Transcriber's Note:

This eBook was produced from Weird Tales, March
1951, pp. 26-36. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

p. 26

Something of the wonder that must have come to men

seeking magic in the sky in days long vanished.

Heading by Jon Arfstrom

p. 27

Jimmy watched the Natchez Belle
draw near, a shining eagerness in his
stare. He stood on the deck of the
shantyboat, his toes sticking out of his socks,
his heart knocking against his ribs. Straight
down the river the big packet boat came,
purpling the water with its shadow, its
smokestacks belching soot.

Jimmy had a wild talent for collecting
things. He knew exactly how to infuriate
the captains without sticking out his neck.
Up and down the Father of Waters, from
the bayous of Louisiana to the Great Sandy
other little shantyboat boys envied Jimmy
and tried hard to imitate him.

But Jimmy had a very special gift, a
genius for pantomime. He'd wait until
there was a glimmer of red flame on the
river and small objects stood out with a
startling clarity. Then he'd go into his act.

Nothing upset the captains quite so much
as Jimmy's habit of holding a big, croaking
bullfrog up by its legs as the riverboats
went steaming past. It was a surefire way of
reminding the captains that men and frogs
were brothers under the skin. The puffed-out
throat of the frog told the captains
exactly what Jimmy thought of their cheek.

Jimmy refrained from making faces, or
sticking out his tongue at the grinning
roustabouts. It was the frog that did the
trick.

In the still dawn things came sailing
Jimmy's way, hurled by captains with a
twinkle of repressed merriment dancing in
eyes that were kindlier and more tolerant
than Jimmy dreamed.

Just because shantyboat folk had no right
to insult the riverboats Jimmy had collected
forty empty tobacco tins, a down-at-heels
shoe, a Sears Roebuck catalogue and—more
rolled up newspapers than Jimmy could
ever read.

Jimmy could read, of course. No matter
how badly Uncle Al needed a new pair of
shoes, Jimmy's education came first. So
Jimmy had spent six winters ashore in a
first-class grammar school, his books paid
for out of Uncle Al's "New Orleans"
money.

Uncle Al, blowing on a vinegar jug and
making sweet music, the holes in his socks
much bigger than the holes in Jimmy's
socks. Uncle Al shaking his head and saying
sadly, "Some day, young fella, I ain't
gonna sit here harmonizing. No siree! I'm
gonna buy myself a brand new store suit,
trade in this here jig jug for a big round
banjo, and hie myself off to the Mardi
Gras. Ain't too old thataway to git a little
fun out of life, young fella!"

Poor old Uncle Al. The money he'd
saved up for the Mardi Gras never seemed
to stretch far enough. There was enough
kindness in him to stretch like a rainbow
over the bayous and the river forests of
sweet, rustling pine for as far as the eye
could see. Enough kindness to wrap all of
Jimmy's life in a glow, and the life of
Jimmy's sister as well.

Jimmy's parents had died of winter
pneumonia too soon to appreciate Uncle Al.
But up and down the river everyone knew
that Uncle Al was a great man.

Enemies? Well, sure, all great men
made enemies, didn't they?

The Harmon brothers were downright
sinful about carrying their feuding meanness
right up to the doorstep of Uncle Al,
if it could be said that a man living in a
shantyboat had a doorstep.

Uncle Al made big catches and the Harmon
brothers never seemed to have any
luck. So, long before Jimmy was old
enough to understand how corrosive envy
could be the Harmon brothers had started
feuding with Uncle Al.

"Jimmy, here comes the Natchez Belle!
Uncle Al says for you to get him a newspaper.
The newspaper you got him yesterday
he couldn't read no-ways. It was soaking
wet!"

Jimmy turned to glower at his sister. Up
and down the river Pigtail Anne was known
as a tomboy, but she wasn't—no-ways. She
p. 28
was Jimmy's little sister. That meant Jimmy
was the man in the family, and wore the
pants, and nothing Pigtail said or did could
change that for one minute.

