“I want nothing like that,” he whispered in some alarm, and then set out to test his gift. First he tried mentally to lift the small flat rock upon which the miraculous glass had stood.
“Up,” he commanded sharply. “Up!”
The rock, however, refused to move. He tried to form a mental picture of it, rising. Suddenly, where he had tried to picture it, there was another and apparently identical rock.
The miraculous stone crashed instantly down upon its twin, and shattered. Flying fragments stung Mr. Peabody’s face. He realized that his gift, whatever its nature, held potentialities of danger.
“Whatever I’ve got,” he told himself, “it’s different from what the man had in the movie. I can make things—small things, anyhow. But I can’t move them.” He sat up on the wet grass. “Can I—unmake them?”
He fixed his eyes upon the fragments of the broken glass.
“Go!” he ordered. “Go away—vanish!”
They shimmered unchanged in the moonlight.
“No,” concluded Mr. Peabody, “I can’t unmake things.”
That was, in a way, too bad.
He made another mental note of caution. Large animals and dangerous creations of all kinds had better be avoided. He realized suddenly that he was shivering in his dew-soaked clothing. He slapped his stiff hands against his sides, and wished he had a cup of coffee.
“Well—why not?” He tried to steady his voice against a haunting apprehension. “Here—a cup of coffee!”
Nothing appeared.
“Come!” he shouted. “Coffee!”
Still there was nothing. And doubt returned to Mr. Peabody. Probably he had just been dazed by the meteor. But the hallucinations had looked so queerly real. That glass of water, glittering in the moonlight on the rock—
And there it was again!
Or another, just like it. He touched the glass uncertainly, sipped at the ice-cold water. It was as real as you please. Mr. Peabody shook his bald aching head, baffled.
“Water’s easy,” he muttered. “But how do you get coffee?”
He let his mind picture a heavy white cup, sitting in its saucer on the rock, steaming fragrantly. The image of it shimmered oddly, half-real.
He made a kind of groping effort. There was a strange brief roaring in his head, beyond that slow painful throb. And suddenly the cup was real.
With awed and trembling fingers, he lifted it. The scalding coffee tasted like the cheaper kind that Ella bought when she was having trouble with the budget. But it was coffee.
Now he knew how to get the cream and sugar. He simply pictured the little creamer and the three white cubes, and made that special grasping effort—and there they were. And he was weak with a momentary unfamiliar fatigue.
He made a spoon and stirred the coffee. He was learning about the gift. It made no difference what he said. He had only the power to realize the things he pictured in his mind. It required a peculiar kind of effort, and the act was accompanied by that mighty, far-off roaring in his ears.
The miraculous objects, moreover, had all the imperfections of his mental images. There was an irregular gap in the heavy saucer, behind the cup—where he had failed to complete his picture of it.
Mr. Peabody, however, did not linger long upon the mechanistic details of his gift. Perhaps Dr. Brant would be able to explain it: he was really a very clever young surgeon. Mr. Peabody turned to more immediate concerns.
He was shivering with cold. He decided against building a miraculous fire, and set out to make himself an overcoat. This turned out to be more difficult than he had anticipated. It was necessary to picture clearly the fibers of the wool, the details of buttons and buckle, the shape of every piece of material, the very thread in the seams.
In some way, moreover, the process of materializing was very trying. He was soon quivering with a strange fatigue. The dull little ache at the base of his brain throbbed faster. Again he sensed that roaring beyond, like some Niagara of supernal power.
At last, however, the garment was finished. Attempting to put it on, Mr. Peabody discovered that it was a very poor fit. The shoulders were grotesquely loose. What was worse, he had somehow got the sleeves sewed up at the cuffs.
Wearily, his bright dreams dashed a little, he drew it about his shoulders like a cloak. With a little care and practice, he was sure, he could do better. He ought to be able to make anything he wanted.
Feeling a tired contentment, Mr. Peabody started back down Bannister Hill. Now he could go home to a triumphant peace. His cold body anticipated the comforts of his house and his bed. He dwelt pleasantly upon the happiness of Ella and William and Beth, when they should learn about his gift.
