The Golden Book of Springfield

by Vachel Lindsay

A great rose-colored, egg-shaped boulder is dug from the midst of the lawn of the Governor’s yard. She hides in a clump of bushes to watch; for the digging is by no mortal hand, but by spiritual presences which are the souls of the primeval trees of the city, looming, whispering, rustling above the place. Then the boulder is there, rolled over on the grass, and a bolt from the clear starry heaven strikes it. The book comes flying forth. It has the same airy, other-worldly presence and power as when described by the first witness. But it soars to the Shrine of Flowers consecrated to the especial sect and the esoteric teachings of Roxana Grey and her immediate predecessors. But she does not know where it has gone, it has circled and wandered so, appearing and disappearing. And it is with a tremendous leaping of the heart she finds it next day on her altar with wings gone but with pages open to be read to the faithful. Its main themes are the teachings of the trees, of which we have spoken, woven with her own traditional doctrines of the flowers, but all these teachings in most heightened and glorified aspects. Along the margins are old texts from the special books of her shrine, and from Swedenborg and the Old and New Testaments.

When the great hostess of Springfield begins her testimony my first question, since I am but a man, is whether her hair in 2018 gleams with the same darling golden hue.

And have the red-haired girls the courage to dress like daffodils, in 2018? She insists I am the wicked one to be pressing this devilish investigation, when there are rarer things to impart,—but in the glad Mystic Year, since I must know, she is endowed with the hair of what might be called her 1920 Grandmother-self, and the only change she notices is a more painful tendency to freckles, from riding horseback in a certain notable cavalry, behind a certain young lady commander, Avanel Boone,—of whom more anon.

The most important revelation to her, sociologically, is that she finds herself no longer one of “our best people.” That is, she has not much money, and no privilege of collecting rents in the style that is now the sole reason many of the “old families” are in Springfield for a part of the year. She is in Springfield because she loves a certain factory. She loves it because she is Patricia Anthony, forewoman, and can order people about. Her factory is at Ninth and Converse Streets, on the same ground with The Illinois Watch Company and The Sangamon Electric Company. It is a place where telescopic and microscopic lenses are made. As for the Golden Book about which she is all aquiver, she finds the volume when she is inspecting the place in the late afternoon of All Saint’s Day, Anno Domini, 2018. She says I am there with her, carrying on, as of old, in the same conceited, philandering way. I am helping take inventory of the supplies needed for the next week, as my excuse for the tour. The factory echoes hollow with our solitary steps. Indeed it takes her aback to meet the book in such an off-hand, teasing moment.

But there is The Golden Book. Every transparent page, which flutters as though with the gusty thoughts of our spirits, is written in letters of fire. On the first leaf is an inscription delivering the work to her by name: “Patricia Anthony.”

She was always a conceited woman, and here is the first thing that ever happened to her to justify it, I say to her, speaking as one 1920 person to another.

But on, to 2018: For all the Golden Book is penned so gorgeously, the discussion is largely economic. There are citations from Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Henry George, and on, forward, to Joseph Bartholdi Michael the second, and Black Hawk Boone,—Springfield sages of 2018. All these are cited to corroborate, in various items, piecemeal, an absolutely new economic remedy for the world.

Patricia sees herself reading the volume to the workers, through the lunch hour. The book keeps its wings. Often, as though stirred with divine impatience, it dashes and flutters on through the walls, as though they were shadows, then comes soaring back again. Each time it returns the work is re-opened, at the first page, and newer and more difficult teaching is written there, till the volume is no longer economic. It is as though a work by Henry George had been changed into a work by Swedenborg! Now it shows how to make microscopes that will enable all Springfield to find the fairies of the fairies, and telescopes that will discover the angels that guard the angels. At last the book instructs the devout how to woo and win these creatures, without turning upon them any glass of cold scrutiny, how to see them with the natural eye, and touch them with the natural hand.

The little school teacher finds herself reborn in 2018 as head of the three-color printing department of the school where she teaches. In the reincarnation she bears the name of Josephine Windom. She stands helpless when a Rock and Kopensky mob, and children of Doctor Mayo Sims seize the winged volume from the altar of St. Friend, apparently against its will, like a hundred men binding an angel. Near the market house between Fourth and Fifth on Monroe they pile firewood upon the book. They pour on oil. They light the pyre. All is turned to ashes. Later a band of Municipal University rescuers arrives. They are led by her assistant in the color printing department, Horace Andrews.

Slowly as though greeting this band the flames renew themselves, and take form. There is the book again, but four times as large, with wings, binding, leaves, and letters of fire. Then suddenly it is flying above the city. Its covers are of the iridescence of a shell, with a golden shimmering. The wings are music making.