"Spring Is Coming:--The Storm.--The Fairy Forest: A Tale"

Title:     "Spring Is Coming:--The Storm.--The Fairy Forest: A Tale"
Author: Gordon Stables


"The brown buds thicken on the trees, Unbound the free streams sing, As March leads forth across the leas The wild and windy Spring.

"When in the fields the melted snow Leaves hollows warm and wet, Ere many days will sweetly blow The first blue violet."

"I have all my life possessed such a love for nomadic adventure, that I often wondered if I have any real gipsy blood in me."

This was a remark I made an evening or two after Frank had told us all about his friends the Arctic bears. I was looking at the fire as I spoke, as one does who is in deep thought.

"What do you see in the fire?" asked Frank.

"I see," I replied, without removing my eyes from the crackling logs and melting sea-coal, "I see a beautifully fitted caravan, drawn by two nice horses, jogging merrily along a lovely road, among green trees, rose-clad hedgerows and trailing wild flowers. It is a beautiful evening, the clouds in the west are all aglow with the sunset-rays. I see figures on the broad coupe--female figures, one, two, three; and I can almost hear the jingle of the silver bells on the horses' harness."

"Who are the ladies--can you distinguish them?" asked Frank.

"Not quite."

"O! I know, it's me and ma and Maggie May." This from little Ida.

"Ida," I said, "your language is alliterative, but hardly grammatical."

"Never mind about the grammar," said Frank, laughing. "You've got an idea of some sort in your head, so just let us have it."

"I have it already," cried Maggie May, springing towards me with a joy-look in her eyes, and a glad flush on her cheek. "I dreamt it," she added. "The caravan is already built, and you are going to take us all gipsying when summer comes."

I am not good at equivocation, so I confessed at once that Maggie May was right, and from the amount of pleasurable excitement the announcement gave her, I augured well. Indeed, we all felt sure that from our romantic trip, Maggie May would return home as well as ever she had been in all her little life.

There is nothing to be compared to the joy of anticipating pleasure to come. And from the very day our beautiful caravan rolled into the yard and was drawn up on the lawn, everybody set about doing what he or she could towards the completion of the fittings, of the already luxuriously furnished saloon of the house upon wheels. [Note 1.]

This was indeed a labour of love. There were so many little things to be thought about, to say nothing of decorations, neat and pretty curtains, a lovely little library of tiny but nicely bound books, mirrors, flower vases, etc.

The cooking department had its head centre in the after-cabin; here, however, no bulky open and dusty stove burned, but a pretty little oil range, and the kitchen fittings and pantry fixings would have compared favourably even with those of Lady Brassey's yacht, the Sunbeam.

Frank and I, being both old campaigners, saw to everything else.

We had a good coachman, two splendid horses, besides an extra smaller covered cart in which Frank himself, who was to be both valet and cook, could sleep at night.

To make sure of not being robbed on the road we had good revolvers, and, better than all, our noble Newfoundland, Hurricane Bob.

When everything was complete and ready for the road, we had nothing to do but sit down and long for spring to come.

"I really believe," said honest Frank to me one bright beautiful morning in March, "that the child is better already with the thoughts of going on this romantic tour of yours."

And so indeed it seemed, and that forenoon, when my friend and I prepared to go out for a ramble, Maggie May was by our side, fully equipped and in marching order.

"It really does seem," she said joyfully, "that spring is coming."

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SPRING IS COMING.

The birds and the buds were saying it, and the winds were whispering the glad news to the almost leafless trees. The early primroses that snuggled in under the laurels, and the modest blue violets half hidden among their round leaves, were saying "Spring is coming." And the bonnie bell-like snowdrops nodded their heads to the passing breeze and murmured "Spring is coming."

Cock-robin, who sang to us and at us now whenever we came into the garden, told the tale to the thrush, and the thrush told it to the blackbird, and the blackbird hurried away to build his nest in the thick yew hedge; he would not sing, he said, until his work was finished. But the mad merry thrush sang enough for ten, and mocked every sound he heard.

