They were both silent for a moment. The little man heaved a deep sigh.
“Now I must tell truth,” he said in a low voice. “Like Boy Scout, must tell truth.”
“What d’you mean, Marty?” asked Eddie. “What truth, Marty?”
The little man drew himself up, straightened his shoulders and looked Eddie square in the eyes.
“Yes... must tell truth.... I no Scientist Explorer from planet Martinea!”
“WHAT!” exclaimed Eddie. “You’re not a Scientist Explorer from Martinea?”
The little man’s eyes fell. “Yes,” he said with downcast eyes. “I no Scientist Explorer from Planet Martinea.... I only... Junior Scientist Explorer.”
“Oh!” said Eddie.
“Now I must return to Martinea. I fail my mission to explore America,” continued the little man sadly. “Now I never become full Scientist Explorer.”
“Gosh,” said Eddie quietly. “Gosh, that’s too bad.”
Eddie sat and thought awhile.
“Say, lookit here,” he said. “I never asked you about yourself or about Martinea. But here’s something I gotta know. What were you sent here for?... I mean, to explore America? Does Martinea want to conquer America? Make war or something like that? What you gotta explore America for?”
The little man stepped back with a shocked expression on his face. He hunted through his dictionary box which he had not used much for the past week (Eddie and he had understood each other) until he found the words he wanted.
“Martinea no conquer! Martinea no interest in war!” he said sincerely. “Martinea interest in United States of America pure scientific interest.” And he hunted through his dictionary box for a special word. “Curiosity!” he said finally. “Yes, Martinea interest in United States of America pure scientific curiosity!”
“Oh!” said Eddie, and he sat and thought another minute.
“You know what!... Guess I can help.... Wait here a minute.”
Eddie ran into the house and in a few minutes he was out again. He carried something in his arms.
“Lookit here,” he said. “If you went around exploring the United States what would you find? You’d find out about the people. What they do. Where they live and things like that.”
The little man nodded.
“And you’d find out more things, like what they raise and what they manufacture and things like that.... Huh?”
Again the little man nodded.
“Then maybe you’d find out something about the lakes and the rivers and the mountains. And you’d find out about the government and the laws and things like that.”
The little man nodded for the third time.
“Well, here are these books. I asked Grandma if I could give them to you and she said I could. Here’s my fifth-year geography book and here’s my last year’s history book. I’ve got them here because I hadda catch up on some things this summer. I was out of school with measles once. Now these books’ll tell you about us Americans. That history book has the Declaration of Independence in it and Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech. You can take them back to Martinea with you.”
The little man was overwhelmed as he took the books which Eddie thrust at him.
“And here’s another one,” said Eddie quietly. “It’s my new Boy Scout Manual. I’ll save up and get another one when I go back to New York. Betcha, if you study those books on your way back, you’ll know more about America than anybody in Martinea. And you can have this, too, if you want it.”
Eddie piled a folded something on the books the little man held in his arms. It was Eddie’s old folded up Cub Scout shirt.
For a moment they both were too embarrassed to say a thing. Suddenly the little man rested the bundle of books on the porch, turned his back and fussed around with something out of one of his pockets. He worked furiously for a few minutes, then he turned and gave Eddie two shiny small objects.
“This for her,” he said, holding out a twisted wire ring as he pointed into the house. Then he held out the other object. “This for you.”
His present for Eddie was a Boy Scout badge. He had just made it as he stood there. Both the badge and the ring were made from his precious shiny Zurianomatichrome Wire!
Then the little man gathered up the books and the Cub Scout shirt and put out his hand to Eddie. They shook hands like Boy Scouts shake hands.
“Good-bye... Friend,” said the little man.
And he bent down quickly, twirled the knob on his non-gravity shoes to the sixty- mile-speed-limit mark and left the porch in a flash.
Eddie sat on the porch alone in the darkness. After a while when his grandmother had finished the dishes she came out and sat on her rocker.
“What you sitting in the dark for, Eddie?” she asked. “Here, I’ll turn on the porch light. There are no mosquitoes around tonight. It’s nice reading the paper out here... a little chilly, but nice.”
Eddie did not say anything. He just sat there thinking.
“Oh, Eddie,” said his grandmother, “is Marty gone?”
“Yes, Grandma,” said Eddie. “He left this with me to give you.”
Eddie reached over and dropped the shiny wire ring in his grandmother’s outstretched hand.
“Oh, that is nice.... It’s a ring, isn’t it?” she said. “How pretty and shiny. Yes, Marty’s a nice boy. Hope we see him again sometime.”
“Hope so,” said Eddie.
After another spell of silence his grandmother looked up from her newspaper and spoke again.