He pushed the ungainly overcoat into a trash container, and swung aboard the car. Fumbling for change to pay the six-cent fare, he found one lone nickel. A miraculous twin solved the problem. He pocketed the four pennies, and relaxed on the seat with a sigh of quiet satisfaction.
His son William, as it happened, was the first person to whom Mr. Peabody attempted to reveal his unusual gift. William was sprawled in the easiest chair, his sallow face decorated with scraps of court plaster. He woke with a start. His eyes rolled glassily. Seeing Mr. Peabody, he grinned with relief.
“Hi, Gov,” he drawled. “Got over your tantrum, huh?”
Consciousness of the gift lent Mr. Peabody a new authority.
“Don’t call me Gov.” His voice was louder than usual. “I wasn’t having a tantrum.” He felt a sudden apprehension. “What has happened to you, William?”
William fumbled lazily for his pipe.
“Guy crocked me,” he drawled. “Some fool in a new Buick.
Claims I was on his side of the road. He called the cops, and had a wrecker tow off the bus.
“Guess you’ll have a little damage suit on your hands, Gov. Unless you want to settle for cash. The wrecker man said the bill would be about two hundred. . , . Got any tobacco, Gov?”
The old helpless fury boiled up in Mr. Peabody. He began to tremble, and his fists clenched. After a moment, however, the awareness of his new power allowed him to smile. Things were going to be different, now.
“William,” he said gravely, “I would like to see a little more respect in your manner in the future.” He was building up to the dramatic revelation of his gift. “It was your car and your wreck. You can settle it as you like.”
William gestured carelessly with his pipe.
“Wrong as usual, Gov. You see, they wouldn’t sell me the can. I had to get Mom to sign the papers. So you can’t slip out of it that easy, Gov. You’re the one that’s liable. Got any tobacco?”
A second wave of fury set Mr. Peabody to dancing up and down. Once more, however, consciousness of the gift came to his rescue. He decided upon a double miracle. That ought to put William in his place.
“There’s your tobacco.” He gestured toward the bare center of the library table. “Look!” He concentrated upon a mental image of the red tin container. “Presto!”
William’s mild curiosity changed to a quickly concealed surprise. Lazily he reached for the tin box, drawling:
“Fair enough, Gov. But that magician at the Palace last year pulled the same trick a lot slicker and quicker—” He looked up from the open can, with a triumphant reproof. “Empty, Gov. I call that a pretty flat trick.”
“I forgot.” Mr. Peabody bit his lip. “You’ll find half a can on my dresser.”
As William ambled out of the room, he applied himself to a graver project. In his discomfiture and general excitement, he failed to consider a certain limitation upon acts of creation, miraculous or otherwise, existing through Federal law.
His flat pocketbook yielded what was left of the week’s pay. He selected a crisp new ten-dollar bill, and concentrated on it. His first copy proved to be blank on the reverse. The second was blurred on both sides. After that, however, he seemed to get the knack of it.
By the time William came swaggering back, lighting up his pipe, there was a neat l
ittle stack of miraculous money on the table. Mr. Peabody leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. That pulsing ache diminished again, and the roar of power receded.
“Here, William,” he said in a voice of weary triumph. “You said you needed two hundred to settle for your wreck.”
He counted off twenty of the bills, while William stared at him, mouth open and buck teeth gleaming.
“Whatsis, Gov?” he gasped. A note of alarm entered his voice. “Where you been tonight, Gov? Old Berg didn’t leave the safe open?”
“If you want the money, take it,” Mr. Peabody said sharply. “And watch your language, son.”
William picked up the bills. He stared at them incredulously for a moment, and then stuffed them into his pocket and ran out of the house.
His mind hazy with fatigue, Mr. Peabody relaxed in the big chair. A deep satisfaction filled him. This was one use of the gift which hadn’t gone wrong. There was enough of the miraculous money left so that he could give Ella the fifty dollars she wanted. And he could make more, without limit.
