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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19102-h.zip b/19102-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..703aff7 --- /dev/null +++ b/19102-h.zip diff --git a/19102-h/19102-h.htm b/19102-h/19102-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fa1bae --- /dev/null +++ b/19102-h/19102-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1228 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dearest, by H. Beam Piper + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; } + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .tr { text-align:left; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; + background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: solid black 1px;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dearest, by Henry Beam Piper + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Dearest + +Author: Henry Beam Piper + +Illustrator: Vincent Napoli + +Release Date: August 22, 2006 [EBook #19102] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEAREST *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Geetu Melwani, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<p class="tr"> <b>Transcriber's notes.</b><br /> +<br />This etext was produced from Weird Tales March 1951. Extensive research +did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.</p> + + + + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 531px;"> +<img src="images/fig.jpg" width="531" height="700" alt=""Get him to tell you about this invisible playmate of his."" /></div> + +<h1>Dearest</h1> + +<h5>BY</h5> + +<h2>H. Beam Piper</h2> +<p> </p> + +<h3>Heading by Vincent Napoli</h3> + +<p> </p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<p>Colonel Ashley Hampton chewed his cigar and forced himself to relax, his +glance slowly traversing the room, lingering on the mosaic of +book-spines in the tall cases, the sunlight splashed on the faded pastel +colors of the carpet, the soft-tinted autumn landscape outside the +French windows, the trophies of Indian and Filipino and German weapons +on the walls. He could easily feign relaxation here in the library of +"Greyrock," as long as he looked only at these familiar inanimate +things and avoided the five people gathered in the room with him, for +all of them were enemies.</p> + +<p>There was his nephew, Stephen Hampton, greying at the temples but +youthfully dressed in sports-clothes, leaning with obvious if slightly +premature proprietorship against the fireplace, a whiskey-and-soda in +his hand. There was Myra, Stephen's smart, sophisticated-looking blonde +wife, reclining in a chair beside the desk. For these two, he felt an +implacable hatred. The others were no less enemies, perhaps more +dangerous enemies, but they were only the tools of Stephen and Myra. For +instance, T. Barnwell Powell, prim and self-satisfied, sitting on the +edge of his chair and clutching the briefcase on his lap as though it +were a restless pet which might attempt to escape. He was an honest man, +as lawyers went; painfully ethical. No doubt he had convinced himself +that his clients were acting from the noblest and most disinterested +motives. And Doctor Alexis Vehrner, with his Vandyke beard and his +Viennese accent as phony as a Soviet-controlled election, who had +preempted the chair at Colonel Hampton's desk. That rankled the old +soldier, but Doctor Vehrner would want to assume the position which +would give him appearance of commanding the situation, and he probably +felt that Colonel Hampton was no longer the master of "Greyrock." The +fifth, a Neanderthal type in a white jacket, was Doctor Vehrner's +attendant and bodyguard; he could be ignored, like an enlisted man +unthinkingly obeying the orders of a superior.</p> + +<p>"But you are not cooperating, Colonel Hampton," the psychiatrist +complained. "How can I help you if you do not cooperate?"</p> + +<p>Colonel Hampton took the cigar from his mouth. His white mustache, +tinged a faint yellow by habitual smoking, twitched angrily.</p> + +<p>"Oh; you call it helping me, do you?" he asked acidly.</p> + +<p>"But why else am I here?" the doctor parried.</p> + +<p>"You're here because my loving nephew and his charming wife can't wait +to see me buried in the family cemetery; they want to bury me alive in +that private Bedlam of yours," Colonel Hampton replied.</p> + +<p>"See!" Myra Hampton turned to the psychiatrist. "We are <i>persecuting</i> +him! We are all <i>envious</i> of him! We are <i>plotting against</i> him!"</p> + +<p>"Of course; this sullen and suspicious silence is a common paranoid +symptom; one often finds such symptoms in cases of senile dementia," +Doctor Vehrner agreed.</p> + +<p>Colonel Hampton snorted contemptuously. Senile dementia! Well, he must +have been senile and demented, to bring this pair of snakes into his +home, because he felt an obligation to his dead brother's memory. And +he'd willed "Greyrock," and his money, and everything, to Stephen. Only +Myra couldn't wait till he died; she'd Lady-Macbethed her husband into +this insanity accusation.</p> + +<p>"... however, I must fully satisfy myself, before I can sign the +commitment," the psychiatrist was saying. "After all, the patient is a +man of advanced age. Seventy-eight, to be exact."</p> + +<p>Seventy-eight; almost eighty. Colonel Hampton could hardly realize that +he had been around so long. He had been a little boy, playing soldiers. +He had been a young man, breaking the family tradition of Harvard and +wangling an appointment to West Point. He had been a new second +lieutenant at a little post in Wyoming, in the last dying flicker of the +Indian Wars. He had been a first lieutenant, trying to make soldiers of +militiamen and hoping for orders to Cuba before the Spaniards gave up. +He had been the hard-bitten captain of a hard-bitten company, fighting +Moros in the jungles of Mindanao. Then, through the early years of the +Twentieth Century, after his father's death, he had been that <i>rara +avis</i> in the American service, a really wealthy professional officer. He +had played polo, and served a turn as military attache at the Paris +embassy. He had commanded a regiment in France in 1918, and in the +post-war years, had rounded out his service in command of a regiment of +Negro cavalry, before retiring to "Greyrock." Too old for active +service, or even a desk at the Pentagon, he had drilled a Home Guard +company of 4-Fs and boys and paunchy middle-agers through the Second +World War. Then he had been an old man, sitting alone in the sunlight +... until a wonderful thing had happened.</p> + +<p>"Get him to tell you about this invisible playmate of his," Stephen +suggested. "If that won't satisfy you, I don't know what will."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It had begun a year ago last June. He had been sitting on a bench on the +east lawn, watching a kitten playing with a crumpled bit of paper on the +walk, circling warily around it as though it were some living prey, +stalking cautiously, pouncing and striking the paper ball with a paw and +then pursuing it madly. The kitten, whose name was Smokeball, was a +friend of his; soon she would tire of her game and jump up beside him to +be petted.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly, he seemed to hear a girl's voice beside him:</p> + +<p>"Oh, what a darling little cat! What's its name?"</p> + +<p>"Smokeball," he said, without thinking. "She's about the color of a +shrapnel-burst...." Then he stopped short, looking about. There was +nobody in sight, and he realized that the voice had been inside his head +rather than in his ear.</p> + +<p>"What the devil?" he asked himself. "Am I going nuts?"</p> + +<p>There was a happy little laugh inside of him, like bubbles rising in a +glass of champagne.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; I'm really here," the voice, inaudible but mentally present, +assured him. "You can't see me, or touch me, or even really hear me, but +I'm not something you just imagined. I'm just as real as ... as +Smokeball, there. Only I'm a different kind of reality. Watch."</p> + +<p>The voice stopped, and something that had seemed to be close to him left +him. Immediately, the kitten stopped playing with the crumpled paper and +cocked her head to one side, staring fixedly as at something above her. +He'd seen cats do that before—stare wide-eyed and entranced, as though +at something wonderful which was hidden from human eyes. Then, still +looking up and to the side, Smokeball trotted over and jumped onto his +lap, but even as he stroked her, she was looking at an invisible +something beside him. At the same time, he had a warm and pleasant +feeling, as of a happy and affectionate presence near him.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, slowly and judicially. "That's not just my imagination. +But who—or what—are you?"</p> + +<p>"I'm.... Oh, I don't know how to think it so that you'll understand." +The voice inside his head seemed baffled, like a physicist trying to +explain atomic energy to a Hottentot. "I'm not material. If you can +imagine a mind that doesn't need a brain to think with.... Oh, I can't +explain it now! But when I'm talking to you, like this, I'm really +thinking inside your brain, along with your own mind, and you hear the +words without there being any sound. And you just don't know any words +that would express it."</p> + +<p>He had never thought much, one way or another, about spiritualism. There +had been old people, when he had been a boy, who had told stories of +ghosts and apparitions, with the firmest conviction that they were true. +And there had been an Irishman, in his old company in the Philippines, +who swore that the ghost of a dead comrade walked post with him when he +was on guard.</p> + +<p>"Are you a spirit?" he asked. "I mean, somebody who once lived in a +body, like me?"