There was a little crowd in front of it, and they made a sound like a cheernot a real loud one, you know how peo- ple can be self-conscious about really cheeringwhen we drove up. I got out and shook hands with people I didn't really see, and then Mr. Robinson took my elbow and took me on inside.
The seats were all filled and people standing up, and over the little stage at the far end they'd fixed up a big floral decorationthere was a globe all of red roses with a sign above it that said "Mars," and beside it a globe all of white roses that said "Earth," and a little rocket ship made out of flowers was hung between them.
"The Garden Club fixed it up," said Mr. Robinson.
"Nearly everybody in Harmonville contributed flowers."
"It sure is pretty," I said. Mr. Robinson took me by the arm, up onto the little stage, and everyone clapped. They were all people I knewpeople from the farms near ours, my high-school teachers, and all that.
I sat down in a chaif and Mr. Robinson made a little speech, about how Harmonville boys had always gone out when anything big was doing, how they'd gone to the War of 1812 and the Civil War and the two World Wars, and how now one of them had gone to Mars.
He said, "Folks have always wondered what it's like out there on Mars, and now here's one of our own Hannonville boys come back to tell us all about it."
And he motioned me to get up, and I did, and they clapped some more, and I stood wondering what I could tell them.
And all of a sudden, as I stood there wondering, I got the answer to something that had always puzzled us out there. We'd never been able to understand why the fellows who had come back from Expedition One hadn't tipped us off how tough it was going to be. And now I knew why. They hadn't because it would have sounded as if they were whining about all they'd been through. And now I couldn't, for the same reason.
I looked down at the bright, interested faces, the faces I'd known almost all my life, and I knew that what I could tell them was no good anyway. For they'd all read those newspaper stories, about "the exotic red planet" and "heroic spacemen," and if anyone tried to give them a different picture now, it would just upset them.