“Listen to me, Mr. Jordan,” pleaded the old man, “I want you to tell me, word for word, just as nearly as you can, just what those three men said.”
“I’ll try,” answered the young clerk; so, for the next hour he talked, pausing now and then to answer some special question of the old man.
“Now, here’s the situation,” at last remarked Mr. Turner. “All the way through these men have kept within the letter of the law. Yet they have turned America into a very unhappy land and made most of the workers little better than peons, or slaves. I believe that they have corrupted the judiciary, and there’s no doubt that they’ll go on until they have the entire nation by the throat. They are doing all they can to arouse the resentment of Great Britain, and, no doubt, will try to force a war with that nation. Now, in this room, we have two patriots—”
“Three patriots,” interrupted the wife. “I guess I love my country as much as you men do, and if there’s going to be a rebellion or anything like that, I won’t let William have anything to do with it unless he allows me to take part. I’m tired of being a stenographer; I want to go to war and be a nurse and bind up wounds and—everything.”
“My mistake,” apologized Mr. Turner. “Here in this room are three patriots, and I’m sure that there are more in the city. Now, I would suggest that we start right in and get busy. If the nation is to be saved, it seems that we have to do it. Just three of us—there ought to be more.”
“I think that a couple of the boys at the office might be interested.”
“Suppose you pick out a few of them, and have them come to dinner with us tomorrow night?”
“I think you ought to ask their wives,” suggested Mrs. Jordan. “The poor dears don’t have a chance to eat meals like you serve, Mr. Turner, and I know that they will be as enthusiastic patriots as the men.”
“Suits me. I’ll have supper for twelve at seven tomorrow. You arrange the party.”
The supper on the following night was a great success. After the supper the old man talked to the young people. He reviewed the history of the nation: Washington at Valley Forge, General Jackson at New Orleans, Reynolds and Meade at Gettysburg, Lincoln on his knees, praying for a nation in travail. He told about Lee and Pickett, of Dewey at Manila, and of the Marines in Belleau Wood. Again and again he had his audience in tears, and cheers. And then he asked them who would give up everything, even life, to save their nation. They did not make much noise as they responded to his question, but it was easy to tell that everyone at the table was a real American patriot, even if he or she had been overworked and undernourished for years.
“We’re going to save the nation,” said the old man in closing his re marks. “I have a plan. Up in the wilds of New York I have a fifty-acre-tract of land with a little hunting lodge. There is a twelve-foot barbed wire fence around it that’s strong enough to stop an elephant. We’re going up there, and when we come back, things are going to be different.”
“How are we going to save the nation up there?” asked one of the Women.
“Very simple. Smith and Freilausen and Jenkins are going to be there with us, as our guests.”
Freilausen and Jenkins were rather surprised to receive a command from Samuel Smith that they meet him up in the mountains. Nevertheless, they went. But when they met Smith they were none too happy over the situation. It seemed that the three of them had been virtually kidnapped and were to be held in the hunting lodge till further developments.
The first night there nothing happened. They were given supper and comfortable beds. The next morning they had breakfast, and a very excellent one, with the rest of the party, which seemed to be composed of six young men, their wives, and an old man, who simply introduced himself as a farmer by the name of Turner. The women seemed to have cooked the breakfast and were generally helping the men with the housework. There were no servants.
It was after breakfast that Turner held a meeting in the large living room.
“I’m the judge,” he began, “and these six young men and their wives are the jury. We are all American patriots. You three men are on trial for conspiracy against the United States.”
“I guess you do not know who I am!” shouted Smith. “I am Samuel Smith, the next President of the United States.”
“No,” answered Turner, and his voice was calm and rather low. “You are not going to be the next President. You just think so. As a matter of fact, you are going to be a rather small potato when I get through with you. Now, William Jordan, I want you to tell the jury what you heard these three men talking about one day.”
Jordan did as he was asked. The three rich men listened in silence. “Now, members of the jury, what is your verdict?”
“Guilty!” was the unanimous answer.
“I agree with you. But we want everything to be legal. Here is the first point. You forced, in one way and another through the Supreme Court of our nation, a decision, that if a man owned land, he also owned all the air above that land. Now I own this fifty-acre tract of land. I put a fence around it, and I can show you in many ways that I am the owner. You have to stay here for a little while, but I don’t think it’s right for you to breathe air that belongs to me without paying for it.”
“But air is free!” yelled Jenkins.
“It used to be before you put that celebrated case of Perkin vs. Vanderpool before the Supreme Court. They made the decision. And you made them do it. So, it is my air, and I am not going to let you breathe it without paying me for it.”
“All right,” growled Smith. “Tell us how much and we’ll pay.”
“I am going to charge you exactly one-half of your wealth; one-half of your holdings in the U.F.C.”
“We refuse to pay,” said Freilausen. “All that for a little air!”