</p> + +<p>"N-no." The voice inside him seemed doubtful. "That is, I don't think +so. I know about spirits; they're all around, everywhere. But I don't +think I'm one. At least, I've always been like I am now, as long as I +can remember. Most spirits don't seem to sense me. I can't reach most +living people, either; their minds are closed to me, or they have such +disgusting minds I can't bear to touch them. Children are open to me, +but when they tell their parents about me, they are laughed at, or +punished for lying, and then they close up against me. You're the first +grown-up person I've been able to reach for a long time."</p> + +<p>"Probably getting into my second childhood," Colonel Hampton grunted.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you mustn't be ashamed of that!" the invisible entity told him. +"That's the beginning of real wisdom—becoming childlike again. One of +your religious teachers said something like that, long ago, and a long +time before that, there was a Chinaman whom people called Venerable +Child, because his wisdom had turned back again to a child's +simplicity."</p> + +<p>"That was Lao Tze," Colonel Hampton said, a little surprised. "Don't +tell me you've been around that long."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I have! Longer than that; oh, for very long." And yet the voice +he seemed to be hearing was the voice of a young girl. "You don't mind +my coming to talk to you?" it continued. "I get so lonely, so dreadfully +lonely, you see."</p> + +<p>"Urmh! So do I," Colonel Hampton admitted. "I'm probably going bats, but +what the hell? It's a nice way to go bats, I'll say that.... Stick +around; whoever you are, and let's get acquainted. I sort of like you."</p> + +<p>A feeling of warmth suffused him, as though he had been hugged by +someone young and happy and loving.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm glad. I like you, too; you're nice!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"Yes, of course." Doctor Vehrner nodded sagely. "That is a schizoid +tendency; the flight from reality into a dream-world peopled by +creatures of the imagination. You understand, there is usually a mixture +of psychotic conditions, in cases like this. We will say that this case +begins with simple senile dementia—physical brain degeneration, a +result of advanced age. Then the paranoid symptoms appear; he imagines +himself surrounded by envious enemies, who are conspiring against him. +The patient then withdraws into himself, and in his self-imposed +isolation, he conjures up imaginary companionship. I have no doubt...."</p> + +<p>In the beginning, he had suspected that this unseen visitor was no more +than a figment of his own lonely imagination, but as the days passed, +this suspicion vanished. Whatever this entity might be, an entity it +was, entirely distinct from his own conscious or subconscious mind.</p> + +<p>At first she—he had early come to think of the being as feminine—had +seemed timid, fearful lest her intrusions into his mind prove a +nuisance. It took some time for him to assure her that she was always +welcome. With time, too, his impression of her grew stronger and more +concrete. He found that he was able to visualize her, as he might +visualize something remembered, or conceived of in imagination—a lovely +young girl, slender and clothed in something loose and filmy, with +flowers in her honey-colored hair, and clear blue eyes, a pert, cheerful +face, a wide, smiling mouth and an impudently up-tilted nose. He +realized that this image was merely a sort of allegorical +representation, his own private object-abstraction from a reality which +his senses could never picture as it existed.</p> + +<p>It was about this time that he had begun to call her Dearest. She had +given him no name, and seemed quite satisfied with that one.</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking," she said, "I ought to have a name for you, too. Do +you mind if I call you Popsy?"</p> + +<p>"Huh?" He had been really startled at that. If he needed any further +proof of Dearest's independent existence, that was it. Never, in the +uttermost depths of his subconscious, would he have been likely to label +himself Popsy. "Know what they used to call me in the Army?" he asked. +"Slaughterhouse Hampton. They claimed I needed a truckload of sawdust to +follow me around and cover up the blood." He chuckled. "Nobody but you +would think of calling me Popsy."</p> + +<p>There was a price, he found, that he must pay for Dearest's +companionship—the price of eternal vigilance. He found that he was +acquiring the habit of opening doors and then needlessly standing aside +to allow her to precede him. And, although she insisted that he need not +speak aloud to her, that she could understand any thought which he +directed to her, he could not help actually pronouncing the words, if +only in a faint whisper. He was glad that he had learned, before the end +of his plebe year at West Point, to speak without moving his lips.</p> + +<p>Besides himself and the kitten, Smokeball, there was one other at +"Greyrock" who was aware, if only faintly, of Dearest's presence. That +was old Sergeant Williamson, the Colonel's Negro servant, a retired +first sergeant from the regiment he had last commanded. With increasing +frequency, he would notice the old Negro pause in his work, as though +trying to identify something too subtle for his senses, and then shake +his head in bewilderment.</p> + +<p>One afternoon in early October—just about a year ago—he had been +reclining in a chair on the west veranda, smoking a cigar and trying to +re-create, for his companion, a mental picture of an Indian camp as he +had seen it in Wyoming in the middle '90's, when Sergeant Williamson +came out from the house, carrying a pair of the Colonel's field-boots +and a polishing-kit. Unaware of the Colonel's presence, he set down his +burden, squatted on the floor and began polishing the boots, humming +softly to himself. Then he must have caught a whiff of the Colonel's +cigar. Raising his head, he saw the Colonel, and made as though to pick +up the boots and polishing equipment.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right, Sergeant," the Colonel told him. "Carry on with +what you're doing. There's room enough for both of us here."</p> + +<p>"Yessuh; thank yo', suh." The old ex-sergeant resumed his soft humming, +keeping time with the brush in his hand.</p> + +<p>"You know, Popsy, I think he knows I'm here," Dearest said. "Nothing +definite, of course; he just feels there's something here that he can't +see."</p> + +<p>"I wonder. I've noticed something like that. Funny, he doesn't seem to +mind, either. Colored people are usually scary about ghosts and spirits +and the like.... I'm going to ask him." He raised his voice. "Sergeant, +do you seem to notice anything peculiar around here, lately?"</p> + +<p>The repetitious little two-tone melody broke off short. The +soldier-servant lifted his face and looked into the Colonel's. His brow +wrinkled, as though he were trying to express a thought for which he had +no words.</p> + +<p>"Yo' notice dat, too, suh?" he asked. "Why, yessuh, Cunnel; Ah don' know +'zackly how t' say hit, but dey is som'n, at dat. Hit seems like ... +like a kinda ... a kinda <i>blessedness</i>." He chuckled. "Dat's hit, +Cunnel; dey's a blessedness. Wondeh iffen Ah's gittin' r'ligion, now?"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"Well, all this is very interesting, I'm sure, Doctor," T. Barnwell +Powell was saying, polishing his glasses on a piece of tissue and +keeping one elbow on his briefcase at the same time. "But really, it's +not getting us anywhere, so to say. You know, we must have that +commitment signed by you. Now, is it or is it not your opinion that this +man is of unsound mind?"</p> + +<p>"Now, have patience, Mr. Powell," the psychiatrist soothed him. "You +must admit that as long as this gentleman refuses to talk, I cannot be +said to have interviewed him."</p> + +<p>"What if he won't talk?" Stephen Hampton burst out. "We've told you +about his behavior; how he sits for hours mumbling to this imaginary +person he thinks is with him, and how he always steps aside when he +opens a door, to let somebody who isn't there go through ahead of him, +and how.... Oh, hell, what's the use? If he were in his right mind, he'd +speak up and try to prove it, wouldn't he? What do you say, Myra?"</p> + +<p>Myra was silent, and Colonel Hampton found himself watching her with +interest. Her mouth had twisted into a wry grimace, and she was +clutching the arms of her chair until her knuckles whitened. She seemed +to be in some intense pain. Colonel Hampton hoped she were; preferably +with something slightly fatal.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Sergeant Williamson's suspicion that he might be getting religion became +a reality, for a time, that winter, after The Miracle.</p> + +<p>It had been a blustery day in mid-January, with a high wind driving +swirls of snow across the fields, and Colonel Hampton, fretting indoors +for several days, decided to go out and fill his lungs with fresh air. +Bundled warmly, swinging his blackthorn cane, he had set out, +accompanied by Dearest, to tramp cross-country to the village, three +miles from "Greyrock." They had enjoyed the walk through the white +wind-swept desolation, the old man and his invisible companion, until +the accident had happened.</p> + +<p>A sheet of glassy ice had lain treacherously hidden under a skift of +snow; when he stepped upon it, his feet shot from under him, the stick +flew from his hand, and he went down. When he tried to rise, he found +that he could not. Dearest had been almost frantic.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Popsy, you must get up!" she cried. "You'll freeze if you don't. +Come on, Popsy; try again!"</p> + +<p>He tried, in vain. His old body would not obey his will.</p> + +<p>"It's no use, Dearest; I can't. Maybe it's just as well," he said. +"Freezing's an easy death, and you say people live on as spirits, after +they die. Maybe we can always be together, now."</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I don't want you to die yet, Popsy. I never was able to +get through to a spirit, and I'm afraid.... Wait! Can you crawl a +little? Enough to get over under those young pines?"