The lark, who pretended that he had already built his nest among the tender-leaved wheat, just beginning to shimmer green over the brown earth, sang high in air. You could just see him fluttering against a white cloud, and looking no bigger than the head of a carpet tack. He sang of nothing but spring--such a long song, such a strong song, such a wild melodious ringing lilt, that you could not have helped envying him, nor even sharing some of his joy.

"Oh, skylark! for thy wing!
Thou bird of joy and light,
That I might soar and sing,
At heaven's empyreal height!
With the heathery hills beneath me,
Whence the streams in glory spring,
And the pearly clouds to wreathe me,
Oh, skylark! on thy wing!"


"Spring is coming:" every rippling rill, every sparkling brook, were singing or saying it.

The hedgerows put forth tiny white-green budlets, the elders and the honeysuckles expanded early leaves, those on the former looking like birds' claws, those on the latter like wee olive-green hands.

We saw to-day, in the woods, early butterflies and early bees, and many a little insect friend creeping gaily over the green moss.

And high aloft, among some gigantic elms, the rooks were cawing lustily, as they swang on the branches near their nests. We heard a mole rustling beneath dead leaves, and to our joy we saw a squirrel run up a branch and sit to bask in a a little streak of sunshine.

"Yes," said Frank, "sure enough spring is coming."

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THE STORM.

March 15.--Why, it is only two days since that delightful ramble of ours. Two days, but what a change! The snow has been falling all night long. It was falling still when these lines were penned, falling thick and fast. Not in those great lazy butterfly-like flakes, that look so strange and beautiful when you gaze skywards, nor in the little millet-seed snow-grains that precede the bigger flakes, but in a mingled mist of snow-stars, that falls O! so fast and looks so cold.

The whole world is robed in its winding-sheet. The earth looks dead. To-day is but the ghost of yesterday. The leafless elms, the lindens and the oaks are trees of coral, the larches and pines mere shapes of snow shadowed out with a faint green hue beneath.

And the birds! Well, the thrush still sings. What a world of hope the bird must carry in his heart! But the blackbird flies now and then through the snow-clad shrubbery with sudden bickering screams that startle even the sparrows. The lark is silent again, and shivering robin comes once more to the study-window to beg for crumbs and comfort.

And this snow continues to fall, and fall till it lies six good inches deep on roof and road and hedgerow. And it is sad to think of the buried snowdrops, of the crocuses, yellow and blue, and the sweet-scented primroses.

March 17.--The pines are borne groundwards, at least their branches droop with the weight of snow; they are very weird-like, very lovely. The snow has melted on the roofs, but the dripping water has frozen into a network of crystal on the rose-bushes that cling around the verandah. It has mostly melted off the tall lindens also, only leaving pieces here and there that look for all the world like a flock of strange big birds.

Everything is beautiful--but all is silent, all is sad.

The sun goes down in a purple haze, looking like a big blood orange; and an hour afterwards, when the stars come out, there is all along the horizon a long broad band of rose tint, shading upwards into yellow, and so into the blue of the night.

I close my study-windows, and go into the next room; how bright the fire looks, how cheerful the faces round it! Hurricane Bob is snoring on the hearth, Ida is asleep beside him, Maggie May has got hold of a picture and wants me to weave a story to it.

Note that she says "'Weave' a story."

"I would have put it plainer," says Frank, laughing, "and said 'Spin a yarn.'"

At another time, I might have been inclined to attach some semi-comical signification to the picture Maggie May held coaxingly out to me.

It represented a wide unbroken field of dazzling snow, with the outlines of a pine-wood in the far distance. There were two dark and ugly figures in the centre of the snow-field--an ugly fierce-like boar and a gaunt and hungry, howling wolf. You could see he was howling.

But with the rising wind beginning to moan drearily round our house, and the icicle-laden rose-twigs rattling every now and again against the glass, I could see nothing amusing in Maggie May's little picture.

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THE FAIRY FOREST.

"Had you been walking across that wild wintry waste, Maggie May," I began, "you would have seen at some distance before you a great pine-wood, half buried in drifting snow, the tall trees bending before the icy blast and tossing their branches weirdly in the wind."

"Don't you want slow music to that?" said Frank, pretending to reach for his fiddle.

