CHAPTER XV

It was another day ended. Another day added to the days that had gone before. Merest superstition. The eternal moment remained twining in its hair the flowers of yesterday and tomorrow. The newer street lights sparked in the dark. The uphill street which that morning had been filled at its far end with the enormous medal-with-rays of the sun was now flecked with sparkles. It was Carlstadt, established as a free thinker's corporation by Carl Weiss of Berne from which all churches had been excluded. Another day--any day--.

There lay that great frame of a man with his heavy features relaxed his loose jowls rising and falling with each breath while the busy surgeons tinkered at his elbow. Soon they struck gold and out spurted the red. Martha, who had not gone downstairs for over an hour caught it in a white porcelain bowl, an ounce, two ounces--she thought--estimating the amount swiftly. Then four ounces, eight. He was a large man. When will they check it! His breathing had grown easier. He was benefited. A pint! He was white. In an hour men on horseback were riding north and south. Washington was dead. It was another day. Any day.

Davy Crockett had a literary style. Rather than blow his squirrel to bits he'd strike the tree just under its belly so that the concussion would stun it. Such was the country with the element of time subtracted. What is time but an impertinence?

Homesteading in the far western states was a struggle. Every child born there had a mother who is thrice a heroine. A woman in such a country approached motherhood at a time when her husband had to be away from home. Up to the day of her confinement she had to milk, churn, care for the chickens, work in the garden and carry water to the house from a well three hundred yards away... The day of her confinement she did a large washing then walked two miles to the home of a neighbor.

For that the brat seized her by the lug with his little sharp teeth and drew blood. We'll have to put him on the bottle.

Nothing, save for the moment! In the moment exists all the past and the future! Evolution--! Anti-peristalsis. Eighty-seven years ago I was born in a little village in the outskirts of Birmingham. The past is for those that lived in the past, the present is for today. Or--today! The little thing lay at the foot of the bed while the midwife--It was in England 1833. And now by the sea a new world death has come and left his chewing gum in an artery of her brain. But I'll pay you for this, she said as they were sliding her into the ambulance, I'll pay you for this. You young people think you are awfully smart, don't you. I don't want to see them again, those fuzzy things, what are they, trees?

Good gracious, do you call this making me comfortable? The two boys had her on the stretcher on the floor. Yes, stay here a week then I can do what I please but you want to do what you please first. I wonder how much she planned.