</p> + +<p>"I think so." His left leg was numb, and he believed that it was broken. +"I can try."</p> + +<p>He managed to roll onto his back, with his head toward the clump of pine +seedlings. Using both hands and his right heel, he was able to propel +himself slowly through the snow until he was out of the worst of the +wind.</p> + +<p>"That's good; now try to cover yourself," Dearest advised. "Put your +hands in your coat pockets. And wait here; I'll try to get help."</p> + +<p>Then she left him. For what seemed a long time, he lay motionless in the +scant protection of the young pines, suffering miserably. He began to +grow drowsy. As soon as he realized what was happening, he was +frightened, and the fright pulled him awake again. Soon he felt himself +drowsing again. By shifting his position, he caused a jab of pain from +his broken leg, which brought him back to wakefulness. Then the deadly +drowsiness returned.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>This time, he was wakened by a sharp voice, mingled with a throbbing +sound that seemed part of a dream of the cannonading in the Argonne.</p> + +<p>"Dah! Look-a dah!" It was, he realized, Sergeant Williamson's voice. +"Gittin' soft in de haid, is Ah, yo' ol' wuthless no-'count?"</p> + +<p>He turned his face, to see the battered jeep from "Greyrock," driven by +Arthur, the stableman and gardener, with Sergeant Williamson beside him. +The older Negro jumped to the ground and ran toward him. At the same +time, he felt Dearest with him again.</p> + +<p>"We made it, Popsy! We made it!" she was exulting. "I was afraid I'd +never make him understand, but I did. And you should have seen him bully +that other man into driving the jeep. Are you all right, Popsy?"</p> + +<p>"Is yo' all right, Cunnel?" Sergeant Williamson was asking.</p> + +<p>"My leg's broken, I think, but outside of that I'm all right," he +answered both of them. "How did you happen to find me, Sergeant?"</p> + +<p>The old Negro soldier rolled his eyes upward. "Cunnel, hit war a mi'acle +of de blessed Lawd!" he replied, solemnly. "An angel of de Lawd done +appeahed unto me." He shook his head slowly. "Ah's a sinful man, Cunnel; +Ah couldn't see de angel face to face, but de glory of de angel was +befoh me, an' guided me."</p> + +<p>They used his cane and a broken-off bough to splint the leg; they +wrapped him in a horse-blanket and hauled him back to "Greyrock" and put +him to bed, with Dearest clinging solicitously to him. The fractured leg +knit slowly, though the physician was amazed at the speed with which, +considering his age, he made recovery, and with his unfailing +cheerfulness. He did not know, of course, that he was being assisted by +an invisible nurse. For all that, however, the leaves on the oaks around +"Greyrock" were green again before Colonel Hampton could leave his bed +and hobble about the house on a cane.</p> + +<p>Arthur, the young Negro who had driven the jeep, had become one of the +most solid pillars of the little A.M.E. church beyond the village, as a +result. Sergeant Williamson had also become an attendant at church for a +while, and then stopped. Without being able to define, or spell, or even +pronounce the term, Sergeant Williamson was a strict pragmatist. Most +Africans are, even five generations removed from the slave-ship that +brought their forefathers from the Dark Continent. And Sergeant +Williamson could not find the blessedness at the church. Instead, it +seemed to center about the room where his employer and former regiment +commander lay. That, to his mind, was quite reasonable. If an Angel of +the Lord was going to tarry upon earth, the celestial being would +naturally prefer the society of a retired U.S.A. colonel to that of a +passel of triflin', no-'counts at an ol' clapboard church house. Be that +as it may, he could always find the blessedness in Colonel Hampton's +room, and sometimes, when the Colonel would be asleep, the blessedness +would follow him out and linger with him for a while.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Colonel Hampton wondered, anxiously, where Dearest was, now. He had not +felt her presence since his nephew had brought his lawyer and the +psychiatrist into the house. He wondered if she had voluntarily +separated herself from him for fear he might give her some sign of +recognition that these harpies would fasten upon as an evidence of +unsound mind. He could not believe that she had deserted him entirely, +now when he needed her most....</p> + +<p>"Well, what can I do?" Doctor Vehrner was complaining. "You bring me +here to interview him, and he just sits there and does nothing.... Will +you consent to my giving him an injection of sodium pentathol?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know, now," T. Barnwell Powell objected. "I've heard of +that drug—one of the so-called 'truth-serum' drugs. I doubt if +testimony taken under its influence would be admissible in a court...."</p> + +<p>"This is not a court, Mr. Powell," the doctor explained patiently. "And +I am not taking testimony; I am making a diagnosis. Pentathol is a +recognized diagnostic agent."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead," Stephen Hampton said. "Anything to get this over with.... +You agree, Myra?"</p> + +<p>Myra said nothing. She simply sat, with staring eyes, and clutched the +arms of her chair as though to keep from slipping into some dreadful +abyss. Once a low moan escaped from her lips.</p> + +<p>"My wife is naturally overwrought by this painful business," Stephen +said. "I trust that you gentlemen will excuse her.... Hadn't you better +go and lie down somewhere, Myra?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head violently, moaning again. Both the doctor and the +attorney were looking at her curiously.</p> + +<p>"Well, I object to being drugged," Colonel Hampton said, rising. "And +what's more, I won't submit to it."</p> + +<p>"Albert!" Doctor Vehrner said sharply, nodding toward the Colonel. The +pithecanthropoid attendant in the white jacket hastened forward, pinned +his arms behind him and dragged him down into the chair. For an instant, +the old man tried to resist, then, realizing the futility and undignity +of struggling, subsided. The psychiatrist had taken a leather case from +his pocket and was selecting a hypodermic needle.</p> + +<p>Then Myra Hampton leaped to her feet, her face working hideously.</p> + +<p>"No! Stop! Stop!" she cried.</p> + +<p>Everybody looked at her in surprise, Colonel Hampton no less than the +others. Stephen Hampton called out her name sharply.</p> + +<p>"No! You shan't do this to me! You shan't! You're torturing me! you are +all devils!" she screamed. "Devils! <i>Devils!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Myra!" her husband barked, stepping forward.</p> + +<p>With a twist, she eluded him, dashing around the desk and pulling open a +drawer.</p> + +<p>For an instant, she fumbled inside it, and when she brought her hand up, +she had Colonel Hampton's .45 automatic in it. She drew back the slide +and released it, loading the chamber.</p> + +<p>Doctor Vehrner, the hypodermic in his hand, turned. Stephen Hampton +sprang at her, dropping his drink. And Albert, the prognathous +attendant, released Colonel Hampton and leaped at the woman with the +pistol, with the unthinking promptness of a dog whose master is in +danger.</p> + +<p>Stephen Hampton was the closest to her; she shot him first, point-blank +in the chest. The heavy bullet knocked him backward against a small +table; he and it fell over together. While he was falling, the woman +turned, dipped the muzzle of her pistol slightly and fired again; Doctor +Vehrner's leg gave way under him and he went down, the hypodermic flying +from his hand and landing at Colonel Hampton's feet. At the same time, +the attendant, Albert, was almost upon her. Quickly, she reversed the +heavy Colt, pressed the muzzle against her heart, and fired a third +shot.</p> + +<p>T. Barnwell Powell had let the briefcase slip to the floor; he was +staring, slack-jawed, at the tableau of violence which had been enacted +before him. The attendant, having reached Myra, was looking down at her +stupidly. Then he stooped, and straightened.</p> + +<p>"She's dead!" he said, unbelievingly.</p> + +<p>Colonel Hampton rose, putting his heel on the hypodermic and crushing +it.</p> + +<p>"Of course she's dead!" he barked. "You have any first-aid training? +Then look after these other people. Doctor Vehrner first; the other +man's unconscious; he'll wait."</p> + +<p>"No; look after the other man first," Doctor Vehrner said.</p> + +<p>Albert gaped back and forth between them.</p> + +<p>"Goddammit, you heard me!" Colonel Hampton roared. It was Slaughterhouse +Hampton, whose service-ribbons started with the Indian campaigns, +speaking; an officer who never for an instant imagined that his orders +would not be obeyed. "Get a tourniquet on that man's leg, you!" He +moderated his voice and manner about half a degree and spoke to Vehrner. +"You are not the doctor, you're the patient, now. You'll do as you're +told. Don't you know that a man shot in the leg with a .45 can bleed to +death without half trying?"</p> + +<p>"Yo'-all do like de Cunnel says, 'r foh Gawd, yo'-all gwine wish yo' +had," Sergeant Williamson said, entering the room. "Git a move on."</p> + +<p>He stood just inside the doorway, holding a silver-banded malacca +walking-stick that he had taken from the hall-stand. He was grasping it +in his left hand, below the band, with the crook out, holding it at his +side as though it were a sword in a scabbard, which was exactly what +that walking-stick was. Albert looked at him, and then back at Colonel +Hampton. Then, whipping off his necktie, he went down on his knees +beside Doctor Vehrner, skillfully applying the improvised tourniquet, +twisting it tight with an eighteen-inch ruler the Colonel took from the +desk and handed to him.</p> + +<p>"Go get the first-aid kit, Sergeant," the Colonel said. "And hurry. Mr. +Stephen's been shot, too."