"Don't yell at me!" Jimmy complained.
"How can I get Captain Simmons mad if
you get me mad first? Have a heart, will
you?"

But Pigtail Anne refused to budge. Even
when the Natchez Belle loomed so close to
the shantyboat that it blotted out the sky
she continued to crowd her brother, preventing
him from holding up the frog and
making Captain Simmons squirm.

But Jimmy got the newspaper anyway.
Captain Simmons had a keen insight into
tomboy psychology, and from the bridge of
the Natchez Belle he could see that Pigtail
was making life miserable for Jimmy.

True—Jimmy had no respect for packet
boats and deserved a good trouncing. But
what a scrapper the lad was! Never let it be
said that in a struggle between the sexes
the men of the river did not stand shoulder
to shoulder.

The paper came sailing over the shining
brown water like a white-bellied buffalo
cat shot from a sling.

Pigtail grabbed it before Jimmy could
give her a shove. Calmly she unwrapped it,
her chin tilted in bellicose defiance.

As the Natchez Belle dwindled around
a lazy, cypress-shadowed bend Pigtail Anne
became a superior being, wrapped in a
cosmopolitan aura. A wide-eyed little girl
on a swaying deck, the great outside world
rushing straight toward her from all directions.

Pigtail could take that world in her
stride. She liked the fashion page best, but
she was not above clicking her tongue at
everything in the paper.

"Kidnap plot linked to airliner crash
killing fifty," she read. "Red Sox blank
Yanks! Congress sits today, vowing vengeance!
Million dollar heiress elopes with
a clerk! Court lets dog pick owner! Girl of
eight kills her brother in accidental shooting!"

"I ought to push your face right down
in the mud," Jimmy muttered.

"Don't you dare! I've a right to see
what's going on in the world!"

"You said the paper was for Uncle Al!"

"It is—when I get finished with it."

Jimmy started to take hold of his sister's
wrist and pry the paper from her clasp.
Only started—for as Pigtail wriggled back
sunlight fell on a shadowed part of the
paper which drew Jimmy's gaze as sunlight
draws dew.

Exciting wasn't the word for the headline.
It seemed to blaze out of the page at
Jimmy as he stared, his chin nudging Pigtail's
shoulder.

NEW FLYING MONSTER REPORTED
BLAZING GULF STATE SKIES

Jimmy snatched the paper and backed
away from Pigtail, his eyes glued to the
headline.

He was kind to his sister, however.
He read the news item aloud, if an
account so startling could be called an item.
To Jimmy it seemed more like a dazzling
burst of light in the sky.

"A New Orleans resident reported today
that he saw a big bright object 'roundish
like a disk' flying north, against the
wind. 'It was all lighted up from inside!'
the observer stated. 'As far as I could tell
there were no signs of life aboard the thing.
It was much bigger than any of the flying
saucers previously reported!'"

"People keep seeing them!" Jimmy muttered,
after a pause. "Nobody knows where
they come from! Saucers flying through the
sky, high up at night. In the daytime, too!
Maybe we're being watched, Pigtail!"

"Watched? Jimmy, what do you mean?
What you talking about?"

Jimmy stared at his sister, the paper
jiggling in his clasp. "It's way over your
head, Pigtail!" he said sympathetically. "I'll
prove it! What's a planet?"

"A star in the sky, you dope!" Pigtail
almost screamed. "Wait'll Uncle Al hears
what a meanie you are. If I wasn't your
sister you wouldn't dare grab a paper that
doesn't belong to you."

p. 29

Jimmy refused to be enraged. "A planet's
not a star, Pigtail," he said patiently. "A
star's a big ball of fire like the sun. A
planet is small and cool, like the Earth.
Some of the planets may even have people
on them. Not people like us, but people
all the same. Maybe we're just frogs to
them!"

"You're crazy, Jimmy! Crazy, crazy, you
hear?"

