She reached for and put on her skirt. "Look. I live just over on 82nd. And if ya want, on account of you both being veterans, I'll lend you one of Benny's suits." She wriggled into the top part of her four piece sun ensemble. "Benny's about the same size as you. Wait."
Smiling, Ephraim watched her go across the greensward to a broad turnpike bisecting the estate, then rose in sudden horror as a metallic-looking monster with sightless round glass eyes swooped out from behind a screen of bushes and attempted to run her down. The girl dodged it adroitly, paused in the middle of the pike to allow a stream of billings-gate to escape her sweet red lips, then continued blithely on her way.
His senses alerted, Ephraim continued to watch the pike. The monsters were numerous as locusts and seemed to come in assorted colors and sizes. Then he spotted a human in each and realized what they must be. While he had lain in a drunken stupor, Mother Shipton's prophecy had come true—
'Carriages without horses shall go.'
He felt sick. The malcontents would, undoubtedly, try to blame this on the administration. He had missed the turning of an important page of history. He lifted his eyes above the budding trees and was almost sorry he had. The trees alone were familiar. A solid rectangle of buildings hemmed in what he had believed to be an estate; unbelievable buildings. Back of them still taller buildings lifted their spires and Gothic towers and one stubby thumb into the clouds. His pulse quickening, he looked at the date line of a paper on the grass. It was April 15, 1950.
He would never clank cups with Mr. Henry again. The fiery Virginian, along with his cousin Nathan, and a host of other good and true men, had long since become legends. He should be dust. It hadn't been a night since he had parted from Mr. Henry. It had been one hundred and sixty-one years.
A wave of sadness swept him. The warm wind off the river seemed cooler. The sun lost some of its warmth. He had never felt so alone. Then he forced himself to face it. How many times had he exclaimed:
"If only I could come back one hundred years from now."
Well, here he was, with sixty-one years for good measure.
A white object bounded across the grass toward him. Instinctively Ephraim caught it and found it was the hard white sphere being used by the boys playing at ball.