</p> + +<p>"Yessuh!" Sergeant Williamson executed an automatic salute and +about-face and raced from the room. The Colonel picked up the telephone +on the desk.</p> + +<p>The County Hospital was three miles from "Greyrock"; the State Police +substation a good five. He dialed the State Police number first.</p> + +<p>"Sergeant Mallard? Colonel Hampton, at 'Greyrock.' We've had a little +trouble here. My nephew's wife just went <i>juramentado</i> with one of my +pistols, shot and wounded her husband and another man, and then shot and +killed herself.... Yes, indeed it is, Sergeant. I wish you'd send +somebody over here, as soon as possible, to take charge.... Oh, you +will? That's good.... No, it's all over, and nobody to arrest; just the +formalities.... Well, thank you, Sergeant."</p> + +<p>The old Negro cavalryman re-entered the room, without the sword-cane and +carrying a heavy leather box on a strap over his shoulder. He set this +on the floor and opened it, then knelt beside Stephen Hampton. The +Colonel was calling the hospital.</p> + +<p>"... gunshot wounds," he was saying. "One man in the chest and the other +in the leg, both with a .45 pistol. And you'd better send a doctor who's +qualified to write a death certificate; there was a woman killed, +too.... Yes, certainly; the State Police have been notified."</p> + +<p>"Dis ain' so bad, Cunnel," Sergeant Williamson raised his head to say. +"Ah's seen men shot wuss'n dis dat was ma'ked 'Duty' inside a month, +suh."</p> + +<p>Colonel Hampton nodded. "Well, get him fixed up as best you can, till +the ambulance gets here. And there's whiskey and glasses on that table, +over there. Better give Doctor Vehrner a drink." He looked at T. +Barnwell Powell, still frozen to his chair, aghast at the carnage around +him. "And give Mr. Powell a drink, too. He needs one."</p> + +<p>He did, indeed. Colonel Hampton could have used a drink, too; the +library looked like beef-day at an Indian agency. But he was still +Slaughterhouse Hampton, and consequently could not afford to exhibit +queasiness.</p> + +<p>It was then, for the first time since the business had started that he +felt the presence of Dearest.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Popsy, are you all right?" the voice inside his head was asking. +"It's all over, now; you won't have anything to worry about, any more. +But, oh, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do it!"</p> + +<p>"My God, Dearest!" He almost spoke aloud. "Did you make her do that?"</p> + +<p>"Popsy!" The voice in his mind was grief-stricken. "You.... You're +afraid of me! Never be afraid of Dearest, Popsy! And don't hate me for +this. It was the only thing I could do. If he'd given you that +injection, he could have made you tell him all about us, and then he'd +have been sure you were crazy, and they'd have taken you away. And they +treat people dreadfully at that place of his. You'd have been driven +really crazy before long, and then your mind would have been closed to +me, so that I wouldn't have been able to get through to you, any more. +What I did was the only thing I could do."</p> + +<p>"I don't hate you, Dearest," he replied, mentally. "And I don't blame +you. It was a little disconcerting, though, to discover the extent of +your capabilities.... How did you manage it?"</p> + +<p>"You remember how I made the Sergeant see an angel, the time you were +down in the snow?" Colonel Hampton nodded. "Well, I made her see ... +things that weren't angels," Dearest continued. "After I'd driven her +almost to distraction, I was able to get into her mind and take control +of her." Colonel Hampton felt a shudder inside of him. "That was +horrible; that woman had a mind like a sewer; I still feel dirty from +it! But I made her get the pistol—I knew where you kept it—and I knew +how to use it, even if she didn't. Remember when we were shooting +muskrats, that time, along the river?"</p> + +<p>"Uhuh. I wondered how she knew enough to unlock the action and load the +chamber." He turned and faced the others.</p> + +<p>Doctor Vehrner was sitting on the floor, with his back to the chair +Colonel Hampton had occupied, his injured leg stretched out in front of +him. Albert was hovering over him with mother-hen solicitude. T. +Barnwell Powell was finishing his whiskey and recovering a fraction of +his normal poise.</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose you gentlemen see, now, who was really crazy around +here?" Colonel Hampton addressed them bitingly. "That woman has been +dangerously close to the borderline of sanity for as long as she's been +here. I think my precious nephew trumped up this ridiculous insanity +complaint against me as much to discredit any testimony I might ever +give about his wife's mental condition as because he wanted to get +control of my estate. I also suppose that the tension she was under +here, this afternoon, was too much for her, and the scheme boomeranged +on its originators. Curious case of poetic justice, but I'm sorry you +had to be included in it, Doctor."</p> + +<p>"Attaboy, Popsy!" Dearest enthused. "Now you have them on the run; don't +give them a chance to re-form. You know what Patton always said—Grab +'em by the nose and kick 'em in the pants."</p> + +<p>Colonel Hampton re-lighted his cigar. "Patton only said 'pants' when he +was talking for publication," he told her, <i>sotto voce</i>. Then he noticed +the unsigned commitment paper lying on the desk. He picked it up, +crumpled it, and threw it into the fire.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you'll be needing that," he said. "You know, this isn't +the first time my loving nephew has expressed doubts as to my sanity." +He sat down in the chair at the desk, motioning to his servant to bring +him a drink. "And see to the other gentlemen's glasses, Sergeant," he +directed. "Back in 1929, Stephen thought I was crazy as a bedbug to sell +all my securities and take a paper loss, around the first of September. +After October 24th, I bought them back at about twenty per cent of what +I'd sold them for, after he'd lost his shirt." That, he knew, would have +an effect on T. Barnwell Powell. "And in December, 1944, I was just +plain nuts, selling all my munition shares and investing in a company +that manufactured baby-food. Stephen thought that Rundstedt's Ardennes +counter-offensive would put off the end of the war for another year and +a half!"</p> + +<p>"Baby-food, eh?" Doctor Vehrner chuckled.</p> + +<p>Colonel Hampton sipped his whiskey slowly, then puffed on his cigar. +"No, this pair were competent liars," he replied. "A good workmanlike +liar never makes up a story out of the whole cloth; he always takes a +fabric of truth and embroiders it to suit the situation." He smiled +grimly; that was an accurate description of his own tactical procedure +at the moment. "I hadn't intended this to come out, Doctor, but it +happens that I am a convinced believer in spiritualism. I suppose you'll +think that's a delusional belief, too?"</p> + +<p>"Well...." Doctor Vehrner pursed his lips. "I reject the idea of +survival after death, myself, but I think that people who believe in +such a theory are merely misevaluating evidence. It is definitely not, +in itself, a symptom of a psychotic condition."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Doctor." The Colonel gestured with his cigar. "Now, I'll +admit their statements about my appearing to be in conversation with +some invisible or imaginary being. That's all quite true. I'm convinced +that I'm in direct-voice communication with the spirit of a young girl +who was killed by Indians in this section about a hundred and +seventy-five years ago. At first, she communicated by automatic writing; +later we established direct-voice communication. Well, naturally, a man +in my position would dislike the label of spirit-medium; there +are too many invidious associations connected with the term. But there +it is. I trust both of you gentlemen will remember the ethics of your +respective professions and keep this confidential."</p> + +<p>"Oh, brother!" Dearest was fairly hugging him with delight. "When bigger +and better lies are told, we tell them, don't we, Popsy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and try and prove otherwise," Colonel Hampton replied, around his +cigar. Then he blew a jet of smoke and spoke to the men in front of him.</p> + +<p>"I intend paying for my nephew's hospitalization, and for his wife's +funeral," he said. "And then, I'm going to pack up all his personal +belongings, and all of hers; when he's discharged from the hospital, +I'll ship them wherever he wants them. But he won't be allowed to come +back here. After this business, I'm through with him."</p> + +<p>T. Barnwell Powell nodded primly. "I don't blame you, in the least, +Colonel," he said. "I think you have been abominably treated, and your +attitude is most generous." He was about to say something else, when the +doorbell tinkled and Sergeant Williamson went out into the hall. "Oh, +dear; I suppose that's the police, now," the lawyer said. He grimaced +like a small boy in a dentist's chair.</p> + +<p>Colonel Hampton felt Dearest leave him for a moment. Then she was back.</p> + +<p>"The ambulance." Then he caught a sparkle of mischief in her mood. +"Let's have some fun, Popsy! The doctor is a young man, with brown hair +and a mustache, horn-rimmed glasses, a blue tie and a tan-leather bag. +One of the ambulance men has red hair, and the other has a +mercurochrome-stain on his left sleeve. Tell them your spirit-guide told +you."</p> + +<p>The old soldier's tobacco-yellowed mustache twitched with amusement.</p> + +<p>"No, gentlemen, it is the ambulance," he corrected. "My spirit-control +says...." He relayed Dearest's descriptions to them.</p> + +<p>T. Barnwell Powell blinked. A speculative look came into the +psychiatrist's eyes; he was probably wishing the commitment paper hadn't +been destroyed.