Read Ebook: Mrs. Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters Volume 3 by Various Whittelsey Abigail Goodrich Editor

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Ebook has 1364 lines and 145795 words, and 28 pages

Pete felt ill. It was as though someone were making ill-tempered fun of the dreams and the tall silver ship waiting out on the desert. Cheapening it. Laughing nastily.

The little bullet bumped through the seedy, scruffy Earth and out into the night of the midway, out into the crowd-sounds and music and hot-doggy smells.

"It was fun, Pete," Glory said.

He helped her out onto the rickety platform. He had the insane notion that the girl in the ticket booth and the lounging attendant were laughing at him.

"It sure was, honey," he said wearily, still feeling the illogical fear of he-knew-not-what inside himself. "Real fun."

Glory looked up at him, eyes alight and almost feverishly gay. "I did what you are going to do. I touched the sky!"

New frontiers. New lands in the sky. New hope.

It was quiet. The jet was still and no sound was anywhere in the ship. Now a soft tick from the timer. A whisper from the questing radarscope. And again, the stillness.

We've done it, Pete thought. We've really done it. The hard part is over.

Ride the rocket!

He remembered the pain of the takeoff and the absolute panic that had welled up in him when the irrevocability of his action came home. He remembered riding a tail of red fire up out of the hot desert air of New Mexico into the still blue, and then the silence and the almost unnerving thrill of the realization that the moonshot was going to succeed.

The radio hissed at him with the voice of the desert base half around the world.

"Hello moonshot. This is Base. All's okay. Stage one landed in the Gulf. Stage two just reported floating off the Azores. Good show."

Pete lifted himself from the acceleration couch and felt a moment of nausea and panic as he floated toward the ceiling of the tiny cell. Free flight. He steadied himself and checked the flow of telemetered information binding the ship to the glowing curve far below. All okay. Except that--

Except that you're still afraid, he told himself. Not just the normal fear-of-falling-afraid that the psychs told you about. Afraid like before--in that silly damn carnival ride thing.

Afraid of the dark?

No, not quite that. More a closed in, cheated feeling.

Premonition? Nonsense.

He clung to the radarscope, trembling. With every rushing mile upward, outward, his fear was growing. It wasn't right, it didn't make sense. But he felt as though he were rushing straight at a brick wall, head down, eyes closed.

He lit the telescreens.

The stars look funny, he thought uneasily.

The timer ticked. The radar whispered, searching. Time passed and his fear grew thicker, less reasonable.

His fingers dug hard at the metal of the instrument panel as the night slipped by outside the hull. The ship's orbital ellipse, Kepler's contribution to the new frontier, was established.

Pete thought, something's wrong. Very wrong. The stars look queer.

The constellations in the telescreens were distorting, and there was something ahead of the ship where there should be nothing but emptiness. It showed in the screen for just an instant and was lost. A ringed sphere.

I must be dreaming, Pete thought. But then, what is reality? That sphere was Saturn. And it was a hundred yards across.

I'd better check with Base, Pete thought, and tell them I've gone off my rocker, that I'm suffering hallucinations.

But he did nothing except cling shaking to the panel, watching the distorted stars in the screen. They were blurring now, streaks of light that seemed to be very close to the ship.

Pete felt closed in, suffocated. The radar alarm was screaming at him that something was near, too near.

He clamped down savagely on himself. There was an explanation somewhere. He had to find it! He had to think!

Item. The stars. Distorted. Blurred.

Item. Saturn. A hundred yards across.

Item. A tiny replica of the moon, like a pimple on the inside of an egg.

Hypothesis. Say that space is not as men imagined it. Say that it is an illusion, without lightyears, without great suns, without huge planets. Say for the sake of argument that it is a shell with holes in it, and light outside, and the Sun itself an illusion of heat and power, and--

Say that this hollow shell is man's new frontier; a fraud, a toy for things outside--

The alarm screamed at him. The ship was plunging toward the blurry light of the stars.