"Hush, Frank! When you looked again, Maggie May, lo! what a change! The fairy forest has been transformed into a city. There is a blue uncertain mist all over it, but you can plainly distinguish streets and terraces, steeples, towers, ramparts, and ruins; and instead of the mournful sighing of the wind that previously fell on your ear, you can now listen to the music of bells and the pleasant murmur of the every-day life of a great town. Towards this town then, one day, a big wolf was journeying. It was summer then, the sun shone bright, clouds were fleecy, and the sky was blue, and the plain all round him was bright with the greenery of grass and dotted with wild flowers. But neither the beauty of the day, nor the loveliness of the scenery, had any effect on the gaunt and ugly wolf. Not being good himself, he could see no goodness in Nature.

"'I'm far too soon,' he grumbled to himself, 'I must curl up till nightfall; I wish the sun wasn't shining, and I wish the birds wouldn't sing so. Moonlight and the owls would suit me far better. I wonder what makes that skylark so happy? Well, I was happy once,' he continued as he lay down behind a bush, 'yes I was, but, dear me, it is long ago. When I was young and innocent, ha! ha! I wouldn't have stolen a tame rabbit or a chicken for all the world; I was content with the food I found in the wild woods, and now I'm lying here waiting for night, that I may fall upon and slay a dozen at least of those pretty lambkins I see gambolling down on yonder lea. I wouldn't mind being young again though, I think I might lead a better life, I think--'

"He did not think any more just then, for he had fallen sound asleep.

"The hours flew by. The sun went round and down, and a big moon rose slowly up in the east and smiled upon the landscape.

"The time flew by, as time only flies in a fairy forest.

"The wolf moaned in his sleep, then he shivered, and shivering awoke. No wonder he shivers: he had lain down to sleep with the soft balmy summer winds playing around him; now all is cold snow.

"No wonder he shivers, for yonder in front of him, and not two yards away, stands one of the most terrible-looking apparitions ever his eyes beheld. A great grizzly boar!

"'O! dear me,' cried the wolf, 'what a fright you gave me! Who are you at all?'

"'I'm Remorse,' was the stern reply; 'you used to call me Conscience once.'

"'O! well,' said the wolf, 'do go away, you have no idea how dreadful you look. I'll--hoo--oo--oo!'

"And the wolf laid back his ears, lifted up his head and voice, and howled till the welkin rang, just as you see him in the picture.

"'I didn't always look dreadful,' said the boar; 'when I was young I was tender, but you seared me and hardened me, and tried to bury me. Do you remember the days when I used to beseech you to do unto others as you would that others would do unto you? Now I'm come to do unto you as you have done to others. Aha!'

"'Hoo--oo--oo!' howled the wolf. 'O! pray go away. Hoo--oo--oo!'

"'Nay, nay,' said Remorse, 'I'll never leave you more.'

"'You must be joking,' cried the wolf, 'you must be mad. Hoo--oo--oo!'

"'Must I?' said Remorse; 'you've led a life of discontent. Your evil deeds are more in number than the bristles on my back.'

"'Pray don't mention them,' exclaimed the wolf, shivering all over.

"'You've led a cruel, selfish, useless life. Do you feel any the better for it now? You don't look any better.'

"'O! no, no, no.'

"'Now look at me.'

"'I daren't. Hoo--oo--oo!'

"'Well, listen.'

"'I must.'

"'Yes, you cannot shut your ears, though you may close your eyes. Before you tried to crush and kill me, I was your best friend, the still small voice within you guiding you on to good. What am I now? Your foe, your tormentor--Remorse!'

"'Mercy, mercy!' cried the wolf. 'O! give me back my innocence. Be my Conscience once again.'

"'Too late!'

"And now a cloud passed over and hid the moon, and next moment, had you looked, neither wolf nor wild boar would you have seen.

"Nothing there save the distant fairy forest, with the wind bending its branches and sighing mournfully across that dreary waste of snow."

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Note 1. A complete description of this caravan is to be found in my book, "The Cruise of the Land Yacht Wanderer," published by Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, Paternoster Row. The book is at all libraries.

