg honest square people out of work Dick used to watch hungry looking men and women and children and tracked them home and find out all about them from the neighbors and then feed them and find them work as nobody ever saw him give anything to anybody he had the reputation of being mean he died with it too and everybody said it was a good riddance but the minute he landed here they made him a Baronet and the very first words Dick the sausage maker of Hoboken heard when he stepped upon the heavenly shore were welcome Sir Richard Duffer it surprised him some because he thought he had reasons to believe he was pointed for a warmer climate than this one all of a sudden the whole region fairly rocked under the crash of 1101 thunder blasts all let off at once he says there that's for the bar keep I jumped up and says then let's be moving along Sandy we don't want to miss any of this thing you know keep your seat he says he is only just telegraphed that is all how? that blast only means that he has been sighted from the signal station he is off Sandy Hook the committees will go down to meet him now and escort him in the ceremonies and delays they won't be coming up the bay for a considerable time yet it is several billion miles away anyway I could have been a bar keeper and a hard lot just as well as not says I remembering the lonesome way I arrived and how there wasn't any committee or anything I notice some regret in your voice says Sandy and it is natural enough but let bygones be bygones and it is too late now to mend the thing no let it slide Sandy I don't mind but you've got a Sandy Hook here too have you we've got everything here just as it is below all the states and territories of the union and all the kingdoms of the earth and the islands of the sea are laid out here just as they are on the globe all the same shape they are down there and all graded to the relative size only each state and realm and island is a good many billion times bigger here than it is below there goes another blast what is that one for that is only another fort answering the first one they each fire 1100 and one thunder blasts at a single dash it is the usual salute for an 11th hour guest 100 for each hour and an extra one for the guests sex if it was a woman we would know it by their leaving off the extra gun how do we know there's 1101 Sandy when they all go off at once and yet we certainly do know our intellects are a good deal sharpened up here in some ways and that is one of them numbers and sizes and distances are so great here that we have to be made so we can feel them our old ways of counting and measuring and ciphering wouldn't ever give us an idea of them but would only confuse us I says Sandy I notice that I hardly ever see a white angel where I run across one white angel I strike as many as a hundred million copper colored ones people that can't speak English how is that well you will find it the same in any state or territory of the American corner of heaven you choose to go to I have shot along a whole week on a stretch and gone millions and millions of miles through perfect swarms of angels without ever seeing a single white one or hearing a word I could understand you see America was occupied a billion years and more by engines and Aztecs and that sort of folks before a white man ever set his foot in it during the first 300 years after Columbus's discovery there wasn't ever more than one good lecture audience of white people all put together in America I mean the whole thing British possessions and all in the beginning of our century there were only 6 million or 7 million say 7 12 million or 14 million in 1825 say 23 million in 1850 40 million in 1875 our death rate has always been 20 and 1000 per annum well 140,000 died the first year of the century 280,000 the 25th year 500,000 the 50th year about a million the 75th year now I am going to be liberal about this thing and consider that 50 million whites have died in America from the beginning up to today make it 60 if you want to make it 100 million it's no difference about a few millions one way or to other well now you can see yourself that when you come to spread a lot of people like that over these hundreds of billions of miles of American territory here in heaven it is like scattering a 10 cent box of homeopathic pills over the great Sahara and expecting to find them again you can't expect us to amount to anything in heaven and we don't now that is the simple fact and we have got to do the best we can with it the learned men from other planets and other systems come here and hang around a while when they are touring around the kingdom and write a book of travels and they give America about five lines in it and what do they say about us they say this wilderness is populated with a scattering few hundred thousand billions of red angels with now and then a curiously complicated diseased one you see they think we whites and the occasional nigger are engines that have been bleached out or blackened by some leprous disease or other for some peculiarly rascally sin mind you it is a mighty sour pill for us all my friend even the modestest of us let alone the other kind that think they are going to be received like a long lost government bond