</p> + +<p>Then the doctor came bustling in, brown-mustached, blue-tied, +spectacled, carrying a tan bag, and behind him followed the two +ambulance men, one with a thatch of flaming red hair and the other with +a stain of mercurochrome on his jacket-sleeve.</p> + +<p>For an instant, the lawyer and the psychiatrist gaped at them. Then T. +Barnwell Powell put one hand to his mouth and made a small gibbering +sound, and Doctor Vehrner gave a faint squawk, and then both men +grabbed, simultaneously, for the whiskey bottle.</p> + +<p>The laughter of Dearest tinkled inaudibly through the rumbling mirth of +Colonel Hampton.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>THE END.</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><a name="note" id="note"><b>TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS CORRECTED</b></a></p> +<p>In the text: "... a man in my position would dislike the label of +spirit-medium;" the word "meduim" was corrected to "medium."</p> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dearest, by Henry Beam Piper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEAREST *** + +***** This file should be named 19102-h.htm or 19102-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/1/0/19102/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Geetu Melwani, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/19102-h/images/fig.jpg b/19102-h/images/fig.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9ed609a --- /dev/null +++ b/19102-h/images/fig.jpg diff --git a/19102.txt b/19102.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cfd8708 --- /dev/null +++ b/19102.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1169 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dearest, by Henry Beam Piper + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Dearest + +Author: Henry Beam Piper + +Illustrator: Vincent Napoli + +Release Date: August 22, 2006 [EBook #19102] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEAREST *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Geetu Melwani, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +This etext was produced from Weird Tales March 1951. Extensive research +did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was +renewed. + + + + +[Illustration: "Get him to tell you about this invisible playmate of +his."] + +Heading by Vincent Napoli + + + + + DEAREST + + BY + + H. BEAM PIPER + + +Colonel Ashley Hampton chewed his cigar and forced himself to relax, his +glance slowly traversing the room, lingering on the mosaic of +book-spines in the tall cases, the sunlight splashed on the faded pastel +colors of the carpet, the soft-tinted autumn landscape outside the +French windows, the trophies of Indian and Filipino and German weapons +on the walls. He could easily feign relaxation here in the library of +"Greyrock," as long as he looked only at these familiar inanimate +things and avoided the five people gathered in the room with him, for +all of them were enemies. + +There was his nephew, Stephen Hampton, greying at the temples but +youthfully dressed in sports-clothes, leaning with obvious if slightly +premature proprietorship against the fireplace, a whiskey-and-soda in +his hand. There was Myra, Stephen's smart, sophisticated-looking blonde +wife, reclining in a chair beside the desk. For these two, he felt an +implacable hatred. The others were no less enemies, perhaps more +dangerous enemies, but they were only the tools of Stephen and Myra. For +instance, T. Barnwell Powell, prim and self-satisfied, sitting on the +edge of his chair and clutching the briefcase on his lap as though it +were a restless pet which might attempt to escape. He was an honest man, +as lawyers went; painfully ethical. No doubt he had convinced himself +that his clients were acting from the noblest and most disinterested +motives. And Doctor Alexis Vehrner, with his Vandyke beard and his +Viennese accent as phony as a Soviet-controlled election, who had +preempted the chair at Colonel Hampton's desk. That rankled the old +soldier, but Doctor Vehrner would want to assume the position which +would give him appearance of commanding the situation, and he probably +felt that Colonel Hampton was no longer the master of "Greyrock." The +fifth, a Neanderthal type in a white jacket, was Doctor Vehrner's +attendant and bodyguard; he could be ignored, like an enlisted man +unthinkingly obeying the orders of a superior. + +"But you are not cooperating, Colonel Hampton," the psychiatrist +complained. "How can I help you if you do not cooperate?" + +Colonel Hampton took the cigar from his mouth. His white mustache, +tinged a faint yellow by habitual smoking, twitched angrily. + +"Oh; you call it helping me, do you?" he asked acidly. + +"But why else am I here?" the doctor parried. + +"You're here because my loving nephew and his charming wife can't wait +to see me buried in the family cemetery; they want to bury me alive in +that private Bedlam of yours," Colonel Hampton replied. + +"See!" Myra Hampton turned to the psychiatrist. "We are _persecuting_ +him! We are all _envious_ of him! We are _plotting against_ him!" + +"Of course; this sullen and suspicious silence is a common paranoid +symptom; one often finds such symptoms in cases of senile dementia," +Doctor Vehrner agreed. + +Colonel Hampton snorted contemptuously. Senile dementia! Well, he must +have been senile and demented, to bring this pair of snakes into his +home, because he felt an obligation to his dead brother's memory. And +he'd willed "Greyrock," and his money, and everything, to Stephen. Only +Myra couldn't wait till he died; she'd Lady-Macbethed her husband into +this insanity accusation. + +"... however, I must fully satisfy myself, before I can sign the +commitment," the psychiatrist was saying. "After all, the patient is a +man of advanced age. Seventy-eight, to be exact." + +Seventy-eight; almost eighty. Colonel Hampton could hardly realize that +he had been around so long. He had been a little boy, playing soldiers. +He had been a young man, breaking the family tradition of Harvard and +wangling an appointment to West Point. He had been a new second lieutenant +at a little post in Wyoming, in the last dying flicker of the Indian Wars. +He had been a first lieutenant, trying to make soldiers of militiamen and +hoping for orders to Cuba before the Spaniards gave up. He had been the +hard-bitten captain of a hard-bitten company, fighting Moros in the +jungles of Mindanao. Then, through the early years of the Twentieth +Century, after his father's death, he had been that _rara avis_ in the +American service, a really wealthy professional officer. He had played +polo, and served a turn as military attache at the Paris embassy. He had +commanded a regiment in France in 1918, and in the post-war years, had +rounded out his service in command of a regiment of Negro cavalry, before +retiring to "Greyrock." Too old for active service, or even a desk at the +Pentagon, he had drilled a Home Guard company of 4-Fs and boys and paunchy +middle-agers through the Second World War. Then he had been an old man, +sitting alone in the sunlight ... until a wonderful thing had happened. + +"Get him to tell you about this invisible playmate of his," Stephen +suggested. "If that won't satisfy you, I don't know what will." + + * * * * * + +It had begun a year ago last June. He had been sitting on a bench on the +east lawn, watching a kitten playing with a crumpled bit of paper on the +walk, circling warily around it as though it were some living prey, +stalking cautiously, pouncing and striking the paper ball with a paw and +then pursuing it madly. The kitten, whose name was Smokeball, was a +friend of his; soon she would tire of her game and jump up beside him to +be petted. + +Then suddenly, he seemed to hear a girl's voice beside him: + +"Oh, what a darling little cat! What's its name?" + +"Smokeball," he said, without thinking. "She's about the color of a +shrapnel-burst...." Then he stopped short, looking about. There was +nobody in sight, and he realized that the voice had been inside his head +rather than in his ear. + +"What the devil?" he asked himself. "Am I going nuts?" + +There was a happy little laugh inside of him, like bubbles rising in a +glass of champagne. + +"Oh, no; I'm really here," the voice, inaudible but mentally present, +assured him. "You can't see me, or touch me, or even really hear me, but +I'm not something you just imagined. I'm just as real as ... as +Smokeball, there. Only I'm a different kind of reality. Watch." + +The voice stopped, and something that had seemed to be close to him left +him. Immediately, the kitten stopped playing with the crumpled paper and +cocked her head to one side, staring fixedly as at something above her. +He'd seen cats do that before--stare wide-eyed and entranced, as though +at something wonderful which was hidden from human eyes. Then, still +looking up and to the side, Smokeball trotted over and jumped onto his +lap, but even as he stroked her, she was looking at an invisible +something beside him. At the same time, he had a warm and pleasant +feeling, as of a happy and affectionate presence near him. + +"No," he said, slowly and judicially. "That's not just my imagination. +But who--or what--are you?" + +"I'm.... Oh, I don't know how to think it so that you'll understand." +The voice inside his head seemed baffled, like a physicist trying to +explain atomic energy to a Hottentot. "I'm not material. If you can +imagine a mind that doesn't need a brain to think with.... Oh, I can't +explain it now! But when I'm talking to you, like this, I'm really +thinking inside your brain, along with your own mind, and you hear the +words without there being any sound. And you just don't know any words +that would express it." + +He had never thought much, one way or another, about spiritualism. There +had been old people, when he had been a boy, who had told stories of +ghosts and apparitions, with the firmest conviction that they were true. +And there had been an Irishman, in his old company in the Philippines, +who swore that the ghost of a dead comrade walked post with him when he +was on guard. + +"Are you a