Jimmy started to reply, then shut his
mouth tight. Big waves were nothing new
in the wake of steamboats, but the shantyboat
wasn't just riding a swell. It was swaying
and rocking like a floating barrel in
the kind of blow Shantyboaters dreaded
worse than the thought of dying.

Jimmy knew that a big blow could come
up fast. Straight down from the sky in
gusts, from all directions, banging
against the boat like a drunken roustabout,
slamming doors, tearing away mooring
planks.

The river could rise fast too. Under the
lashing of a hurricane blowing up
from the gulf the river could lift a shantyboat
right out of the water, and smash it to
smithereens against a tree.

But now the blow was coming from just
one part of the sky. A funnel of wind was
churning the river into a white froth and
raising big swells directly offshore. But the
river wasn't rising and the sun was shining
in a clear sky.

Jimmy knew a dangerous floodwater
storm when he saw one. The sky had to be
dark with rain, and you had to feel scared,
in fear of drowning.

Jimmy was scared, all right. That part of
it rang true. But a hollow, sick feeling in
his chest couldn't mean anything by itself,
he told himself fiercely.

Pigtail Anne saw the disk before Jimmy
did. She screamed and pointed skyward, her
twin braids standing straight out in the
wind like the ropes on a bale of cotton,
when smokestacks collapse and a savage
howling sends the river ghosts scurrying
for cover.

Straight down out of the sky the disk
p. 30
swooped, a huge, spinning shape as flat as
a buckwheat cake swimming in a golden
haze of butterfat.

But the disk didn't remind Jimmy of a
buckwheat cake. It made him think instead
of a slowly turning wheel in the pilot house
of a rotting old riverboat, a big, ghostly
wheel manned by a steersman a century
dead, his eye sockets filled with flickering
swamp lights.

It made Jimmy want to run and hide.
Almost it made him want to cling to his
sister, content to let her wear the pants if
only he could be spared the horror.

For there was something so chilling
about the downsweeping disk that Jimmy's
heart began leaping like a vinegar jug bobbing
about in the wake of a capsizing fishboat.

Lower and lower the disk swept, trailing
plumes of white smoke, lashing the water
with a fearful blow. Straight down over the
cypress wilderness that fringed the opposite
bank, and then out across the river with a
long-drawn whistling sound, louder than
the air-sucking death gasps of a thousand
buffalo cats.

Jimmy didn't see the disk strike the shining
broad shoulders of the Father of
Waters, for the bend around which the
Natchez Belle had steamed so proudly hid
the sky monster from view. But Jimmy did
see the waterspout, spiraling skyward like
the atom bomb explosion he'd goggled at
in the pages of an old Life magazine, all
smudged now with oily thumbprints.

Just a roaring for an instant—and a big
white mushroom shooting straight up into
the sky. Then, slowly, the mushroom decayed
and fell back, and an awful stillness
settled down over the river.

The stillness was broken by a shrill cry
from Pigtail Anne. "It was a flying
saucer! Jimmy, we've seen one! We've seen
one! We've—"

"Shut your mouth, Pigtail!"

Jimmy shaded his eyes and stared out
across the river, his chest a throbbing ache.

He was still staring when a door creaked
behind him.

Jimmy trembled. A tingling fear went
through him, for he found it hard to realize
that the disk had swept around the bend
out of sight. To his overheated imagination
it continued to fill all of the sky above
him, overshadowing the shantyboat, making
every sound a threat.

Sucking the still air deep into his lungs,
Jimmy swung about.

Uncle Al was standing on the deck in
a little pool of sunlight, his gaunt, hollow-cheeked
face set in harsh lines. Uncle Al
was shading his eyes too. But he was staring
up the river, not down.

"Trouble, young fella," he grunted.
"Sure as I'm a-standin' here. A barrelful o'
trouble—headin' straight for us!"

