When she expressed her belief that he was still alive and growing, promising that she would be happier in future, he said: “Thank you, Mother dearest. That is all I need. Tell Dad to be happy, too. I am with him. He has not lost a son. I am better and bigger and more useful than I ever could have been there, but I have been sorry you suffered so much.”
“Have you been trying recently to let us know you were with us?” she inquired.
“Yes, for months. At first I could not.”
He said that Mary Kendal had found him for us, and when I mentioned that Mary K. had come first to me, he explained: “Yes, she is more used to it. She found Mrs. Kendal, and she told me.”
“You had better get your lunch,” he suggested, after a pause, rousing us from our complete absorption to a consciousness that it was late. Mrs. Gaylord denied being hungry, but he warned her—characteristically, I learned afterward, “You will have a headache, Mother dearest, if you don’t.”
After luncheon we went out for a walk, and then to our respective rooms to rest, the morning having been fatiguing in its emotional strain. Planchette and paper had been left in Mrs. Gaylord’s room, and in the afternoon, while Cass and I were still alone, I picked up a lead-pencil and placed its point on a sheet of letter-paper, expecting no response. To my great surprise, I was conscious almost instantly of its vitality. The sensation is comparable to that of holding a quiet, live bird, wrapped in a handkerchief, its energy muffled but palpable. Sometimes this sensation of a current from without is communicated to the hand and arm, sometimes only to the fingers.
In a short time the pencil moved, writing, “Mary Kendal,” followed by the usual messages for Manse.
Cass asked whether it annoyed them to be questioned, or interfered with things they might wish to tell us.
“No, it does not interfere. We are here to tell you what we can, but we cannot tell everything.... You have the right to know what we can tell you.... You are getting nearer the big things every day.” This made Cass wonder whether “the big things” would come to us in this life or the next, and she added: “Both. You begin there and keep on growing. As soon as you are ready, big truths are shown to you.”
Addressing me, he made some allusion to what “she” had said, suggesting that it seemed to support a theory he had once held, that this world is one of elimination.