“I see by the paper that we ought to be seeing some Northern Lights tonight. Watch for them, Eddie. It’s sort of early in the year to be seeing Northern Lights but I hope we see them.”
Eddie nodded and looked out at the sky over the ridge for a time.
“There they are, Grandma,” said Eddie, as the long mysterious fingers of the Northern Lights began to weave across the sky. “Grandma, the Northern Lights are beginning to show.”
“So they are, Eddie. Northern Lights are so pretty,” said Eddie’s grandmother. “Somehow they make me think... well, like as if I was seeing the sound of music, good rich-sounding music from an orchestra or an organ.”
They watched the lights flowing, wavering and dying away into the darkness. And suddenly, just as the porcelain clock in the parlor struck nine, a long beam of light sprang up from the ridge in back of Grandfather’s apple tree, and in an instant it shot straight up across the sky and was gone.
Eddie reached up his arms to wave because he thought he knew who rode that beam of light. But he felt his grandmother’s eyes on his back... so he changed his gesture to a stretch and pretended to yawn.
“Eddie boy, you’re stretching and yawning,” said his grandmother gently. “It’s nine o’clock. You’d better be getting ready for bed, son.”
Next morning Eddie walked up to the apple orchard. He stood on the ridge back of Grandfather’s apple tree and looked down at the spot where the space ship had been. There was no sign of the gully. It had been filled up and covered neatly with old twigs and branches. In the center of the refilled gully stood the old stable lantern Eddie had loaned his friend Marty to light his space ship.
THE END
The Space Ship Series
Louis Slobodkin wrote five books between 1952 and 1972 telling the story of Eddie Blow and his friend from Outer Space. These are delightful tales that fire the imagination of all children who read them. The character of Eddie Blow was first introduced by Louis Slobodkin in a book written in 1949, BIXXY and the Secret Message, the story of an absent-minded carrier pigeon rescued by a den of Cub Scouts.
“You know what happened to the dinosaur,” Louis Slobodkin observed. “He didn’t read any books and got weak in the brain and now he’s extinct.” For over fifty years Mr. Slobodkin’s books have been saving children from the same fate. He does this with uniquely clever drawings and lively stories about contemporary situations... real and unreal.
Read about Marty’s and Eddie’s adventures in the
space ship... the order in which you read them doesn’t matter, just so you don’t miss them!
The Space Ship
Under the Apple Tree
Book 1 — Copyright © 1952
The man was about three feet tall. He was standing on a branch of Grandfather’s apple tree, but not on the top side of it. He was standing on the bottom side of the branch, head down!
With his non-gravity shoes, luminous dictionary box, pocket helicopter and other amazing extraterrestrial gadgets — not to mention the Astral Rocket Disk in which he arrived — the little man from Martinea changed Eddie’s visit to the farm from a quiet vacation to a dizzyingly funny and exciting adventure.
The Space Ship Returns
to the Apple Tree
Book 2 — Copyright © 1958
Back from outer space with more fantastic gadgets, Marty has a second big adventure as he and Eddie visit Washington, Boston, Florida, New Orleans, and California, using Secret Power ZZZ.
The Three-Seated
Space Ship
Book 3 — Copyright © 1962
On his third visit to Earth, Marty takes Eddie and his grandmother on a wildly funny science-fiction tour of London in his new space ship — and flies back to New York in 30 seconds flat!
Round Trip Space Ship
Book 4 — Copyright © 1968
Marty takes Eddie on a whirlwind tour of his home planet Martinea, and introduces him to the amazing brainwave machines, houses with adjustable ceilings, and schools where everyone seems to learn without studying.
“I invitation you,” Marty said carefully to his friend Eddie Blow shortly after landing his space ship near the familiar old apple tree. But this time Marty wasn’t inviting Eddie on a whirlwind tour of the United States or a breathless jaunt to London; this time Marty was inviting Eddie to his home planet, Martinea! Eddie had rarely dared think of traveling in outer space, but before he knew it, he and Marty were blasting off, together with a goat, a goose, a kangaroo, and other animals that Marty had frozen with his powerful Cryogenetic Ray Expectorator.
The Space Ship
in the Park
Book 5 — Copyright © 1972
What had promised to be a rather dull summer for Eddie in New York City changed abruptly when Marty, Eddie’s friend from the planet Martinea, landed in Central Park in a rocket disguised as an ice cream cart.
Marty whisked Eddie — and Eddie’s earth friend, Willie — off to the planet Xonia on the dark side of the moon. Equipped with supersonic sonambulators and a bevy of other amazing gadgets, the three explored Xonia, searching for the source of important pure materials needed on Martinea to produce Secret Power Z, and solving the mystery of the shimmering corgi dogs.
The Space Ship Under the Apple Tree Page 7