Part 5 (1/2)
”You certainly can,” said the stranger. ”I'm sort of manager here, and whenever you see any particular part of the earth you'd like to live in, you just let me know and I'll arrange it.”
He smiled and was gone.
IX
It was two hundred years before Priscilla Kennicott definitely decided that she could stand it no longer in heaven; it was another hundred years before she located a desirable place on earth to return to.
She finally selected a small town in the American northwest, far from the Puritan-tainted Plymouth; a small town in the midst of fields of beautiful waving grain; a small town free from the artificiality of large cities; a small town named Gopher Prairie.
She made known her desire to the manager; she said goodby to a small group of friends who had gathered to see her off; she heard the sound of the eternal harp playing and hymn singing grow gradually fainter and fainter; she closed her eyes.
When she opened them again she found herself on Main Street in Gopher Prairie.
X
From the ”Heavenly Harp and Trumpet”:
Mrs. Priscilla Kennicott, one of our most popular angels, left these parts last Tuesday for an extended visit to the Earth. Mrs. K. confided to Ye Editor that she would probably take up her residence in Gopher Prairie, Minn., under the name of Carol Kennicott. The ”Harp and Trumpet” felicitates the citizens of Gopher Prairie on their acquisition of a charming and up-to-date young matron whose absence will be keenly regretted by her many friends in the heavenly younger married set. Good luck, Priscilla!
XI
Heaven.
Five years later.
The monthly meeting of the Celestial Browning Club.
Seated in the chair reserved for the guest of honor, the manager.
The meeting opens as usual with a reading by Brother Robert Browning of his poem ”Pippa Pa.s.ses”; as he proclaims that ”G.o.d's in his heaven, all's right with the world”, the members applaud and the manager rises and bows.
The chairman announces that ”today we take up a subject in which I am sure we are all extremely interested--the popular literature of the United States”.
The members listen to selected extracts from the writings of Gene Stratton-Porter, Zane Grey, and Harold Bell Wright; at the conclusion they applaud and the manager again bows.
”I am sure”, says the chairman, ”that we are all glad to hear that things are going so nicely in the United States.” (Applause.) ”And now, in conclusion, Brother Voltaire has requested permission to address us for a few minutes, and I am sure that anything Brother Voltaire has to say will be eminently worthwhile.”
Brother Voltaire rises and announces that he has listened with interest to the discussion of American literature; that he, too, rejoices that all is well in this best of all possible United States; and that he hopes they will pardon him if he supplements the program by reading a few extracts from another extremely popular American book recently published under the name of ”Main Street”.
XII
At the next meeting of the Celestial Browning Club it was unanimously voted that the privileges of the club be denied Brother Voltaire for the period of one year, and that the name of Priscilla Kennicott be stricken from the list of non-resident members of heaven.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE COURTs.h.i.+P OF MILES STANDISH
In the Manner of F. Scott Fitzgerald
This story occurs under the blue skies and bluer laws of Puritan New England, in the days when religion was still taken seriously by a great many people, and in the town of Plymouth where the ”Mayflower”, having ploughed its plat.i.tudinous way from Holland, had landed its precious cargo of pious Right Thinkers, moral Gentlemen of G.o.d, and--Priscilla.