[The end] Gordon Stables's short story: "Spring Is Coming:--The Storm.--The Fairy Forest: A Tale"

"Jacky-My-Lantern"

Author: Joel Chandler Harris

"JACKY-MY-LANTERN" [A]


UPON his next visit to Uncle Remus, the little boy was exceedingly anxious to know more about witches, but the old man prudently refrained from exciting the youngster's imagination any further in that direction. Uncle Remus had a board across his lap, and, armed with a mallet and a shoe-knife, was engaged in making shoe-pegs.

"W'iles I wuz crossin' de branch des now," he said, endeavoring to change the subject, "I come up wid a Jacky-my-lantern, en she wuz bu'nin' wuss'n a bunch er lightnin'-bugs, mon. I know'd she wuz a fixin' fer ter lead me inter dat quogmire down in de swamp, en I steer'd cle'r an' er. Yasser. I did dat. You ain't never seed no Jacky-my-lanterns, is you, honey?"

The little boy never had, but he had heard of them, and he wanted to know what they were, and thereupon Uncle Remus proceeded to tell him.

"One time," said the old darkey, transferring his spectacles from his nose to the top of his head and leaning his elbows upon his peg-board, "dere wuz a blacksmif man, en dish yer blacksmif man, he tuck'n stuck closer by his dram dan he did by his bellus. Monday mawnin' he'd git on a spree, en all dat week he'd be on a spree, en de nex' Monday mawnin' he'd take a fresh start. Bimeby, one day, atter de blacksmif bin spreein''roun' en cussin' might'ly, he hear a sorter rustlin' fuss at de do', en in walk de Bad Man."

"Who, Uncle Remus?" the little boy asked.

"De Bad Man, honey; de Ole Boy hisse'f right fresh from de ridjun w'at you year Miss Sally readin' 'bout. He done hide his hawns, en his tail, en his hoof, en he come dress up like w'ite fokes. He tuck off his hat en he bow, en den he tell de blacksmif who he is, en dat he done come atter 'im. Den de black-smif, he gun ter cry en beg, en he beg so hard en he cry so loud dat de Bad Man say he make a trade wid 'im. At de een' er one year de sperit er de blacksmif wuz to be his'n en endurin' er dat time de blacksmif mus' put in his hottes' licks in de intruss er de Bad Man, en den he put a spell on de cheer de blacksmif was settin' in, en on his sludge-hammer. De man w'at sot in de cheer couldn't git up less'n de blacksmif let 'im, en de man w'at pick up de sludge 'ud hatter keep on knockin' wid it twel de blacksmif say quit; en den he gun 'im money plenty, en off he put.

"De blacksmif, he sail in fer ter have his fun, en he have so much dat he done clean forgot 'bout his contrack, but bimeby, one day he look down de road, en dar he see de Bad Man comin', en den he know'd de year wuz out. W'en de Bad Man got in de do', de blacksmif wuz poundin' 'way at a hoss-shoe, but he wa'n't so bizzy dat he didn't ax 'im in. De Bad Man sorter do like he ain't got no time fer ter tarry, but de blacksmif say he got some little jobs dat he bleedzd ter finish up, en den he ax de Bad Man fer ter set down a minnit; en de Bad Man, he tuck'n sot down, en he sot in dat cheer w'at he done conju'd en, co'se, dar he wuz. Den de blacksmif, he 'gun ter poke fun at de Bad Man, en he ax him don't he want a dram, en won't he hitch his cheer up little nigher de fier, en de Bad Man, he beg en he beg, but 'twan't doin' no good, kase de blacksmif 'low dat he gwineter keep 'im dar twel he prommus dat he let 'im off one year mo', en, sho nuff, de Bad Man prommus dat ef de black-smif let 'im up he give 'im a n'er showin'. So den de blacksmif gun de wud, en de Bad Man sa'nter off down de big road, settin' traps en layin' his progance fer ter ketch mo' sinners.