spirit?" he asked. "I mean, somebody who once lived in a +body, like me?" + +"N-no." The voice inside him seemed doubtful. "That is, I don't think +so. I know about spirits; they're all around, everywhere. But I don't +think I'm one. At least, I've always been like I am now, as long as I +can remember. Most spirits don't seem to sense me. I can't reach most +living people, either; their minds are closed to me, or they have such +disgusting minds I can't bear to touch them. Children are open to me, +but when they tell their parents about me, they are laughed at, or +punished for lying, and then they close up against me. You're the first +grown-up person I've been able to reach for a long time." + +"Probably getting into my second childhood," Colonel Hampton grunted. + +"Oh, but you mustn't be ashamed of that!" the invisible entity told him. +"That's the beginning of real wisdom--becoming childlike again. One of +your religious teachers said something like that, long ago, and a long +time before that, there was a Chinaman whom people called Venerable +Child, because his wisdom had turned back again to a child's +simplicity." + +"That was Lao Tze," Colonel Hampton said, a little surprised. "Don't +tell me you've been around that long." + +"Oh, but I have! Longer than that; oh, for very long." And yet the voice +he seemed to be hearing was the voice of a young girl. "You don't mind +my coming to talk to you?" it continued. "I get so lonely, so dreadfully +lonely, you see." + +"Urmh! So do I," Colonel Hampton admitted. "I'm probably going bats, but +what the hell? It's a nice way to go bats, I'll say that.... Stick +around; whoever you are, and let's get acquainted. I sort of like you." + +A feeling of warmth suffused him, as though he had been hugged by +someone young and happy and loving. + +"Oh, I'm glad. I like you, too; you're nice!" + + * * * * * + +"Yes, of course." Doctor Vehrner nodded sagely. "That is a schizoid +tendency; the flight from reality into a dream-world peopled by +creatures of the imagination. You understand, there is usually a mixture +of psychotic conditions, in cases like this. We will say that this case +begins with simple senile dementia--physical brain degeneration, a +result of advanced age. Then the paranoid symptoms appear; he imagines +himself surrounded by envious enemies, who are conspiring against him. +The patient then withdraws into himself, and in his self-imposed +isolation, he conjures up imaginary companionship. I have no doubt...." + +In the beginning, he had suspected that this unseen visitor was no more +than a figment of his own lonely imagination, but as the days passed, +this suspicion vanished. Whatever this entity might be, an entity it +was, entirely distinct from his own conscious or subconscious mind. + +At first she--he had early come to think of the being as feminine--had +seemed timid, fearful lest her intrusions into his mind prove a +nuisance. It took some time for him to assure her that she was always +welcome. With time, too, his impression of her grew stronger and more +concrete. He found that he was able to visualize her, as he might +visualize something remembered, or conceived of in imagination--a lovely +young girl, slender and clothed in something loose and filmy, with +flowers in her honey-colored hair, and clear blue eyes, a pert, cheerful +face, a wide, smiling mouth and an impudently up-tilted nose. He +realized that this image was merely a sort of allegorical +representation, his own private object-abstraction from a reality which +his senses could never picture as it existed. + +It was about this time that he had begun to call her Dearest. She had +given him no name, and seemed quite satisfied with that one. + +"I've been thinking," she said, "I ought to have a name for you, too. Do +you mind if I call you Popsy?" + +"Huh?" He had been really startled at that. If he needed any further +proof of Dearest's independent existence, that was it. Never, in the +uttermost depths of his subconscious, would he have been likely to label +himself Popsy. "Know what they used to call me in the Army?" he asked. +"Slaughterhouse Hampton. They claimed I needed a truckload of sawdust to +follow me around and cover up the blood." He chuckled. "Nobody but you +would think of calling me Popsy." + +There was a price, he found, that he must pay for Dearest's +companionship--the price of eternal vigilance. He found that he was +acquiring the habit of opening doors and then needlessly standing aside +to allow her to precede him. And, although she insisted that he need not +speak aloud to her, that she could understand any thought which he +directed to her, he could not help actually pronouncing the words, if +only in a faint whisper. He was glad that he had learned, before the end +of his plebe year at West Point, to speak without moving his lips. + +Besides himself and the kitten, Smokeball, there was one other at +"Greyrock" who was aware, if only faintly, of Dearest's presence. That +was old Sergeant Williamson, the Colonel's Negro servant, a retired +first sergeant from the regiment he had last commanded. With increasing +frequency, he would notice the old Negro pause in his work, as though +trying to identify something too subtle for his senses, and then shake +his head in bewilderment. + +One afternoon in early October--just about a year ago--he had been +reclining in a chair on the west veranda, smoking a cigar and trying to +re-create, for his companion, a mental picture of an Indian camp as he +had seen it in Wyoming in the middle '90's, when Sergeant Williamson +came out from the house, carrying a pair of the Colonel's field-boots +and a polishing-kit. Unaware of the Colonel's presence, he set down his +burden, squatted on the floor and began polishing the boots, humming +softly to himself. Then he must have caught a whiff of the Colonel's +cigar. Raising his head, he saw the Colonel, and made as though to pick +up the boots and polishing equipment. + +"Oh, that's all right, Sergeant," the Colonel told him. "Carry on with +what you're doing. There's room enough for both of us here." + +"Yessuh; thank yo', suh." The old ex-sergeant resumed his soft humming, +keeping time with the brush in his hand. + +"You know, Popsy, I think he knows I'm here," Dearest said. "Nothing +definite, of course; he just feels there's something here that he can't +see." + +"I wonder. I've noticed something like that. Funny, he doesn't seem to +mind, either. Colored people are usually scary about ghosts and spirits +and the like.... I'm going to ask him." He raised his voice. "Sergeant, +do you seem to notice anything peculiar around here, lately?" + +The repetitious little two-tone melody broke off short. The +soldier-servant lifted his face and looked into the Colonel's. His brow +wrinkled, as though he were trying to express a thought for which he had +no words. + +"Yo' notice dat, too, suh?" he asked. "Why, yessuh, Cunnel; Ah don' know +'zackly how t' say hit, but dey is som'n, at dat. Hit seems like ... +like a kinda ... a kinda _blessedness_." He chuckled. "Dat's hit, +Cunnel; dey's a blessedness. Wondeh iffen Ah's gittin' r'ligion, now?" + + * * * * * + +"Well, all this is very interesting, I'm sure, Doctor," T. Barnwell +Powell was saying, polishing his glasses on a piece of tissue and +keeping one elbow on his briefcase at the same time. "But really, it's +not getting us anywhere, so to say. You know, we must have that +commitment signed by you. Now, is it or is it not your opinion that this +man is of unsound mind?" + +"Now, have patience, Mr. Powell," the psychiatrist soothed him. "You +must admit that as long as this gentleman refuses to talk, I cannot be +said to have interviewed him." + +"What if he won't talk?" Stephen Hampton burst out. "We've told you +about his behavior; how he sits for hours mumbling to this imaginary +person he thinks is with him, and how he always steps aside when he +opens a door, to let somebody who isn't there go through ahead of him, +and how.... Oh, hell, what's the use? If he were in his right mind, he'd +speak up and try to prove it, wouldn't he? What do you say, Myra?" + +Myra was silent, and Colonel Hampton found himself watching her with +interest. Her mouth had twisted into a wry grimace, and she was +clutching the arms of her chair until her knuckles whitened. She seemed +to be in some intense pain. Colonel Hampton hoped she were; preferably +with something slightly fatal. + + * * * * * + +Sergeant Williamson's suspicion that he might be getting religion became +a reality, for a time, that winter, after The Miracle. + +It had been a blustery day in mid-January, with a high wind driving +swirls of snow across the fields, and Colonel Hampton, fretting indoors +for several days, decided to go out and fill his lungs with fresh air. +Bundled warmly, swinging his blackthorn cane, he had set out, +accompanied by Dearest, to tramp cross-country to the village, three +miles from "Greyrock." They had enjoyed the walk through the white +wind-swept desolation, the old man and his invisible companion, until +the accident had happened. + +A sheet of glassy ice had lain treacherously hidden under a skift of +snow; when he stepped upon it, his feet shot from under him, the stick +flew from his hand, and he went down. When he tried to rise, he found +that he could not. Dearest had been almost frantic. + +"Oh, Popsy, you must get up!" she cried. "You'll freeze if you don't. +Come on, Popsy; try again!" + +He tried, in vain. His old body would not obey his will. + +"It's no use, Dearest; I can't. Maybe it's just as well," he said. +"Freezing's an easy death, and you say people live on as spirits, after +they die. Maybe we can always be together, now." + +"I don't know. I don't want you to die yet, Popsy. I never was able to +get through to a spirit, and I'm afraid.... Wait! Can you crawl a +little? Enough to get over under those young pines?" + +"I think so." His left leg was numb, and he believed that it was broken. +"I can try." + +He managed to roll onto his back, with his head toward the clump of pine +seedlings. Using