You never saw a sight like it! Or did you? Were you one of the horde who started camping around the Prof's magic circle trying to get permission to enter?
It was then we got proof that it pays to be kind. Of all the news-grabbers who surrounded the Prof's big wire gate, Jake and I were the only ones who got in. The old man had not forgotten who had taken him seriously and who had made fun of him.
Jake snapped a series of startling pics of the oversized animals and birds. I interviewed the Prof again, even got his maid, Tilda's opinions, and wrote it up as unsensationally as possible, playing down the tremendous potential for trouble, playing up the really effective method the old scientist had discovered for "eliminating the deterioration factor" in life. I could see where the world was in for some changes, and the going was going to be rough enough for the old man without making it worse. But my efforts came to naught when the pics Jake had taken reached the editor's desk. He hit the ceiling, called me on the carpet, wanted to know where my news sense had gotten lost. Then he sent out three other smart boys to do a good job on it.
The paper got out a special edition—and the troubles I had foreseen began. First, the government stepped in, trying to hush-hush the whole thing; but too late. The rush had started. For miles around the poor Prof's fenced-in hideaway, cars and trailers parked in a mad senseless jumble. People crowded against the fences and the electricity had to be shut off. Some smart aleck produced wire cutters and made an opening. The invasion of the new Eden had begun.
Stegner took flight, taking his secret apparatus and files with him. He declined police escort, and vanished from his mad Eden. Where he went was impossible to learn, but I supposed the government knew.
The area he had revitalized with his selective field was a nine days wonder, and after just about that long it was a tramped over, paper strewn, garbage littered wreck. The oversized animals and birds drifted away, the huge houseflies perished or were eaten by the birds. Apparently that was the end of the thing. Humanity had triumphed over its savior with its usual stupid interference.
A few of us remembered, could not put out of our minds the significance of what the old man had done. He had pointed the way to a lush immortality, and he had been shoved aside and pawed over and written about like some freak. If he had been a notorious criminal, he would have gotten far better journalistic treatment.
But the years went by—four, five of them. And nothing more was heard of Stegner and his work. Until, one day coming home from a night shift on the paper, I found a letter in my box. It was a rather plain looking envelope, but much larger than the ordinary. The handwritten address was quite legible, but very big, as if a giant hand had cramped itself to produce ordinary script:
Dear old friend:
You may have forgotten me, but I do not forget you. If you would like to join me for a time, insert a notice to Harry F in the personal column to that effect. I am trusting you to keep my secret.
Stegner
Needless to say, I inserted the notice.