"De nex' year hit pass same like t'er one. At de 'p'inted time yer come de Ole Boy atter de blacksmif, but still de blacksmif had some jobs dat he bleedzd ter finish up, en he ax de Bad Man fer ter take holt er de sludge en he he'p 'im out; en de Bad Man, he 'low dat r'er'n be disperlite, he don't keer ef he do hit 'er a biff er two; en wid dat he grab up de sludge, en dar he wuz 'gin, kase he done conju'd de sludge so dat whosomedever tuck 'er up can't put 'er down less'n de blacksmif say de wud. Dey perlaver'd dar, dey did, twel bimeby de Bad Man he up'n let 'im off n'er year.

"Well, den, dat year pass same ez t'er one. Mont' in en mont' out dat man wuz rollin' in dram, en bimeby yer come de Bad Man. De blacksmif cry en he holler, en he rip 'roun' en t'ar his ha'r, but hit des like he didn't, kase de Bad Man grab 'im up en cram 'im in a bag en tote 'im off. W'iles dey wuz gwine 'long dey come up wid a passel er fokes w'at wuz havin' wanner deze yer fote er July bobbycues, en de Ole Boy, he 'low dat maybe he kin git some mo' game, en w'at do he do but jine in wid um. He lines in en he talk politics same like t'er fokes, twel bimeby dinnertime come 'roun', en dey ax 'im up, w'ich 'greed wid his stummuck, en he pozzit his bag underneed de table 'longside de udder bags w'at de hongry fokes'd brung.

"No sooner did de blacksmif git back on de groun' dan he 'gun ter wuk his way outer de bag. He crope out, he did, en den he tuck'n change de bag. He tuck'n tuck a n'er bag en lay it down whar dish yer bag wuz, en den he crope outer de crowd en lay low in de underbresh.

"Las', w'en de time come fer ter go, de Ole Boy up wid his bag en slung her on his shoulder, en off he put fer de Bad Place. W'en he got dar he tuck'n drap de bag off'n his back en call up de imps, en dey des come a squallin' en a caperin', w'ich I speck dey mus' a bin hongry. Leas'ways dey des swawm'd 'roun', hollerin' out:

"'Daddy, w'at you brung--daddy, w'at you brung?'

"So den dey open de bag, en lo en behol's, out jump a big bull- dog, en de way he shuck dem little imps wuz a caution, en he kep' on gnyawin' un um twel de Ole Boy open de gate en t'un 'im out."

"And what became of the blacksmith?" the little boy asked, as Uncle Remus paused to snuff the candle with his fingers.

"I'm drivin' on 'roun', honey. Atter 'long time, de blacksmif he tuck'n die, en w'en he go ter de Good Place de man at de gate dunner who he is, en he can't squeeze in. Den he go down ter de Bad Place, en knock. De Ole Boy, he look out, he did, en he know'd de blacksmif de minnit he laid eyes on 'im; but he shake his head en say, sezee:

"'You'll hatter skuze me, Brer Blacksmif, kase I dun had 'speunce 'longer you. You'll hatter go some'rs else ef you wanter raise enny racket,' sezee, en wid dat he shet do do'.

"En dey do say," continued Uncle Remus, with unction, "dat sense dat day de blacksmif bin sorter huv'rin' 'roun' 'twix' de heavens en de ye'th, en dark nights he shine out so fokes call 'im Jacky-my-lantern. Dat's w'at dey tells me. Hit may be wrong er't maybe right, but dat's w'at I years."

[FOOTNOTE A: This story is popular on the coast and among the rice- plantations, and, since the publication of some of the animal-myths in the newspapers, I have received a version of it from a planter in southwest Georgia; but it seems to me to be an intruder among the genuine myth-stories of the negroes. It is a trifle too elaborate. Nevertheless, it is told upon the plantations with great gusto, and there are several versions in circulation.]

[The end]
Joel Chandler Harris's short story: "Jacky-My-Lantern"

The Aggravation Of Elmer

A short story by Robert Arthur

The world would beat a path to
Elmer's door--but he had to go
carry the door along with him!