Jimmy gulped and gestured wildly toward
the bend. "It came down over there,
Uncle Al!" he got out. "Pigtail saw it, too!
A big, flying—"

"The Harmons are a-comin', young
fella," Uncle Al drawled, silencing Jimmy
with a wave of his hand. "Yesterday I
rowed over a Harmon jug line without
meanin' to. Now Jed Harmon's tellin' everybody
I stole his fish!"

Very calmly Uncle Al cut himself a slice
of the strongest tobacco on the river and
packed it carefully in his pipe, wadding it
down with his thumb.

He started to put the pipe between his
teeth, then thought better of it.

"I can bone-feel the Harmon boat a-comin',
young fella," he said, using the
pipe to gesture with. "Smooth and quiet
over the river like a moccasin snake."

Jimmy turned pale. He forgot about the
disk and the mushrooming water spout.
When he shut his eyes he saw only a red
haze overhanging the river, and a shantyboat
nosing out of the cypresses, its windows
spitting death.

Jimmy knew that the Harmons had
waited a long time for an excuse. The
Harmons were law-respecting river rats
with sharp teeth. Feuding wasn't lawful,
but murder could be made lawful by whittling
down a lie until it looked as sharp
as the truth.

p. 31

The Harmon brothers would do their
whittling down with double-barreled shotguns.
It was easy enough to make murder
look like a lawful crime if you could point
to a body covered by a blanket and say,
"We caught him stealing our fish! He was
a-goin' to kill us—so we got him first."

No one would think of lifting the
blanket and asking Uncle Al about it. A
man lying stiff and still under a blanket
could no more make himself heard than a
river cat frozen in the ice.

"Git inside, young 'uns. Here they
come!"

Jimmy's heart skipped a beat. Down the
river in the sunlight a shantyboat was drifting.
Jimmy could see the Harmon brothers
crouching on the deck, their faces livid
with hate, sunlight glinting on their arm-cradled
shotguns.

The Harmon brothers were not in the
least alike. Jed Harmon was tall and gaunt,
his right cheek puckered by a knife scar, his
cruel, thin-lipped mouth snagged by his
teeth. Joe Harmon was small and stout, a
little round man with bushy eyebrows and
the flabby face of a cottonmouth snake.

"Go inside, Pigtail," Jimmy said, calmly.
"I'm a-going to stay and fight!"

Uncle Al grabbed Jimmy's arm and
swung him around. "You heard what
I said, young fella. Now git!"

"I want to stay here and fight with you,
Uncle Al," Jimmy said.

"Have you got a gun? Do you want to
be blown apart, young fella?"

"I'm not scared, Uncle Al," Jimmy
pleaded. "You might get wounded. I know
how to shoot straight, Uncle Al. If you get
hurt I'll go right on fighting!"

"No you won't, young fella! Take Pigtail
inside. You hear me? You want me to take
you across my knee and beat the livin'
stuffings out of you?"

Silence.

Deep in his uncle's face Jimmy saw an
anger he couldn't buck. Grabbing Pigtail
Anne by the arm, he propelled her across
the deck and into the dismal front room of
the shantyboat.

The instant he released her she glared
at him and stamped her foot. "If Uncle Al
gets shot it'll be your fault," she said
cruelly. Then Pigtail's anger really flared
up.

"The Harmons wouldn't dare shoot us
'cause we're children!"

For an instant brief as a dropped heartbeat
Jimmy stared at his sister with unconcealed
admiration.

"You can be right smart when you've got
nothing else on your mind, Pigtail," he said.
"If they kill me they'll hang sure as shooting!"

Jimmy was out in the sunlight again before
Pigtail could make a grab for him.

Out on the deck and running along the
deck toward Uncle Al. He was still running
when the first blast came.

It didn't sound like a shotgun blast.
The deck shook and a big swirl of smoke
floated straight toward Jimmy, half blinding
him and blotting Uncle Al from view.

When the smoke cleared Jimmy could
see the Harmon shantyboat. It was less than
thirty feet away now, drifting straight past
and rocking with the tide like a topheavy
flatbarge.