With an icy hand on his heart, Pete Moore turned to look at the telescreen behind him. A misty blue ball swam in musty darkness. The oceans gleamed in the light of the sun, cloud masses whitened it, the wrinkled face of the land looked unreal--

He began to laugh. Tears streaked his cheeks as he pounded his bloody fists against the instrument panel in time to the clanging of the alarm.

The Earth, the Earth--

He touched the sky.

Now, that merchant is not to blame for putting you off. His business calls are so many and so complex, that he scarcely knows which way to turn, nor what calculations to make. The real difficulty is, he has undertaken too much; his plans are too vast; his "irons," as they say, are too many.

Let us go home with him, and see how the evening passes.

His residence, from his place of business, perchance, is a mile or two distant--may be some fifteen or twenty, in which latter case he takes the evening train of cars. In either case he arrives home only at the setting in of the evening shades. How pleasant the release from the noise and confusion of the city! or, if he resides within the city, how pleasant in shutting his door, as he enters his dwelling, to shut out the thoughts and cares of business! His tea is soon ready, and for a little time he gives himself up to the comforts of home. His wife welcomes him, his children may be hanging upon him, and he realizes something of the joys of domestic life!

This is an outline of the life which thousands of fathers are leading in this country at this present time. We do not pretend that it is true of all,--but is it not substantially true, as we have said, of thousands? And not only of thousands in our crowded marts of commerce, but in our principal towns--nay, even in our rural districts. It is an age of impulse. Every thing is proceeding with railroad speed. Every branch of business is urged forward with all practical earnestness. Every sail is set--main-sail, top-sails, star-gazers, heaven-disturbers--all expanded to catch the breeze, and urge the vessel to her destined port.

This thirst for gain! this panting after fortune! this competition in the race for worldly wealth, or honor, where is it leading the present generation--where?

To men who have families--to fathers, who see around them children just emerging from childhood into youth, or verging toward manhood,--this is and should be a subject of the deepest interest.

Fathers! am I wrong when I say you are neglecting your offspring? Neglecting them? do I hear you respond with surprise;--"Am I not daily, hourly stretching every nerve and tasking every power to provide for them, to insure them the means of an honorable appearance in that rank of society in which they were born, and in which they must move? In these days of competition, who sees not that any relaxation involves and necessarily secures bankruptcy and ruin?"

But beyond this the duties of father and mother are coincident. At a certain point your responsibilities touching the training of your children blend. I find nothing in the Word of God which separates fathers and mothers in relation to bringing up their children in the ways of virtue and obedience to God.

I know what fathers plead. I see the difficulties which often lie in their path. I am aware of the competition which marks every industrial pursuit in the land. And many men who wish it were different, who would love to be more with their families, who would delight to aid in instructing their little ones, find it, they think, quite impossible so to alter their business--so to cast off pressure and care, as to give due attention to the moral and religious training of their children.

Take another example, and may it prove a warning to such indulgence and such neglect! Eli had sons, and they grew up, and they walked in forbidden ways, and he restrained them not; yet he was a good man: but good men are sometimes most unfaithful fathers, and what can they expect? Shall we sin because grace abounds? Shall we neglect our children in expectation that the grace of God will intervene to rescue them in times of peril? That expectation were vain while we neglect our duty. That expectation is nearly or quite sure to be realized if duty be performed.

But I must insist no longer; I will only add, then, in a word,--that it were far, far better that your children should occupy a more humble station in life--that they should be dressed in fewer of the "silks of Ormus," and have less gold from the "mines of Ind," than to be neglected by a father in regard to their moral and religious training. Better leave them an interest in the Covenant than thousands of the treasures of the world. Your example, fathers,--your counsel--your prayers, are a better bequest than any you can leave them. Think of leaving them in a cold, rude, selfish world, without the grace of God to secure them, without his divine consolation to comfort. Think of the "voyage of awful length," you and they must "sail so soon." Think of the meeting in another world which lies before you and them, and say, Does the wide world afford that which could make amends for a separation--an eternal separation from these objects of your love?

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