and hug Abraham into the bargain I haven't asked you any of the particulars captain but I judge it goes without saying if my experience is worth anything that there wasn't much of a hurrah made over you when you arrived now was there don't mention it Sandy says I coloring up a little the family see it for any amount you are a mind to name change the subject Sandy change the subject well do you think of settling in the California department of bliss I don't know I wasn't calculating on doing anything really definite in that direction till the family come I thought I would just look around meantime in a quiet way and make up my mind besides I know a good many dead people and I was calculating to hunt them up in the mountains and old times and one thing or another and ask them how they like it here as far as they have got I reckon my wife will want to camp in the California range though because most all her departed will be there and she likes to be with folks she knows don't you letter you see what the Jersey district of heaven is for whites well the California district is a thousand times worse maybe a million miles away what a man mostly misses in heaven is company company of his own sort and color and language I have come near settling in the European part of heaven once or twice on that account well why didn't you Sandy oh various reasons for one thing although you see plenty of whites there you can't understand any of them hardly and so you go about as hungry for talk as you do here I like to look at a Russian Frenchman if I ever have the luck to catch him engaged in anything that ain't indelicate but looking don't cure the hunger what you want is talk well there's England Sandy the English district of heaven yes but it is not so very much better than this end of the heavenly domain as long as you run across Englishman born this side of 300 years ago you are all right but the minute you get back to Elizabeth's time the language begins to fog up back you go the foggier it gets I had some talk with one Langland and a man by the name of Chaucer old time poets but it was no use I couldn't quite understand them and they couldn't quite understand me I have had letters from them since but it is such broken English I can't make it out back of those men's time the English are just simply foreigners nothing more nothing less they talk Danish German Norman French and sometimes a mixture British Irish and Gaelic and then back of these come billions and billions of pure savages that talk a gibberish that Satan himself couldn't understand the fact is where you strike one man in the English settlements that you can understand you wade through awful swarms that talk something you can't make head nor tail of you see every country on earth has been overlaid so often in the course of a billion years with different kinds of people Sandy says I did you see a good many of the great people history tells about yes plenty I saw kings and all sorts of distinguished people do the kings rank just as they did below no a body can't bring his rank up here with him divine right is a good enough earthly romance but it don't go here kings drop down to the general level as soon as they reach the realms of grace I knew Charles the second very well one of the most popular comedians in the English section draws first rate there are better of course people that were never heard of on earth but Charles is making a very good reputation indeed and is considered a rising man Richard the lion hearted is in the prize ring and coming into considerable favor Henry the eighth is a tragedian and the scenes where he kills people are done to the very life Henry the sixth keeps a religious did you ever see Napoleon sandy often sometimes in the Corsican range sometimes in the French he always hunts up a conspicuous place and goes frowning around with his arms folded and his field glass under his arm looking as grand gloomy and peculiar as his reputation calls for and very much bothered because he don't stand as high here for a soldier as he expected to why who stands higher oh a lot of people we never heard of before the shoemaker and horse doctor and knife grinder kind you know clod hoppers from goodness knows where that never handled a sword or fired a shot in their lives but the soldiers ship was in them though they never had a chance to show it but here they take the right place and Caesar and Napoleon and Alexander have to take a back seat the greatest military genius our world ever produced was a brick layer from somewhere back of Boston died during the revolution by the name of Absalom Jones wherever he goes crowds flock to see him you see everybody knows that if he had had a chance he would have shown the world some generalship that would have made all generalship before look like child's play and apprentice work but he never got a chance he tried heaps of times to enlist as a private but he had lost both thumbs and a couple of front teeth and the recruiting sergeant wouldn't pass him however as I say everybody knows now what he would have been and so they flock by the million to get a glimpse of him whenever they hear he is going to be anywhere Caesar and Hannibal and Alexander and Napoleon are all on his staff and ever so