On the deck Jed Harmon was crouching
down, his gaunt face split in a triumphant
smirk. Beside him Joe Harmon stood quivering
like a mound of jelly, a stick of dynamite
in his hand, his flabby face looking
almost gentle in the slanting sunlight.

There was a little square box at Jed Harmon's
feet. As Joe pitched Jed reached into
the box for another dynamite stick. Jed was
passing the sticks along to his brother, depending
on wad dynamite to silence Uncle
Al forever.

Wildly Jimmy told himself that the guns
had been just a trick to mix Uncle Al up,
and keep him from shooting until they had
him where they wanted him.

Uncle Al was shooting now, his face as
grim as death. His big heavy gun was leaping
about like mad, almost hurling him to
the deck.

Jimmy saw the second dynamite stick
spinning through the air, but he never saw
p. 32
it come down. All he could see was the
smoke and the shantyboat rocking, and another
terrible splintering crash as he went
plunging into the river from the end of a
rising plank, a sob strangling in his throat.

Jimmy struggled up from the river with
the long leg-thrusts of a terrified bullfrog,
his head a throbbing ache. As he swam
shoreward he could see the cypresses on the
opposite bank, dark against the sun, and
something that looked like the roof of a
house with water washing over it.

Then, with mud sucking at his heels,
Jimmy was clinging to a slippery bank and
staring out across the river, shading his
eyes against the glare.

Jimmy thought, "I'm dreaming! I'll wake
up and see Uncle Joe blowing on a vinegar
jug. I'll see Pigtail, too. Uncle Al will be
sitting on the deck, taking it easy!"

But Uncle Al wasn't sitting on the deck.
There was no deck for Uncle Al to sit upon.
Just the top of the shantyboat, sinking
lower and lower, and Uncle Al swimming.

Uncle Al had his arm around Pigtail,
and Jimmy could see Pigtail's white face
bobbing up and down as Uncle Al breasted
the tide with his strong right arm.

Closer to the bend was the Harmon
shantyboat. The Harmons were using their
shotguns now, blasting fiercely away at
Uncle Al and Pigtail. Jimmy could see the
smoke curling up from the leaping guns
and the water jumping up and down in
little spurts all about Uncle Al.

There was an awful hollow agony in
Jimmy's chest as he stared, a fear that was
partly a soundless screaming and partly a
vision of Uncle Al sinking down through
the dark water and turning it red.

It was strange, though. Something was
happening to Jimmy, nibbling away at the
outer edges of the fear like a big, hungry
river cat. Making the fear seem less swollen
and awful, shredding it away in little
flakes.

There was a white core of anger in
Jimmy which seemed suddenly to blaze up.

He shut his eyes tight.

In his mind's gaze Jimmy saw himself
holding the Harmon brothers up by
their long, mottled legs. The Harmon
brothers were frogs. Not friendly, good
natured frogs like Uncle Al, but snake
frogs. Cottonmouth frogs.

All flannel red were their mouths, and
they had long evil fangs which dripped
poison in the sunlight. But Jimmy wasn't
afraid of them no-ways. Not any more. He
had too firm a grip on their legs.

"Don't let anything happen to Uncle Al
and Pigtail!" Jimmy whispered, as though
he were talking to himself. No—not exactly
to himself. To someone like himself,
only larger. Very close to Jimmy, but larger,
more powerful.

"Catch them before they harm Uncle Al!
Hurry! Hurry!"

There was a strange lifting sensation in
Jimmy's chest now. As though he could
shake the river if he tried hard enough, tilt
it, send it swirling in great thunderous
white surges clear down to Lake Pontchartrain.

But Jimmy didn't want to tilt the river.
Not with Uncle Al on it and Pigtail,
and all those people in New Orleans who
would disappear right off the streets. They
were frogs too, maybe, but good frogs. Not
like the Harmon brothers.

