record of Roamin' In The Gloamin', sung by Harry Lauder.
The three men stood outside the ship. The port closed behind them. At every window, a face pressed, looking out. The large metal guns pointed this way and that, ready.
Now the phonograph record being played was:
'Oh give me a June night The moonlight and you—'
Lustig began to tremble. Samuel Hinkston did likewise.
Hinkston's voice was so feeble and uneven that the captain had to ask him to repeat what he had said. 'I said, sir, that I think I have solved this, all of this, sir!'
'And what is the solution, Hinkston?'
The soft wind blew. The sky was serene and quiet and somewhere a stream of water ran through the cool caverns and tree-shadings of a ravine. Somewhere a horse and wagon trotted and rolled by, bumping.
'Sir, it must be, it has to be, this is the only solution! Rocket travel began to Mars in the years before the first World War, sir!'
The captain stared at his archaeologist. 'No!' . 'But, yes, sir! You must admit, look at all of this! How else explain n> the houses, the lawns, the iron deer, the flowers, the pianos, the music!'
'Hinkston, Hinkston, oh,' and the captain put his hand to his face, snaking his head, his hand shaking now, his lips blue.
'Sir, listen to me.' Hinkston took his elbow persuasively and looked up into the captain's face, pleading. 'Say that there were some people in the year 1905, perhaps, who hated wars and wanted to get away from Earth and they got together, some scientists, in secret, and built a rocket and came out here to Mars.'
'No, no, Hinkston.'
'Why not? The world was a different place in 1905, they could have kept it a secret much more easily.'
'But the work, Hinkston, the work of building a complex thing like a rocket, oh, no, no.' The captain looked at his shoes, looked at his hands, looked at the houses, and then at Hinkston.
'And they came up here, and naturally the houses they built were similar to Earth houses because they brought the cultural architecture with them, and here it is!'
'And they've lived here all these years?' said the captain.
'In peace and quiet, sir, yes. Maybe they made a few trips, to bring enough people here for one small town, and then stopped, for fear of being discovered. That's why the town seems so old-fashioned. I don't see a thing, myself, that is older than the year 1927, do you?'
'No, frankly, I don't, Hinkston.'
'These are our people, sir. This is an American city; it's definitely not European!'
'That—that's right, too, Hinkston.'
'Or maybe, just maybe, sir, rocket travel is older than we think. Perhaps it started in some part of the world hundreds of years ago, was discovered and kept secret by a small number of men, and they came to Mars, with only occasional visits to Earth over the centuries.'
'You make it sound almost reasonable.'
'It is, sir. It has to be. We have the proof here before us, all we have to do now, is find some people and verify it!'
'You're right there, of course. We can't just stand here and talk. Did you bring your gun?'
'Yes, but we won't need it.'
'We'll see about it. Come along, we'll ring that doorbell and see if anyone is home.'
Their boots were deadened of all sound in the thick green grass. I' smelled from a fresh mowing. In spite of himself, Captain John Black felt a great peace come over him. It had been thirty years since he had been in a small town, and the buzzing of spring bees on the air lulled and quieted him, and the fresh look of things was a balm to the soul.
Hollow echoes sounded from under the boards as they walked across the porch and stood before the screen door. Inside, they could see a head curtain hung across the hall entry, and a crystal chandelier and a jvtaxfield Parrish painting framed on one wall over a comfortable Morris Chair. The house smelled old, and of the attic, and infinitely comfortable. You could hear the tinkle of ice rattling in a lemonade pitcher.
In a distant kitchen, because of the heat of the day, someone was preparing a Soft, lemon drink.
Captain John Black rang the bell.
Footsteps, dainty and thin, came along the hall and a kind faced lady of some forty years, dressed in the sort of dress you might expect in the year 1909, peered out at them.
'Can I help you?' she asked.
'Beg your pardon,' said Captain Black, uncertainly. 'But we're looking for, that is, could you help us, I mean.' He stopped. She looked out at him with dark wondering eyes.
'If you're selling something,' she said, 'I'm much too busy and I haven't time.'
She turned to go.
'No, wait,' he cried, bewilderedly. 'What town is this?'
She looked him up and down as if he were crazy. 'What do you mean, what town is it? How could you be in a town and not know what town it was?'
The captain looked as if he wanted to go sit under a shady apple tree. 'I beg your pardon,' he said. 'But we're strangers here. We're from Earth, and we want to know how this town got here and you got here.''
'Are you census takers?' she asked.
'No,' he said.
'What do you want then?' she demanded.
'Well,' said the captain.
'Well?' she asked.
'How long has this town been here?' he wondered.
'It was built in 1868,' she snapped at them. 'Is this a game?'
'No, not a game,' cried the captain. 'Oh, God,' he said. 'Look here. We're from Earth!'
'From where?' she said.
'From Earth!' he said.
'Where's that?' she said.
'From Earth,' he cried.
'Out of the ground, do you mean?'
'No, from the planet Earth!' he almost shouted. 'Here,' he insisted, come out on the porch and I'll show you.'
'I won't come out there, you are all evidently quite
'No,' she said, mad from the sun.'
Lustig and Hinkston stood behind the captain. Hinkston now spoke up. 'Mrs.,' he said. 'We came in a flying ship across space, among the stars. We came from the third planet from the sun, Earth, to this planet, which is Mars. Now do you understand, Mrs.?'
'Mad from the sun,' she said, taking hold of the door. 'Go away now, before I call my husband who's upstairs taking a nap, and he'll beat you all with his fists.'
'But—' said Hinkston. 'This is Mars, is it not?'
'This,' explained the woman, as if she were addressing a child, 'is Green Lake, Wisconsin, on the continent of America, surrounded by the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, on a place called the world, or sometimes, the Earth. Go away now.
Goodbye!'
She slammed the door.
The three men stood before the door with their hands up in the air toward it, as if pleading with her to open it once more.
They looked at one another.
'Let's knock the door down,' said Lustig.
'We can't,' sighed the captain.
'Why not?'
'She didn't do anything bad, did she? We're the strangers here. This is private property. Good God, Hinkston!'
