The Scientific Pioneer | Project Gutenberg (2024)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74221 ***

One thing about that heap of mine, it always picks the loneliest placesto roll over and play doggo. It started spluttering about the time theroad changed from concrete to macadam, and when the macadam trickledinto a thin silver of bumpy dirt it wheezed, snorted, and gave up theghost.

I said, "Damn!" and a few things more expressive. I got out andstruggled with the hood and looked at the innards and admired theirincomprehensible compactness. I jiggled a few wires here and there andnothing happened. Then I looked for telephone wires. There were none.But I discovered that I wasn't alone. There was a man leaning on theworm fence across the road, watching me with drawling incuriosity.

I said, "Hey, you! Is there a telephone anywhere around these parts?"

He shifted a billiard ball from his left cheek to his right, squinted,and shook his head.

"Nup," he said.

"How about a garage?" I asked. "How far is it to the nearest garage?"

He bobbed his head northward. "Two mile. Mebbe two'n a half," he said.

"Thanks," I told him, "for the poisonous information."

I locked the car and started in the direction he had pointed out. I hadtaken a dozen steps when he halted me.

"Swim good?" he asked.

I looked at him, then at the dull, gray, February sky, then at thedappled patches of unthawed snow clinging to the roots and hollows.

"I'm a duck," I said, "not a penguin. I stick to hot water in thewinter. I hold the All-American free-style record for February bathtubpaddling. Why?"

"That's what," he said, "I figgered. You can't go thataway, then.Bridge is out, an' river's half a mile wide. You better go 'totherdirection."

I glared at him. "Say it," I said. "How far?"

"Fifteen miles," he guessed. "Sixteen, more like."

"Sixteen miles!" I did the only thing I could think of. I kicked mybuggy in the bumper, then collapsed onto the running board.

"Hell's beacons, man, I can't walk that far! Not without my Boy Scoutaxe. What am I going to do? I've got to get to Westville before dark,my car's on the squeegee, and so far as I'm concerned that thing underthe hood is a deep, dark mystery."

He said, "Let's see," interestedly, and gangled over the fence. Helifted the hood and stared into the maw of my crate. His eyes dartedfrom one piece of machinery to another; after a while he began tomumble to himself, and once he nodded.

Then he muttered, "'Pears like it oughta be this 'un here—" andreached in and touched something. It clinked. He tightened it.

"Try 'er now," he said. "Wiggle somethin'. Make 'er go."

"Sure," I said caustically. "All I need is a nice long hill."

But I climbed in and kicked the starter. Then I yelled. Because the oldjalopy gave one disgusted snort, then began to purr like a firesidetabby!

"She roars," he said, "purty. Don't she?"

"She do, indeed," I told him exuberantly. "Say, friend, why didn'tyou tell me you were a mechanic? You've saved me three aspirins and abroken arch."

"Me a mechanic?" he drawled. "Shucks, Mister, I ain't never seen theinnards of one of them things before."

"You've never—" I chuckled. "Cut the comedy. Then how did you knowwhat to do to make it start?"

He squirmed, a trifle embarrassedly, I thought, and shuffled his feet.

"Well, now, it just stood to reason," he said. "Seemed like thatthingamajig hangin' on the whatchamaycallit should've—"

I grinned. "Okay, pal. You've got secrets, I've got secrets, all God'schildren got secrets. Anyhow, thanks for the first-aid. Here's a littlesomething for your—"

But he shook his head. "Aw, that's all right," he mumbled. "'Twarn'tnothin', Mister. So long." He grinned and ambled off across the field.And that was that.

I reached Westville before dark, found the man I'd been sent out tointerview, and told him who I was.

"I'm Jim Blakeson," I said. "There's a rumor that I'm the PublicRelations Department for Midland University. It's a phony. Between youand me and the League of Nations, I'm really the third assistant errandboy for Culture, Inc. Now—about this new comet you discovered.

"Midland is all upsy-daisy to find such a promising young amateurastronomer in the state. They're willing to subsidize you to the extentof a newer and larger telescope if you'll agree to act as a lay memberof their observatory staff. What say?"

The ham star-gazer—Hawkins was his name—turned a delicate shade ofmauve. It was happiness, I think. For a minute I thought he was goingto kiss me. Then delight went out and he shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Blakeson, but I can't accept your offer. I'd love to,but the truth of the matter is—I'm not the man who discovered thatcomet."