Jimmy had a funny picture of himself
much younger than he was. Jimmy saw himself
as a great husky baby, standing in the
middle of the river and blowing on it with
all his might. The waves rose and rose, and
Jimmy's cheeks swelled out and the river
kept getting angrier.

No—he must fight that.

"Save Uncle Al!" he whispered fiercely.
"Just save him—and Pigtail!"

It began to happen the instant Jimmy
opened his eyes. Around the bend in the
sunlight came a great spinning disk,
wrapped in a fiery glow.

Straight toward the Harmon shantyboat
the disk swept, water spurting up all about
it, its bottom fifty feet wide. There was no
collision. Only a brightness for one awful
instant where the shantyboat was twisting
and turning in the current, a brightness that
outshone the rising sun.

p. 33

Just like a camera flashbulb going off,
but bigger, brighter. So big and bright that
Jimmy could see the faces of the Harmon
brothers fifty times as large as life, shriveling
and disappearing in a magnifying burst
of flame high above the cypress trees. Just
as though a giant in the sky had trained a
big burning glass on the Harmon brothers
and whipped it back quick.

Whipped it straight up, so that the faces
would grow huge before dissolving as a
warning to all snakes. There was an evil
anguish in the dissolving faces which made
Jimmy's blood run cold. Then the disk was
alone in the middle of the river, spinning
around and around, the shantyboat swallowed
up.

And Uncle Al was still swimming, fearfully
close to it.

The net came swirling out of the disk
over Uncle Al like a great, dew-drenched
gossamer web. It enmeshed him as he swam,
so gently that he hardly seemed to struggle
or even to be aware of what was happening
to him.

Pigtail didn't resist, either. She simply
stopped thrashing in Uncle Al's arms, as
though a great wonder had come upon her.

Slowly Uncle Al and Pigtail were drawn
into the disk. Jimmy could see Uncle Al
reclining in the web, with Pigtail in the
crook of his arm, his long, angular body as
quiet as a butterfly in its deep winter sleep
inside a swaying glass cocoon.

Uncle Al and Pigtail, being drawn together
into the disk as Jimmy stared, a dull
pounding in his chest. After a moment the
pounding subsided and a silence settled
down over the river.

Jimmy sucked in his breath. The voices
began quietly, as though they had been
waiting for a long time to speak to Jimmy
deep inside his head, and didn't want to
frighten him in any way.

"Take it easy, Jimmy! Stay where you
are. We're just going to have a friendly
little talk with Uncle Al."

"A t-talk?" Jimmy heard himself stammering.

"We knew we'd find you where life flows
p. 34
simply and serenely, Jimmy. Your parents
took care of that before they left you with
Uncle Al.

"You see, Jimmy, we wanted you to study
the Earth people on a great, wide flowing
river, far from the cruel, twisted places. To
grow up with them, Jimmy—and to understand
them. Especially the Uncle Als. For
Uncle Al is unspoiled, Jimmy. If there's
any hope at all for Earth as we guide and
watch it, that hope burns most brightly in
the Uncle Als!"

The voice paused, then went on quickly.
"You see, Jimmy, you're not human in the
same way that your sister is human—or
Uncle Al. But you're still young enough
to feel human, and we want you to feel
human, Jimmy."

"W—Who are you?" Jimmy gasped.

"We are the Shining Ones, Jimmy! For
wide wastes of years we have cruised
Earth's skies, almost unnoticed by the
Earth people. When darkness wraps the
Earth in a great, spinning shroud we hide
our ships close to the cities, and glide
through the silent streets in search of our
young. You see, Jimmy, we must watch
and protect the young of our race until
sturdiness comes upon them, and they are
ready for the Great Change."

For an instant there was a strange, humming
sound deep inside Jimmy's head,
like the drowsy murmur of bees in a dew-drenched
clover patch. Then the voice
droned on. "The Earth people are frightened
by our ships now, for their cruel wars
have put a great fear of death in their
hearts. They watch the skies with sharper
eyes, and their minds have groped closer to
the truth.