many more great generals but the public hardly care to look at them when he is around boom there goes another salute the bar keepers off quarantine now Sandy and I put on our things then we made a wish second we were at the reception place we stood on the edge of the ocean of space and looked out over the dimness but couldn't make out anything close bias was the grandstand tear on tear of dim thrones rising up toward the zenith from each side of it spread away the tears of seats for the general public they spread away for leagues and leagues you couldn't see the ends they were empty and still and hadn't a cheerful look but looked dreary gas turned down Sandy says we'll sit here and wait we'll see the head of the procession come in sight away off yonder pretty soon now says I it's pretty lonesome Sandy I reckon there's a hitch somewhere nobody but just you and me it ain't much of a display for the bar keeper don't you fret it's all right there'll be one more gunfire then you'll see just a sort of lightish flush away off on the horizon head of the torchlight procession says Sandy it spread and got lighter and brighter soon it had a strong glare like a locomotive headlight it kept on getting brighter and brighter till it was like the sun peeping over the horizon line at sea the big red rays shot high up into the sky keep your eyes on the grandstand and the miles of seats sharp says Sandy and listen for the gunfire just then it burst out boom boom boom like a million thunderstorms in one and made the whole heavens rock then there was a sudden and awful glare of light all about us and in that very instant every one of the millions of seats was occupied and as far as you could see in both directions was just a solid pack of people and the place was all splendidly lit up it was enough to take a body's breath away as Sandy says that is the way we do it here no time fooled away nobody straggling in after the curtains up wishing is quicker work than traveling a quarter of a second ago these folks were millions of miles from here when they heard the last signal all they had to do was wish and here they are the prodigious choir struck up we long to hear thy voice to see thee face to face it was noble music uneducated chipped in and spoiled it just as the congregations used to do on earth the head of the procession began to pass now and it was a wonderful sight it swept along thick and solid five hundred thousand angels abreast and every angel carrying a torch and singing the whirring thunder of the wings and made a body's headache you could follow the line of the procession back and slanting upward into the sky far away in a glittering snaky rope till it was only a faint streak in the distance the rush went on and on for a long time and at last sure enough along comes the barkeeper and then everybody rose and a cheer went up that made the heavens shake I tell you he was all smiles and had his halo tilted over one ear in a cocky way and was the most satisfied looking saint I ever saw while he marched up the steps of the grandstand the choir struck up the whole wide heaven groans and waits to hear that voice there were four gorgeous tents standing side by side in the place of honor on a broad railed platform in the center of the grandstand with a shining guard of honor round about them the tents had been shut up all this time as the barkeeper climbed along up bowing and smiling to everybody and at last got to the platform these tents were jerked up aloft all of a sudden and we saw four noble thrones of gold all caked with jewels and in the two middle ones sat old white whiskered men and in the two others a couple of the most glorious and gaudy giants with platter halos and beautiful armor all the millions went down on their knees and stared and looked glad and burst out into a joyful kind of murmurs they said two archangels that is splendid who can the others be the archangels gave the barkeeper a stiff little military bow the two old men rose one of them said Moses and Esau welcomed thee and then all four vanished and the thrones were empty the barkeeper looked a little disappointed for he was calculating to hug these old people I judge but it was the gladdest and proudest multitude you ever saw because they had seen Moses and Esau everybody was saying did you see them? I did Esau's face was to me but I saw Moses full in the face just as plain as I see you this minute the procession took up the barkeeper and moved on with him again and the crowd broke up and scattered as we went along home Sandy said it was a great success and the barkeeper would have a right to be proud of it forever and he said we were in luck too and we might attend receptions for forty thousand years to come and not have a chance to see a brace of such grand moguls as Moses and Esau we found afterwards that we had come near seeing another patriarch and likewise a genuine prophet besides but at the last moment they sent regrets Sandy said there would be a monument put up there where Moses and Esau had stood with the date and circumstances and all about the whole business and travelers would come for thousands of years and gawk at it and scribble their names on it the end of chapter two of captain stormfield's visit to heaven