A fly came buzzing into the lamplight. Watching it settle upon a candy box on the table, and crawl across the picture of a cherry, Mr. Peabody was moved to another experiment. A mere instant of effort created another fly.
Only one thing was wrong with the miraculous insect. It looked, so far as he could see, exactly like the original. But, when he reached his hand toward it, it didn’t move. It wasn’t alive.
Why? Mr. Peabody was vaguely bewildered. Did he merely lack some special knack that was necessary for the creation of life? Or was that completely beyond his new power, mysteriously forbidden?
He applied himself to experiment. The problem was still unsolved, although the table was scattered with lifeless flies and the inert forms of a cockroach, a frog, and a sparrow, when he heard the front door.
Mrs. Peabody came in. She was wearing the new blue suit. The trim lines of it seemed to give a new youth to her ample figure, and Mr. Peabody thought that she looked almost beautiful.
She was still angry. She returned his greeting with a stiff little nod, and started regally past him toward the stair. Mr. Peabody followed her anxiously.
“That’s your new suit, Ella? You look very pretty in it.”
With a queen’s dignity, she turned. The lamplight shimmered on her blond indignant head.
“Thank you, Jason.” Her voice was cool. “I had no money to pay the boy. It was most embarrassing. He finally left it, when I promised to take the money to the store in the morning.”
Mr. Peabody counted off ten of the miraculous bills.
“Here it is, dear,” he said. “And fifty more.”
Ella was staring, her jaw hanging.
Mr. Peabody smiled at her.
“From now on, dear,” he promised her, “things are going to be different. Now I’ll be able to give you everything that you’ve always deserved.”
Puzzled alarm tensed Ella Peabody’s face, and she came swiftly toward him, “What’s this you say, Jason?”
She saw the lifeless flies that he had made, and then started back with a little muffled cry from the cockroach, the frog, and the sparrow.
“What are these things?” Her voice was shrill. “What are you up to?”
A pang of fear struck into Mr. Peabody’s heart. He perceived that it was going to be difficult for other people to understand his gift. The best plan was probably a candid demonstration of it.
“Watch, Ella. I’ll show you.”
He shuffled through the magazines on the end of the table. He had learned that it was difficult to materialize anything accurately from memory alone. He needed a model.
“Here.” He had found an advertisement that showed a platinum bracelet set with diamonds. “Would you like this, my dear?”
Mrs. Peabody retreated from him, growing pale.
“Jason, are you crazy?” Her voice was quick and apprehensive. “You know you can’t pay for the few things I simply must have. Now—this money—diamonds—I don’t understand you!”
Mr. Peabody dropped the magazine on his knees. Trying to close his ears to Ella’s penetrating voice, he began to concentrate on the jewel. This was more difficult than the paper money had been. His head rang with that throbbing pain. But he completed that peculiar final effort, and the thing was done.
“Well—do you like it, my dear?”
He held it toward her. The gleaming white platinum had a satisfying weight. The diamonds glittered with a genuine fire. But she made no move to take it.
Her bewildered face went paler. A hard accusing stare came into her eyes. Suddenly she advanced upon him, demanding;
“Jason, where did you get that bracelet?”
“I—I made it.” His voice was thin and husky. “It’s—miraculous.”
Her determined expression made that statement sound very thin, even to Mr. Peabody.
“Miraculous lie!” She sniffed the air. “Jason, I believe you are drunk!” She advanced on him again. “Now I want to know the truth. What have you done? Have you been— stealing?”
She snatched the bracelet from- his fingers, shook it threateningly in front of him.
“Now where did you get it?”
Looking uneasily about, Mr. Peabody saw the kitchen door opening slowly. William peered cautiously through. He was pale, and his trembling hand clutched a long bread knife.
“Mom!” His whisper was hoarse. “Mom, you had better watch out! The Gov is acting plenty weird. He was trying to pull some crummy magic stunts. And then he gave me a couple of centuries of queer.”
His slightly bulging eyes caught the glitter of the dangling bracelet, and he started.