"To the Earth people our ships are no
longer the fireballs of mysterious legend,
haunted will-o'-the-wisps, marsh flickerings
and the even more illusive distortions of
the sick in mind. It is a long bold step from
fireballs to flying saucers, Jimmy. A day
will come when the Earth people will be
wise enough to put aside fear. Then we
can show ourselves to them as we really
are, and help them openly."

The voice seemed to take more complete
possession of Jimmy's thoughts then, growing
louder and more eager, echoing through
his mind with the persuasiveness of muted
chimes.

"Jimmy, close your eyes tight. We're
going to take you across wide gulfs of space
to the bright and shining land of your
birth."

Jimmy obeyed.

It was a city, and yet it wasn't like New
York or Chicago or any of the other cities
Jimmy had seen illustrations of in the
newspapers and picture magazines.

The buildings were white and domed and
shining, and they seemed to tower straight
up into the sky. There were streets, too,
weaving in and out between the domes like
rainbow-colored spider webs in a forest of
mushrooms.

There were no people in the city, but
down the aerial streets shining objects
swirled with the swift easy gliding of flat
stones skimming an edge of running water.

Then as Jimmy stared into the depths of
the strange glow behind his eyelids the city
dwindled and fell away, and he saw a huge
circular disk looming in a wilderness of
shadows. Straight toward the disk a shining
object moved, bearing aloft on filaments of
flame a much smaller object that struggled
and mewed and reached out little white
arms.

Closer and closer the shining object came,
until Jimmy could see that it was carrying
a human infant that stared straight at
Jimmy out of wide, dark eyes. But before
he could get a really good look at the shining
object it pierced the shadows and
passed into the disk.

There was a sudden, blinding burst of
light, and the disk was gone.

Jimmy opened his eyes.

"You were once like that baby, Jimmy!"
the voice said. "You were carried by your
parents into a waiting ship, and then out
across wide gulfs of space to Earth.

"You see, Jimmy, our race was once entirely
human. But as we grew to maturity
we left the warm little worlds where our
p. 35
infancy was spent, and boldly sought the
stars, shedding our humanness as sunlight
sheds the dew, or a bright, soaring moth of
the night its ugly pupa case.

"We grew great and wise, Jimmy, but
not quite wise enough to shed our human
heritage of love and joy and heartbreak.
In our childhood we must return to the
scenes of our past, to take root again in
familiar soil, to grow in power and wisdom
slowly and sturdily, like a seed dropped
back into the loam which nourished the
great flowering mother plant.

"Or like the eel of Earth's seas, Jimmy,
that must be spawned in the depths of the
great cold ocean, and swim slowly back to
the bright highlands and the shining rivers
of Earth. Young eels do not resemble their
parents, Jimmy. They're white and thin and
transparent and have to struggle hard to
survive and grow up.

"Jimmy, you were planted here by your
parents to grow wise and strong. Deep in
your mind you knew that we had come to
seek you out, for we are all born human,
and are bound one to another by that knowledge,
and that secret trust.

"You knew that we would watch over
you and see that no harm would come to
you. You called out to us, Jimmy, with all
the strength of your mind and heart. Your
Uncle Al was in danger and you sensed our
nearness.

"It was partly your knowledge that saved
him, Jimmy. But it took courage too, and
a willingness to believe that you were more
than human, and armed with the great
proud strength and wisdom of the Shining
Ones."

The voice grew suddenly gentle, like a
caressing wind.

"You're not old enough yet to go home,
Jimmy! Or wise enough. We'll take you
home when the time comes. Now we just
want to have a talk with Uncle Al, to find
out how you're getting along."

Jimmy looked down into the river and
then up into the sky. Deep down under
the dark, swirling water he could see life
taking shape in a thousand forms. Caddis
flies building bright, shining new nests, and
dragonfly nymphs crawling up toward the
sunlight, and pollywogs growing sturdy
hindlimbs to conquer the land.