It was the darnedest traffic jam I'd ever seen in White Plains. For two blocks ahead of me, Main Street was gutter to gutter with stalled cars, trucks and buses.
If I hadn't been in such a hurry to get back to the shop, I might have paid more attention. I might have noticed nobody was leaning on his horn. Or that at least a quarter of the drivers were out peering under their hoods.
But at the time it didn't register. I gave the tie-up a passing glance and was turning up the side street toward Biltom Electronics--Bill-Tom, get it?--when I saw Marge threading her way to the curb. She was leading a small blonde girl of about eight, who clutched a child-size hatbox in her hand. Marge was hot and exasperated, but small fry was as cool and composed as a vanilla cone.
I waited. Even flushed and disheveled, Marge is a treat to look at. She is tall and slender, with brown eyes that match her hair, a smile that first crinkles around her eyes, then sneaks down and becomes a full-fledged grin--
But I'm getting off the subject.
"Honestly, Bill!" Marge said as she saw me. "The traffic nowadays! We've been tied up for fifteen minutes. I finally decided to get off the bus and walk, even though it is about a hundred in the shade."
"Come along to the shop," I suggested. "The reception room is air-conditioned and you can watch the world's first baseball game telecast in color. The Giants versus the Dodgers, Carl Erskine pitching."
Marge brightened. "That'll be more fun than shopping, won't it, Doreen?" she asked, looking down at the kid. "Bill, this is Doreen. She lives across the street from me. Her mother's at the dentist and I said I'd look after her for the day."
"Hello, Doreen," I said. "What have you in the hatbox? Doll clothes?"
Doreen gave me a look of faint disgust. "No," she piped, in a high treble. "An unhappy genii."
"An unhappy--" I did a double take. "Oh, an unhappy genii? Maybe he's unhappy because you won't let him out, ha ha." Even to myself, I sounded idiotic.
Doreen looked at me pityingly. "It's not a he, it's a thing. Elmer made it."
I knew when I was losing, so I quit.
* * * * *

I hurried Marge and Doreen along toward our little two-story building. Once we got into the air-conditioned reception room, Marge sank down gratefully onto the settee and I switched on the television set with the big 24-inch tube Tom had built.
Biltom Electronics makes TV components, computer parts, things like that. Tom Kennedy is the brains. Me, Bill Rawlins, I do the legwork, and tend to the business details.
"It's uncanny the way all those cars suddenly stopped when our bus broke down," Marge said as we waited for the picture to come on. "Any day now this civilization of ours will get so complicated a bus breaking down someplace will bring the whole thing to a halt. Then where will we be?"
"Elmer says silly-zation is doomed!" Doreen put in happily.
The way she rolled the word out made me stare at her.
Marge only nodded. "That's what Elmer says, all right," she agreed, a trifle grim.
"Why does Elmer say silly-zation is doomed?" I asked Doreen.
"Because it's getting hotter." The kid gave it to me straight. "All the ice at the North Pole is gonna melt. The ocean is gonna rise two hundred feet. Then everybody who doesn't live on a hill is gonna be drownded. That's what Elmer says and Elmer isn't ever wrong."
Doreen they called her! Why not Cassandra? The stuff kids spout these days!
I gave her a foolish grin. I wanted Marge to get the idea I was really a family man at heart. "That's very interesting, Doreen. Now look, there's the baseball game. Let's watch, shall we?"
We weren't very late after all. It was the top half of the second inning, the score one to one, Erskine in trouble with two men on and only one down. The colors were beautiful. Marge and I were just settling back to watch when Doreen wrinkled her nose.
"I saw that game yesterday!" she announced.
"You couldn't have, sweetheart," I told her. "Because it's only being played today. The world's first ball game ever broadcast in color."
"There was a game on Elmer's TV," Doreen insisted. "The picture was bigger and the colors prettier, too."
"Absolutely impossible." I was a little sore. I hate kids who tell fibs. "There never was a game broadcast in color before. And, anyway, you won't find a color tube this big any place outside of a laboratory."
"But it's true, Bill." Marge looked at me, wide-eyed. "Elmer only has a little seven-inch black and white set his uncle gave him. But he's rigged up some kind of lens in front of it, and it projects a big color picture on a white screen."
I saw that she was serious. My eyes bugged slightly. "Listen," I said, "who is this Elmer character? I want to meet him!"
"He's my cousin from South America," Doreen answered. "He thinks grownups are stupid." She turned to Marge. "I have to go to the bathroom," she said primly.
"Through that door." Marge pointed.
Doreen trotted out, clutching her hat box.
* * * * *