“Then we shall have to refuse you the air. We have no right to kill you, but I am not going to let you breathe my air. Suppose you bring in those cylinders, boys?”
Three large glass cylinders, shaped a little like fruit jars, were brought into the room. Without much ceremony the three rich men were thrust into the jars, feet first, and then the tops were screwed on.
“If you change your minds, just give us a signal,” cried Turner, while they yet could hear.
It did not take long for the oxygen in the jars to become exhausted.
White-faced, sweating, and trembling, the three gave the signal for release. The tops were taken off, the three men were pulled out, and put back on their chairs.
“You can sign this paper on the dotted line,” commanded Turner. And sign it they did, half of their wealth for the right to breathe the air, which, by the law of the land, belonged to old man Turner.
“Now you can go anywhere you want to,” Turner said to the three, “but there’s no way you can escape. The fence would hold you anyway, but my young friends are going to stay with you to see that you behave. So, you can go off and talk the affair over. Don’t you think we have pure air up here in the mountains?”
The rich men must have decided to be diplomatic, because when dinner time came they appeared, apparently in the best of humor. To their surprise, they found that no places had been reserved for them at the table.
“Where do we eat?” asked Smith.
“You do not eat—that is, without paying for it.”
“Well, we’re willing to pay. How much?”
“A million dollars each for each meal.”
“We refuse.”
“As you wish.”
They went hungry for three meals and then surrendered. Once more they were forced to sign on the dotted line. And that was the way it went. They had to pay for everything, bed and board and even the right to wash their hands, and finally the day came when their resources were exhausted. All their wealth was gone, even to their gold reserve, which in some way, Turner had heard about.
They were different men by this time. Worry and anger had played havoc with their nerves. They knew now that the men who had them in their power me
ant business. They wondered what would happen when all their wealth was gone. They did not have to wait.
“You boys are short of cash; so, you will have to start to work,” announced Turner. “Smith can chop the firewood, Jenkins can sweep and make beds, and Freilausen can peel potatoes and wash the dishes. Do you understand?”
“We will die first!” whined Smith.
“I wish you would,” said William Jordan. “Save us lots of trouble.”
But after several attempts at starvation, the three men gave in and were willing to do anything for a good meal. The six young men and their wives saw to it that they worked hard, but at the same time, gave them good meals. There was no relenting in the discipline. Gradually, however, the entire colony grew happier. Bridge parties were held at night and entire evenings were given to songs and story telling. On the fourth of July a regular celebration was held, at which Turner explained just what it meant to be a real American patriot.
Meantime, the men who were still interested in the welfare of America were profiting by the unexplained absence of the three great leaders. Congress met and passed some laws, real laws with teeth in them. All wages had to be paid with United States currency. All stores had to sell to anyone having the money to buy. The U.F.C. script was declared illegal tender. No company could be organized with a capital of over a million dollars. One hundred thousand deserted farms were purchased by the nation to be homesteaded by any man and wife from the city who would promise to live on the farm, with government help, and have, during the first five years, at least two children.
The pendulum of life swung backward. The nation had had their fling in the air and seemed to be anxious to become pedestrians. The cement roads, formerly deserted, were covered with young people joyously walking, filled with the love of life and singing as they walked.
It was nearly Christmas time in the Adirondacks. For some days the isolated party had been bringing in holly and decorating the hunting lodge. Samuel Smith was put in charge of the decorating committee, and he made a good job of it. The three multi-millionaires were different men than they were when they had been brought to the mountains. Regular exercise, long hours of sleep, and good food had brought youth to their cheeks and muscles to their one-time over-fat bodies.
On Christmas Eve old man Turner passed out the Christmas presents.
“It has been a fine time we have had up here in the woods,” he said. “We have all profited by it. The news from Washington is most encouraging. There were more American patriots left in the country than we dreamed of, only they were discouraged and hopeless. The wealth and power that our friends here turned over to us furnished the sinews of war, and the revolution was sharp and decisive, even though bloodless. Our government is once again in the hands of the common people. The working man can have a chance to make something out of his labor. We are going to give you your liberty, gentlemen, as a Christmas present, and in order not to make you feel too bad we are going to restore part of your wealth. A million each in gold will be handed to you on your return to New York. I would take it and retire. Be careful what you say. The New York mob is not to be trifled with. If they ever hear the whole story, they will not be kind to you. Now, you are free to go.”
Samuel Smith stood up. He was smiling, a rather kindly smile.
“We had it coming to us, gentlemen and I will give you credit for using good treatment on us. I think that we feel better for it. I have only one favor to ask. Don’t send us back to New York tonight. I helped pick that turkey and also had a hand in preparing the plum pudding. Why not let us stay over Christmas and help eat that turkey?”
THE FLYING FOOL
Originally published in Amazing Stories, July 1929.
Robert Smith gave an exclamation of astonishment. He turned to his wife and said:
“I see that Einstein has reduced all physics to one law.”