But there were cottonmouths down there
too, with death behind their fangs, and no
love for the life that was crawling upward.
When Jimmy looked up into the sky he
could see all the blazing stars of space, with
cottonmouths on every planet of every sun.

Uncle Al was like a bright caddis fly
building a fine new nest, thatched with
kindness, denying himself bright little
Mardi Gras pleasures so that Jimmy could
go to school and grow wiser than Uncle
Al.

"That's right, Jimmy. You're growing
up—we can see that! Uncle Al says he told
you to bide from the cottonmouths. But
you were ready to give your life for your
sister and Uncle Al."

p. 36

"Shucks, it was nothing!" Jimmy heard
himself protesting.

"Uncle Al doesn't think so. And neither
do we!"

A long silence while the river mists
seemed to weave a bright cocoon of
radiance about Jimmy clinging to the bank,
and the great circular disk that had swallowed
up Uncle Al.

Then the voices began again. "No reason
why Uncle Al shouldn't have a little
fun out of life, Jimmy. Gold's easy to make
and we'll make some right now. A big
lump of gold in Uncle Al's hand won't
hurt him in any way."

"Whenever he gets any spending money
he gives it away!" Jimmy gulped.

"I know, Jimmy. But he'll listen to you.
Tell him you want to go to New Orleans,
too!"

Jimmy looked up quickly then. In his
heart was something of the wonder he'd
felt when he'd seen his first riverboat and
waited for he knew not what. Something of
the wonder that must have come to men
seeking magic in the sky, the rainmakers
of ancient tribes and of days long vanished.

Only to Jimmy the wonder came now
with a white burst of remembrance and
recognition.

It was as though he could sense something
of himself in the two towering
spheres that rose straight up out of the
water behind the disk. Still and white and
beautiful they were, like bubbles floating
on a rainbow sea with all the stars of space
behind them.

Staring at them, Jimmy saw himself as
he would be, and knew himself for what
he was. It was not a glory to be long endured.

"Now you must forget again, Jimmy!
Forget as Uncle Al will forget—until we
come for you. Be a little shantyboat boy!
You are safe on the wide bosom of the
Father of Waters. Your parents planted
you in a rich and kindly loam, and in all
the finite universes you will find no cosier
nook, for life flows here with a diversity
that is infinite and—Pigtail! She gets on
your nerves at times, doesn't she, Jimmy?"

"She sure does," Jimmy admitted.

"Be patient with her, Jimmy. She's the
only human sister you'll ever have on
Earth."

"I—I'll try!" Jimmy muttered.

Uncle Al and Pigtail came out of the
disk in an amazingly simple way. They
just seemed to float out, in the glimmering
web. Then, suddenly, there wasn't any disk
on the river at all—just a dull flickering
where the sky had opened like a great,
blazing furnace to swallow it up.

"I was just swimmin' along with Pigtail,
not worryin' too much, 'cause there's no
sense in worryin' when death is starin' you
in the face," Uncle Al muttered, a few
minutes later.

Uncle Al sat on the riverbank beside
Jimmy, staring down at his palm, his vision
misted a little by a furious blinking.

"It's gold, Uncle Al!" Pigtail shrilled.
"A big lump of solid gold—"

"I just felt my hand get heavy and there
it was, young fella, nestling there in my
palm!"

Jimmy didn't seem to be able to say anything.

"High school books don't cost no more
than grammar school books, young fella,"
Uncle Al said, his face a sudden shining.
"Next winter you'll be a-goin' to high
school, sure as I'm a-sittin' here!"

For a moment the sunlight seemed to
blaze so brightly about Uncle Al that Jimmy
couldn't even see the holes in his socks.

Then Uncle Al made a wry face. "Someday,
young fella, when your books are all
paid for, I'm gonna buy myself a brand
new store suit, and hie myself off to the
Mardi Gras. Ain't too old thataway to git
a little fun out of life, young fella!"