"Elmer thinks grownups are stupid?" I howled. "Listen, how old is this character who says silly-zation is doomed and can convert a black and white broadcast into color?"
"He's thirteen," Marge told me. I goggled at her. "Thirteen," she repeated. "His father is some South American scientist. His mother died ten years ago."
I sat down beside her. I lit a cigarette. My hands were shaking. "Tell me about him. All about him."
"Why, I don't know very much," Marge said. "Last year Elmer was sick, some tropic disease. His father sent him up here to recuperate. Now Alice--that's his aunt, Doreen's mother--is at her wits' end, he makes her so nervous."
I lit another cigarette before I realized I already had one. "And he invents things? A boy genius? Young Tom Edison and all that?"
Marge frowned. "I suppose you could say that," she conceded. "He has the garage full of stuff he's made or bought with the allowance his father sends him. And if you come within ten feet of it without permission, you get an electric shock right out of thin air. But that's only part of it. It--" she gave a helpless gesture--"it's Elmer's effect on everybody. Everybody over fifteen, that is. He sits there, a little, dark, squinched-up kid wearing thick glasses and talking about how climatic changes inside fifty years will flood half the world, cause the collapse of civilization--"
"Wait a minute!" I cut in. "Scientists seem to think that's possible in a few thousand years. Not fifty."
"Elmer says fifty," Marge stated flatly. "From the way he talks, I suspect he's figured out a way to speed things up and is going to try it some day just to see if it works. Meanwhile he fools around out there in the garage, sneering about the billions of dollars spent to develop color TV. He says his lens will turn any ordinary broadcast into color for about twenty-five dollars. He says it's typical of the muddled thinking of our so-called scientists--I'm quoting now--to do everything backward and overlook fundamental principles."
"Bro-ther!" I said.
Doreen came trotting back in then, with her hat box. "I'm tired of that game," she said, giving the TV set a bored glance. And as she said it the tube went dark. The sound cut off.
"Damn!" I swore. "Must be a power failure!" I grabbed the phone and jiggled the hook. No dice. The phone was dead, too.
"You're funny," Doreen giggled. "It's just the unhappy genii. See?"
She flicked over the catch on the hatbox.
And the picture came back on. The sound started up. "--swings and misses for strike two!" The air conditioner began to hum.
Marge and I stared. Mouths open. Wide.
* * * * *

"You did that, Doreen?" I asked it very carefully. "You made the television stop and start again?"
"The unhappy genii did," Doreen told me. "Like this." She flicked the catch back. The TV picture blacked out. The sound stopped in the middle of a word. The air conditioner whispered into silence.
Then she flipped the catch the other way.
"--fouls the second ball into the screen," the announcer said. Picture okay. Air conditioner operating. Everything normal except my pulse and respiration.
"Doreen, sweetheart--" I took a step toward her--"what's in that box? What is an unhappy genii?"
"Not unhappy." You know how scornful an eight-year-old can be? Well, she was. "Unhap-pen. It makes things unhappen. Anything that works by electracity, it stops. Elmer calls it his unhappen genii. Just for fun."
"Oh, now I get it," I said brightly. "It makes electricity not work--unhappen. Like television sets and air conditioners and automobiles and bus engines."
Doreen giggled.
Marge sat bolt upright. "Doreen! You caused that traffic jam? You and that--that gadget of Elmer's?"
Doreen nodded. "It made all the automobile engines stop, just like Elmer said. Elmer's never wrong."
Marge looked at me. I looked at Marge.
"A field of some kind," I said. "A field that prevents an electric current from flowing. Meaning no combustion motor using an electric spark can operate. No electric motors. No telephones. No radio or TV."
"Is that important?" Marge asked.
"Important?" I yelled. "Think of the possibilities just as a weapon! You could blank out a whole nation's transportation, its communications, its industry--"
I got hold of myself. I smiled my best I-love-children smile. "Doreen," I said, "let me look at Elmer's unhappen genii."
The kid clutched the box.
"Elmer told me not to let anybody look at it. He said he'd statuefy me if I did. He said nobody would understand it anyway. He said he might show it to Mr. Einstein, but not anybody else."
"That's Elmer, all right," Marge muttered.
I found myself breathing hard. I edged toward Doreen and put my hand on the hatbox. "Just one quick look, Doreen," I said. "No one will ever know."
She didn't answer. Just pulled the box away.
I pulled it back.
She pulled.
I pulled.
"Bill--" Marge called warningly. Too late. The lid of the hatbox came off in my hands.
* * * * *

