On the Lightship

by Herman Knickerbocker Vielé

THE SECOND RECORD—THOUGH PROBABLY THIRD COMMUNICATION

—I really must not waste so much gray matter, dear, over unimportant details. But I simply had to tell you all about my struggles with the clothes. When Ooma came back, just as I had mastered them with the aid of her diagrams, the dear thing was so much pleased she actually hugged me, and I must confess the effect made me forget my discomfort. Really, an Earth girl is not so much to be pitied if she has becoming dresses to wear. As you may be sure I was anxious to compare myself with others, I was glad enough to hear Ooma suggest going out.

"Come on," she said, executively, "I have only a half-hour to devote to your first walk. Keep close beside me, and remember on no account to either dance or sing."

"But if I see others dancing may I not join them?" I inquired.

"You won't see anybody dancing on Broadway," she replied, a trifle snubbily, but I resolved to escape from her as soon as possible and find out for myself.

I shall never forget my shock on discovering the sky blue instead of the color it should be, but soon my eyes became accustomed to the change. In fact, I have not since that first moment been able to conceive of the sky as anything but blue. And the city?—Oh, my dear, my dear, I never expected to encounter anything so much out of key with the essential euphonies. Of course I have not traveled very much, but I should say there is nothing in the universe like a street they call Broadway—unless it be upon the lesser satellite of Mars, where the poor people are so awfully cramped for space. When I suggested this to Ooma she laughed and called me clever, for it seems there is a tradition that a mob of meddling Martians once stopped on Earth long enough to give the foolish humans false ideas about architecture and many other matters. But I soon forgot everything in my interest in the people. Such a poor puzzle-headed lot they are. One's heart goes out to them at once as they push and jostle one another this way and that, with no conceivable object other than to get anywhere but where they are in the shortest time possible. One longs to help them; to call a halt upon their senseless struggles; to reason with them and explain how all the psychic force they waste might, if exerted in constructive thought, bring everything they wish to pass. Mrs. Bloomer assures me they only ridicule those who venture to interfere, and it will take at least a Saturn century to so much as start them in the right direction. Our settlement is their only hope, she says, and even we can help them only indirectly.

Not long ago, it appears, they had to choose a King or Mayor, or whatever the creature is called who executes their silly laws, and our people so manipulated the election that the choice fell on one of us.

I thought this a really good idea, and supposed, of course, we must at once have set about demonstrating how a planet should be managed. But no! that was not our system, if you please. Instead of making proper laws our agent misbehaved himself in every way the committee could suggest, until at last the humans rose against him and put one of themselves in his place, and after that things went just a little better than before. This is the only way in which they can be taught. But, dear me, isn't it tedious?

Of course, I soon grew anxious for an exchange of thought with almost anyone, but it was a long while before I discovered a single person who was not in a violent hurry. At last, however, we came upon a human drawn apart a little from the throng, who stood with folded arms, engaged apparently in lofty meditation. His countenance was amiable, although a little red.