both hands and his right heel, he was able to propel +himself slowly through the snow until he was out of the worst of the +wind. + +"That's good; now try to cover yourself," Dearest advised. "Put your +hands in your coat pockets. And wait here; I'll try to get help." + +Then she left him. For what seemed a long time, he lay motionless in the +scant protection of the young pines, suffering miserably. He began to +grow drowsy. As soon as he realized what was happening, he was +frightened, and the fright pulled him awake again. Soon he felt himself +drowsing again. By shifting his position, he caused a jab of pain from +his broken leg, which brought him back to wakefulness. Then the deadly +drowsiness returned. + + * * * * * + +This time, he was wakened by a sharp voice, mingled with a throbbing +sound that seemed part of a dream of the cannonading in the Argonne. + +"Dah! Look-a dah!" It was, he realized, Sergeant Williamson's voice. +"Gittin' soft in de haid, is Ah, yo' ol' wuthless no-'count?" + +He turned his face, to see the battered jeep from "Greyrock," driven by +Arthur, the stableman and gardener, with Sergeant Williamson beside him. +The older Negro jumped to the ground and ran toward him. At the same +time, he felt Dearest with him again. + +"We made it, Popsy! We made it!" she was exulting. "I was afraid I'd +never make him understand, but I did. And you should have seen him bully +that other man into driving the jeep. Are you all right, Popsy?" + +"Is yo' all right, Cunnel?" Sergeant Williamson was asking. + +"My leg's broken, I think, but outside of that I'm all right," he +answered both of them. "How did you happen to find me, Sergeant?" + +The old Negro soldier rolled his eyes upward. "Cunnel, hit war a mi'acle +of de blessed Lawd!" he replied, solemnly. "An angel of de Lawd done +appeahed unto me." He shook his head slowly. "Ah's a sinful man, Cunnel; +Ah couldn't see de angel face to face, but de glory of de angel was +befoh me, an' guided me." + +They used his cane and a broken-off bough to splint the leg; they +wrapped him in a horse-blanket and hauled him back to "Greyrock" and put +him to bed, with Dearest clinging solicitously to him. The fractured leg +knit slowly, though the physician was amazed at the speed with which, +considering his age, he made recovery, and with his unfailing +cheerfulness. He did not know, of course, that he was being assisted by +an invisible nurse. For all that, however, the leaves on the oaks around +"Greyrock" were green again before Colonel Hampton could leave his bed +and hobble about the house on a cane. + +Arthur, the young Negro who had driven the jeep, had become one of the +most solid pillars of the little A.M.E. church beyond the village, as a +result. Sergeant Williamson had also become an attendant at church for a +while, and then stopped. Without being able to define, or spell, or even +pronounce the term, Sergeant Williamson was a strict pragmatist. Most +Africans are, even five generations removed from the slave-ship that +brought their forefathers from the Dark Continent. And Sergeant +Williamson could not find the blessedness at the church. Instead, it +seemed to center about the room where his employer and former regiment +commander lay. That, to his mind, was quite reasonable. If an Angel of +the Lord was going to tarry upon earth, the celestial being would +naturally prefer the society of a retired U.S.A. colonel to that of a +passel of triflin', no-'counts at an ol' clapboard church house. Be that +as it may, he could always find the blessedness in Colonel Hampton's +room, and sometimes, when the Colonel would be asleep, the blessedness +would follow him out and linger with him for a while. + + * * * * * + +Colonel Hampton wondered, anxiously, where Dearest was, now. He had not +felt her presence since his nephew had brought his lawyer and the +psychiatrist into the house. He wondered if she had voluntarily +separated herself from him for fear he might give her some sign of +recognition that these harpies would fasten upon as an evidence of +unsound mind. He could not believe that she had deserted him entirely, +now when he needed her most.... + +"Well, what can I do?" Doctor Vehrner was complaining. "You bring me +here to interview him, and he just sits there and does nothing.... Will +you consent to my giving him an injection of sodium pentathol?" + +"Well, I don't know, now," T. Barnwell Powell objected. "I've heard of +that drug--one of the so-called 'truth-serum' drugs. I doubt if +testimony taken under its influence would be admissible in a court...." + +"This is not a court, Mr. Powell," the doctor explained patiently. "And +I am not taking testimony; I am making a diagnosis. Pentathol is a +recognized diagnostic agent." + +"Go ahead," Stephen Hampton said. "Anything to get this over with.... +You agree, Myra?" + +Myra said nothing. She simply sat, with staring eyes, and clutched the +arms of her chair as though to keep from slipping into some dreadful +abyss. Once a low moan escaped from her lips. + +"My wife is naturally overwrought by this painful business," Stephen +said. "I trust that you gentlemen will excuse her.... Hadn't you better +go and lie down somewhere, Myra?" + +She shook her head violently, moaning again. Both the doctor and the +attorney were looking at her curiously. + +"Well, I object to being drugged," Colonel Hampton said, rising. "And +what's more, I won't submit to it." + +"Albert!" Doctor Vehrner said sharply, nodding toward the Colonel. The +pithecanthropoid attendant in the white jacket hastened forward, pinned +his arms behind him and dragged him down into the chair. For an instant, +the old man tried to resist, then, realizing the futility and undignity +of struggling, subsided. The psychiatrist had taken a leather case from +his pocket and was selecting a hypodermic needle. + +Then Myra Hampton leaped to her feet, her face working hideously. + +"No! Stop! Stop!" she cried. + +Everybody looked at her in surprise, Colonel Hampton no less than the +others. Stephen Hampton called out her name sharply. + +"No! You shan't do this to me! You shan't! You're torturing me! you are +all devils!" she screamed. "Devils! _Devils!_" + +"Myra!" her husband barked, stepping forward. + +With a twist, she eluded him, dashing around the desk and pulling open a +drawer. + +For an instant, she fumbled inside it, and when she brought her hand up, +she had Colonel Hampton's .45 automatic in it. She drew back the slide +and released it, loading the chamber. + +Doctor Vehrner, the hypodermic in his hand, turned. Stephen Hampton +sprang at her, dropping his drink. And Albert, the prognathous +attendant, released Colonel Hampton and leaped at the woman with the +pistol, with the unthinking promptness of a dog whose master is in +danger. + +Stephen Hampton was the closest to her; she shot him first, point-blank +in the chest. The heavy bullet knocked him backward against a small +table; he and it fell over together. While he was falling, the woman +turned, dipped the muzzle of her pistol slightly and fired again; Doctor +Vehrner's leg gave way under him and he went down, the hypodermic flying +from his hand and landing at Colonel Hampton's feet. At the same time, +the attendant, Albert, was almost upon her. Quickly, she reversed the +heavy Colt, pressed the muzzle against her heart, and fired a third +shot. + +T. Barnwell Powell had let the briefcase slip to the floor; he was +staring, slack-jawed, at the tableau of violence which had been enacted +before him. The attendant, having reached Myra, was looking down at her +stupidly. Then he stooped, and straightened. + +"She's dead!" he said, unbelievingly. + +Colonel Hampton rose, putting his heel on the hypodermic and crushing +it. + +"Of course she's dead!" he barked. "You have any first-aid training? +Then look after these other people. Doctor Vehrner first; the other +man's unconscious; he'll wait." + +"No; look after the other man first," Doctor Vehrner said. + +Albert gaped back and forth between them. + +"Goddammit, you heard me!" Colonel Hampton roared. It was Slaughterhouse +Hampton, whose service-ribbons started with the Indian campaigns, +speaking; an officer who never for an instant imagined that his orders +would not be obeyed. "Get a tourniquet on that man's leg, you!" He +moderated his voice and manner about half a degree and spoke to Vehrner. +"You are not the doctor, you're the patient, now. You'll do as you're +told. Don't you know that a man shot in the leg with a .45 can bleed to +death without half trying?" + +"Yo'-all do like de Cunnel says, 'r foh Gawd, yo'-all gwine wish yo' +had," Sergeant Williamson said, entering the room. "Git a move on." + +He stood just inside the doorway, holding a silver-banded malacca +walking-stick that he had taken from the hall-stand. He was grasping it +in his left hand, below the band, with the crook out, holding it at his +side as though it were a sword in a scabbard, which was exactly what +that walking-stick was. Albert looked at him, and then back at Colonel +Hampton. Then, whipping off his necktie, he went down on his knees +beside Doctor Vehrner, skillfully applying the improvised tourniquet, +twisting it tight with an eighteen-inch ruler the Colonel took from the +desk and handed to him. + +"Go get the first-aid kit, Sergeant," the Colonel said. "And hurry. Mr. +Stephen's been shot, too." + +"Yessuh!" Sergeant Williamson executed an automatic salute and +about-face and raced from the room. The Colonel picked up the telephone +on the desk. + +The County Hospital was three miles from "Greyrock"; the State Police +substation a good five. He dialed the State Police number first. + +"Sergeant Mallard? Colonel Hampton, at 'Greyrock.' We've had a little +trouble here. My nephew's wife just went _juramentado_ with one of my +pistols, shot and wounded her husband and another man, and then shot and +killed herself.... Yes, indeed it is, Sergeant. I wish you'd send +somebody over here, as soon as possible, to take charge.... Oh, you +will? That's good.... No, it's all over, and nobody to arrest; just the +formalities.... Well, thank you, Sergeant." + +The old Negro cavalryman re-entered the room, without the sword-cane and +carrying a heavy leather box on a strap over his shoulder. He set this +on the floor and opened it, then knelt beside Stephen Hampton. The +Colonel was calling the hospital. + +"... gunshot wounds," he was saying. "One man in the chest and the other +in the leg, both with a .45 pistol. And you'd better send a doctor who's +qualified to write a death certificate; there was a woman killed, +too.... Yes, certainly; the State Police have been notified." + +"Dis ain' so bad, Cunnel," Sergeant Williamson raised his head to say. +"Ah's seen men shot wuss'n dis dat was ma'ked 'Duty' inside a month, +suh." + +Colonel Hampton nodded. "Well, get him fixed up as best you can, till +the ambulance gets here. And there's whiskey and glasses on that table, +over there. Better give Doctor Vehrner a drink." He looked at T. +Barnwell Powell, still frozen to his chair, aghast at the carnage around +him. "And give Mr. Powell a drink, too. He needs one." + +He did, indeed. Colonel Hampton could have used a drink, too; the +library looked like beef-day at an Indian agency. But he was still +Slaughterhouse Hampton, and consequently could not afford to exhibit +queasiness. + +It was then, for the first time since the business had started that he +felt the presence of Dearest. + +"Oh, Popsy, are you all right?" the voice inside his head was asking. +"It's all over, now; you won't have anything to worry about, any more. +But, oh, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do it!" + +"My God, Dearest!" He almost spoke aloud. "Did you make her do that?" + +"Popsy!" The voice in his mind was grief-stricken. "You.... You're +afraid of me! Never be afraid of Dearest, Popsy! And don't hate me for +this. It was the only thing I could do. If he'd given you that +injection, he could have made you tell him all about us, and then he'd +have been sure you were crazy, and they'd have taken you away. And they +treat people dreadfully at that place of his. You'd have been driven +really crazy before long, and then your mind would have been closed to +me, so that I wouldn't have been able to get through to you, any more. +What I did was the only thing I could do." + +"I don't hate you, Dearest," he replied, mentally. "And I don't blame +you. It was a little disconcerting, though, to discover the extent of +your capabilities.... How did you manage it?" + +"You remember how I made the Sergeant see an angel, the time you were +down in the snow?" Colonel Hampton nodded. "Well, I made her see ... +things that weren't angels," Dearest continued. "After I'd driven her +almost to distraction, I was able to get into her mind and take control +of her." Colonel Hampton felt a shudder inside of him. "That was +horrible; that woman had a mind like a sewer; I still feel dirty from +it! But I made her get the pistol--I knew where you kept it--and I knew +how to use it, even if she didn't. Remember when we were shooting +muskrats, that time, along the river?" + +"Uhuh. I wondered how she knew enough to unlock the action and load the +chamber." He turned and faced the others. + +Doctor Vehrner was sitting on the floor, with his back to the chair +Colonel Hampton had occupied, his injured leg stretched out in front of +him. Albert was hovering over him with mother-hen solicitude. T. +Barnwell Powell was finishing his whiskey and recovering a fraction of +his normal poise. + +"Well, I suppose you gentlemen see, now, who was really crazy around +here?" Colonel Hampton addressed them bitingly. "That woman has been +dangerously close to the borderline of sanity for as long as she's been +here. I think my precious nephew trumped up this ridiculous insanity +complaint against me as much to discredit any testimony I might ever +give about his wife's mental condition as because he wanted to get +control of my estate. I also suppose that the tension she was under +here, this afternoon, was too much for her, and the scheme boomeranged +on its originators. Curious case of poetic justice, but I'm sorry you +had to be included in it, Doctor." + +"Attaboy, Popsy!" Dearest enthused. "Now you have them on the run; don't +give them a chance to re-form. You know what Patton always said--Grab +'em by the nose and kick 'em in the pants." + +Colonel Hampton re-lighted his cigar. "Patton only said 'pants' when he +was talking for publication," he told her, _sotto voce_. Then he noticed +the unsigned commitment paper lying on the desk. He picked it up, +crumpled it, and threw it into the fire. + +"I don't think you'll be needing that," he said. "You know, this isn't +the first time my loving nephew has expressed doubts as to my sanity." +He sat down in the chair at the desk, motioning to his servant to bring +him a drink. "And see to the other gentlemen's glasses, Sergeant," he +directed. "Back in 1929, Stephen thought I was crazy as a bedbug to sell +all my securities and take a paper loss, around the first of September. +After October 24th, I bought them back at about twenty per cent of what +I'd sold them for, after he'd lost his shirt." That, he knew, would have +an effect on T. Barnwell Powell. "And in December, 1944, I was just +plain nuts, selling all my munition shares and investing in a company +that manufactured baby-food. Stephen thought that Rundstedt's Ardennes +counter-offensive would put off the end of the war for another year and +a half!" + +"Baby-food, eh?" Doctor Vehrner chuckled. + +Colonel Hampton sipped his whiskey slowly, then puffed on his cigar. +"No, this pair were competent liars," he replied. "A good workmanlike +liar never makes up a story out of the whole cloth; he always takes a +fabric of truth and embroiders it to suit the situation." He smiled +grimly; that was an accurate description of his own tactical procedure +at the moment. "I hadn't intended this to come out, Doctor, but it +happens that I am a convinced believer in spiritualism. I suppose you'll +think that's a delusional belief, too?" + +"Well...." Doctor Vehrner pursed his lips. "I reject the idea of +survival after death, myself, but I think that people who believe in +such a theory are merely misevaluating evidence. It is definitely not, +in itself, a symptom of a psychotic condition." + +"Thank you, Doctor." The Colonel gestured with his cigar. "Now, I'll +admit their statements about my appearing to be in conversation with +some invisible or imaginary being. That's all quite true. I'm convinced +that I'm in direct-voice communication with the spirit of a young girl +who was killed by Indians in this section about a hundred and +seventy-five years ago. At first, she communicated by automatic writing; +later we established direct-voice communication. Well, naturally, a man +in my position would dislike the label of spirit-medium; there +are too many invidious associations connected with the term. But there +it is. I trust both of you gentlemen will remember the ethics of your +respective professions and keep this confidential." + +"Oh, brother!" Dearest was fairly hugging him with delight. "When bigger +and better lies are told, we tell them, don't we, Popsy?" + +"Yes, and try and prove otherwise," Colonel Hampton replied, around his +cigar. Then he blew a jet of smoke and spoke to the men in front of him. + +"I intend paying for my nephew's hospitalization, and for his wife's +funeral," he said. "And then, I'm going to pack up all his personal +belongings, and all of hers; when he's discharged from the hospital, +I'll ship them wherever he wants them. But he won't be allowed to come +back here. After this business, I'm through with him." + +T. Barnwell Powell nodded primly. "I don't blame you, in the least, +Colonel," he said. "I think you have been abominably treated, and your +attitude is most generous." He was about to say something else, when the +doorbell tinkled and Sergeant Williamson went out into the hall. "Oh, +dear; I suppose that's the police, now," the lawyer said. He grimaced +like a small boy in a dentist's chair. + +Colonel Hampton felt Dearest leave him for a moment. Then she was back. + +"The ambulance." Then he caught a sparkle of mischief in her mood. +"Let's have some fun, Popsy! The doctor is a young man, with brown hair +and a mustache, horn-rimmed glasses, a blue tie and a tan-leather bag. +One of the ambulance men has red hair, and the other has a +mercurochrome-stain on his left sleeve. Tell them your spirit-guide told +you." + +The old soldier's tobacco-yellowed mustache twitched with amusement. + +"No, gentlemen, it is the ambulance," he corrected. "My spirit-control +says...." He relayed Dearest's descriptions to them. + +T. Barnwell Powell blinked. A speculative look came into the +psychiatrist's eyes; he was probably wishing the commitment paper hadn't +been destroyed. + +Then the doctor came bustling in, brown-mustached, blue-tied, +spectacled, carrying a tan bag, and behind him followed the two +ambulance men, one with a thatch of flaming red hair and the other with +a stain of mercurochrome on his jacket-sleeve. + +For an instant, the lawyer and the psychiatrist gaped at them. Then T. +Barnwell Powell put one hand to his mouth and made a small gibbering +sound, and Doctor Vehrner gave a faint squawk, and then both men +grabbed, simultaneously, for the whiskey bottle. + +The laughter of Dearest tinkled inaudibly through the rumbling mirth of +Colonel Hampton. + + +The End + + + + +TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS CORRECTED + +In the text: "... a man in my position would dislike the label of +spirit-medium;" the word "meduim" was corrected to "medium." + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dearest, by Henry Beam Piper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEAREST *** + +***** This file should be named 19102.txt or 19102.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/1/0/19102/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Geetu Melwani, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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