There was a bright flash, the smell of insulation burning, and the unhappen genii fell out and scattered all over the floor.
Doreen looked smug. "Now Elmer will be angry at you. Maybe he'll disintegrate you. Or paralalize you and statuefy you. Forever."
"He might at that, Bill," Marge shuddered. "I wouldn't put anything past him."
I wasn't listening. I was scrambling after the mess of tubes, condensers and power packs scattered over the rug. Some of them were still wired together, but most of them had broken loose. Elmer was certainly one heck of a sloppy workman. Hadn't even soldered the connections. Just twisted the wires together.
I looked at the stuff in my hands. It made as much sense as a radio run over by a truck.
"We'll take it back to Elmer," I told Doreen, speaking very carefully. "I'll give him lots of money to build another. He can come down here and use our shop. We have lots of nice equipment he'd like."
Doreen tossed her head. "I don't think he'll wanta. He'll be mad at you. Anyway, Elmer is busy working on aggravation now."
"That's for sure!" Marge said in heartfelt tones.
"Aggravation, eh?" I grinned like an idiot. "Well, well! I'll bet he's good at it. But let's go see him right away."
"Bill!" Marge signaled me to one side. "Maybe you'd better not try to see Elmer," she whispered. "I mean, if he can build a thing like this in his garage, maybe he can build a disintegrator or a paralysis ray or something. There's no use taking chances."
"You read too many comics," I laughed it off. "He's only a kid, isn't he? What do you think he is? A superman?"
"Yes," Marge said flatly.
"Look, Marge!" I said in feverish excitement. "I've got to talk to Elmer! I've got to get the rights to that TV color lens and this electricity interruptor and anything else he may have developed!"
Marge kept trying to protest, but I simply grabbed her and Doreen and hustled them out to my car. Doreen lived in a wooded, hilly section a little north of White Plains. I made it in ten minutes.
* * * * *

Marge had said Elmer worked in the garage. I kept going up the driveway, swung sharp around the big house--and slammed on the brakes.
Marge screamed.
We skidded to a stop with our front end hanging over what looked like a bomb crater in the middle of the driveway.
I swallowed my heart down again, while I backed away fast.
We had almost plunged into a hole forty feet across and twenty feet deep in the middle. The hole was perfectly round, like a half section of a grapefruit.
"What's this?" I asked. "Where's the garage?"
"That's where the garage should be." Marge looked dazed. "But it's gone!"
I took another look at that hole scooped out with geometrical precision, and turned to Doreen. "What did you say Elmer was working on?"
"Agg--" she sobbed, "agg--agg--aggravation." She began to bawl in earnest. "Now he's gone. He's mad. He won't ever come back, I betcha."
"That's a fact," I muttered. "He may not have been mad, but he certainly was aggravated. Marge, listen! This is a mystery. We've just got to let it stay a mystery. We don't know anything, understand? The cops will finally decide Elmer blew himself up, and we'll leave it at that. One thing I'm pretty sure about--he's not coming back."
* * * * *

So that's how it was. Tom Kennedy keeps trying and trying to put Elmer's unhappen genii back together again. And every time he fails he takes it out on me because I didn't get to Elmer sooner. But you can see perfectly well he's way off base, trying to make out I could have done a thing to prevent what happened.
Is it my fault if the dumb kid didn't know enough to take the proper precautions when he decided to develop anti-gravitation--and got shot off, garage and all, someplace into outer space?
What do they teach kids nowadays, anyway?
--ROBERT ARTHUR

[The end]
Robert Arthur's short story: The Aggravation Of Elmer