“Hot ice, huh?” His voice grew hard with an incredible moral indignation. “Gov, cantcher remember you got a decent respectable family? Hot jools, and pushing the queer! Gov, how could you?”
“Queer?” The word croaked faintly from Mr. Peabody’s dry throat. “What do you mean—queer?”
“The innocence gag, huh?” William sniffed. “Well, let me tell you, Gov. Queer is counterfeit. I thought that dough looked funny. So I took it down to a guy at the pool hall that used to shove it. A mess, he says. A blind man could spot it. It ain’t worth a nickel on the dollar. It’s a sure ticket, he says, for fifteen years!”
This was a turn of affairs for which Mr. Peabody had not prepared himself. An instant’s reflection told him that, failing in his confusion to distinguish the token of value from the value itself, he had indeed been guilty.
“Counterfeit—”
He stared dazedly at the tense suspicious faces of his wife and son. A chill of ultimate frustration was creeping into him. He collected himself to fight it.
“I didn’t—didn’t think,” he stammered. “We’ll have to burn the money that I gave you, too, Ella.”
He mopped at his wet forehead, and caught his breath.
“But look.” His voice was louder. “I’ve still got the gift. I can make anything I want—out of nothing at all. I’ll show you. I’ll make—I’ll make you a brick of gold.”
His wife retreated, her face white and stiff with dread. William made an ominous flourish with the bread knife, and peered watchfully.
“All right, Gov. Strut your stuff.”
There couldn’t be any crime about making real gold. But the project proved more difficult than Mr. Peabody had expected. The first dim outlines of the brick began to waver, and he felt sick and dizzy.
That steady beat of pain filled all his head, stronger than it had ever been. The rush of unseen power became a mighty hurricane, blowing away his consciousness. Desperately, he clutched at the back of a chair.
The massive yellow ingot at last shimmered real, under the lamp. Mopping weakly at the sweat on his face, Mr. Peabody made a gesture of weary triumph and sat down.
“What’s the matter, darling?” his wife said anxiously. “You look so tired and white. Are you ill?”
William’s hands were already clutching at the yello
w block. He lifted one end of it, with an effort, and let it fall. It made a dull solid thud.
“Gosh, Gov!” William whispered. “It is gold!” His eyes popped again, and narrowed grimly. “Better quit trying to string us, Gov. You cracked a safe tonight.”
“But I made it.” Mr. Peabody rose in anxious protest. “You saw me.”
Ella caught his arm, steadied him.
“We know, Jason,” she said soothingly. “But now you look so tired. You had better come up to bed. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
Digging into the gold brick with his pocket knife, William cried out excitedly:
“Hey, Mom! Lookit—”
With a finger on her bps and a significant nod, Mrs. Peabody silenced her son. She helped Mr. Peabody up the stairs, to the door of their bedroom, and then hurried back to William.
Mr. Peabody undressed wearily and put on his pajamas. With a tired little sigh, he snuggled down under the sheets and closed his eyes.
Naturally he had made little mistakes at first, but now everything was sure to be all right. With just a little more practice, he would be able to give his wife and children all the good things they deserved.
“Daddy?”
Mr. Peabody opened his eyes, and saw Beth standing beside the bed. Her brown eyes looked wide and strange, and her voice was anxious.
“Daddy, what dreadful thing has happened to you?”
Mr. Peabody reached from beneath the sheet, and took her hand. It felt tense and cold.
“A very wonderful thing, Bee, dear,” he said. “Not dreadful at all. I simply have a miraculous gift. I can create things. I want to make something for you. What would you like, Bee? A pearl necklace, maybe?”
“Dad—darling!”
Her voice was choked with concern. She sat down on the side of the bed, and looked anxiously into his face. Her cold hand quivered in his.
“Dad, you aren’t—insane?”
Mr. Peabody felt a tremor of ungovernable apprehension.
“Of course not, daughter. Why?”
“Mother and Bill have been telling me the most horrid things,” she whispered, staring at him. “They said you were playing with dead flies and a cockroach, and saying you could work miracles, and giving them counterfeit money and stolen jewelry and a fake gold brick—”
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