Mrs. Smith was darning stockings at the other side of the table. The world that she was living in was a rather new world, but the stockings still had holes in them. In fact, the two dollar silk stockings had as many holes as the fifty cent Lisle variety used to have. Life for Mrs. Smith was not so very interesting. Even her two-year-old daughter, who had most inconsiderately arrived in the eleventh year of an otherwise uneventful companionate marriage, failed to provide the blasé wife with thrill, though she did furnish lots of hard work.
Robert Smith was an inventor. That is, he was a dreamer of great innovations by night, and a seller of laces and ribbons in a large department store in the daytime. Naturally, such a spending of the twenty-four hours did not provide his wife with the luxuries of life and, gradually, through the years, she had come to regret the fact that her husband was just plain Robert Smith instead of an Edison. Of course, when she married him she was under the delusion that he really would invent something which would make them wealthy. She now saw, after thirteen years of gradually increasing disappointment, that her husband would always remain a salesman of ribbons and laces.
Her husband tried to keep her interested in his dreams. That was hard to do when she had so many stockings to darn and buttons to sew on. Besides, at the end of the day, she was tired. Also her mind had never been very much interested in higher mathematics or the laws of physics and all other interesting things that her husband felt useful to him in his nocturnal career as an inventor. Frequently, she did not even have an idea of what he was talking about, and his efforts to tell her, simply added to their mutual dissatisfaction with each other. Something of this kind happened on this particular evening. Smith said:
“I see that Einstein has reduced all physics to one law.”
His wife looked up from her darning, as she said rather slowly:
“I think that is a good thing. We have too many laws as it is. What state does this man Einstein come from? I do not recall his name. But I really do not see how all the laws could be put into one law. That must be a newspaper mistake.”
“Einstein, my dear, is a German,” replied her husband.
“Well, of course, they have to be represented. Still, I think that they ought to be careful in regard to electing these foreigners. He may be a Bolshevik.”
“You still do not understand. This man is not a senator. He is a scientist. When it says that he has formulated a new law, it means a law of physics. It has nothing to do with government.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? You said a law. I guess I know what a law is. And another thing, don’t yell at me so. You talk so loud that it is no pleasure to listen to you any more. If you would spend your evenings in taking a correspondence course in something instead of reading about things nobody understands, you would get away from that ribbon and lace counter. I showed you that paper about the Improvement Institute. A man was taking that course and he changed from a salary of twenty dollars a week to ten thousand a year, and he only studied ten weeks. Well, what about this new law?”
“It means this,” replied Smith, in a rather low voice, “many centuries ago man realized that light and heat were related. Then Joule and Rumford showed that light, heat and energy are related according to definite physical laws. Thus, energy was added to light and heat. Now, gradually, the scientists have shown that to these three forces can be added matter, space, time, gravitation and electricity. The only factor absent was to determine the relation between electricity and gravitation. According to Einstein, there is only one substance, ‘the field,’ and this field contains electrical and gravitational components which are closely tied together by a single formula. That, to me,” said Smith gravely, “is a most remarkable discovery.”
“And to me,” replied his wife, “it does not mean a thing.”
“But you do not understand just what this means!” almost shouted Robert Smith. “This article says that it means that man can fly. Not in a plane or a balloon, but just go up in the air! The thing that holds us to the earth is gravitation. If that can be overcome, why mankind can go up into space. I believe I see
something in that, a very simple machine, which could be produced for a few hundred dollars—”
But his wife interrupted him. She was led to do so by past experience.
“A few hundred dollars would pay our expenses for several months.”
But Robert Smith was so absorbed that he never heard her remark. Just then the baby cried in the next room.
“Robert,” said Mrs. Smith, “will you go and tend to the baby? I must finish this mending. You know it is your child as much as it is mine.”
“Please stop calling the baby ‘it.’ She is too old, and besides, she has a very nice name.”
Nevertheless, he put down the paper and disappeared into the shadows of the next room to attend to the baby.
* * * *
When he returned from the care of the baby, he found that his wife had gone to bed. The sounds from their bedroom indicated that she was fast asleep. So, relaxing, Smith started to read the article very carefully. He read that a New York professor was making some startling statements about the new law of Einstein. He prophesied that the time would come when airplanes would be able to remain in the air without engines or visible support; that a man, properly equipped, could step out of a twenty-story window and not be in danger of falling; and that, were it not for the deadly cold of the regions beyond the earth’s atmosphere, a trip to the moon might be a very easy matter. This law provided a means for insulating the body against the laws of gravitation.
“That would be rather fine,” said Smith, softly, to himself. “That would be the real thing. This air work they are doing now is too complicated. I do not believe that it will ever be popular. Besides, it is so very dependent on machinery and fuel, and a person has to keep on going. Now, my idea is to go up in the air about fifty feet and just slowly mosey around.
The Twelfth Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK™: David H. Keller, M.D. Page 7