I said, "Wait a minute. Maybe I'm in the wrong galaxy. You're Hawkins,aren't you? You're the guy who plotted the comet's course, no?"

"I'm Hawkins. I plotted its course. But I didn't discover it." Hisspirits were down around his shoelaces now. "That was done by aneighbor of mine, a few miles down the way. Chap by the name of HankCleaver. 'Horse-sense Hank', we call him."

My extra-sensory perception percepted. "Don't look now," I said, "butis this Horse-sense Hank a long cold drink of wisdom about thirty yearsold? Given to lack of speech and habit of chewing tobacco?"

"That's Hank," said the youngster. "He's the one. He's no astronomer,you understand. But he happened to stop around one night while I wascharting. I started to explain something about cometary orbits, andafter a while he said he 'lowed as how I ought to take a careful lookin the region of Beta Draconis. I did, and—well, there it was. The newcomet. He said he just figured as how there ought to be one there!"

"Kid," I said solemnly, "something tells me the discovery of that cometwas peanuts. Just peanuts. I'm going to get you that subsidy, anyway.And tomorrow morning I'm going back to have another talk with the guywho earned it for you."

So I did. I found Horse-sense Hank poking around in his south forty andtold him what I wanted. He didn't answer for so long that I thoughtmaybe the shock had killed him.

I asked anxiously, "Well, Hank? What's the word?"

"Turnips," he said mournfully, "is hell. It don't matter where youplant 'em or how careful. They never do what you expect. Oh, you meanabout the University? Well, I don't guess it would do no harm. I'll goif you want me to."

"I do," I told him with savage satisfaction. "All my life I've wantedto see what would happen when a man with plain, ordinary horse-sensecrossed gray matter with a bunch of animated reference books. You'rethe party of the first part. Look, Hank—suppose you were out huntingwith another guy. You see the flash of his gun; ten seconds later youhear the boom. How far away from him are you?"

"A game, mebbe?" asked Hank. He pondered for a minute while I waited,wondering if I'd cleaned the machine the first time or if this were aperpetual jackpot.

Then, "How cold is it?" asked Hank.

I almost yelped with joy. "Say about sixty-eight," I said.

Hank said, "Well, then, I reckon he'd be 'bout two mile off. Triflemore, mebbe."

"Why?" I demanded. "How did you know?"

Hank looked perplexed. He said, "Well, it seems as if. That's all."

"And that," I told him, "is all I wanted to know! Come on, my friend.Let's go puzzle pedagogues!"

The only thing stuffier than the office of H. Logan MacDowell, MidlandUniversity's president, was H. Logan himself. Hank and I enteredthe outer office, ran a gantlet of upturned noses, and were finallyinformed by a pair of glinting pince-nez that "Dr. MacDowell will seeyou now, if you please." We pleased.

Beauty and the Beast greeted us. H. Logan's daughter might be achippie off the old blockhead, but they look as much alike as me andmy passport picture. She smiled at us as we entered, and life was allsugar and Santa Claus. Our pal the prexy lurched and wobbled in thedepths of his swivel-chair, gave it up as a bad job, motioned us toseats and hrrumphed!

"Well, Blakeson, might I interrogate as to the reason for thisunexpected visitation?"

"If," I deciphered, "you mean why am I here, sure! This is anunveiling. Take off your polysyllables, Doctor. You're in the presenceof genius."

"Genius?" MacDowell stared distastefully at Hank's mail-order suit andbulldog shoes. "Genius?"

"When you say that," I advised, "grovel. You see before you, Doc, a mandeserving of the finest faculty position dear old M. U. has to offer.Meet Hank Cleaver, the human slide rule!"

MacDowell frowned. "I deplore, Blakeson, your unacademic speechhabits. Furthermore, you are undoubtedly aware that there are atpresent no unoccupied seats on the Midland faculty. If your friendwould care to deposit his credentials with my secretary, however, andwrite an application for admittance to our staff—"

Horse-sense Hank's eyes accused mine. "Write, Jim? Shucks, you didn'ttell me I had to write nothin'. You know I can't write."

Indignation overcame Prexy MacDowell's inertia. He came to his feetquivering like a radium finder in a bucket full of pitchblende.

"What! Blakeson, do you mean to tell me you have the effrontery tosuggest for addition to our faculty a man who can neither read norwrite? Young man, this time you have gone too far! I fail to recognizethe humor in this situation. I'll have you—"

"Look, Prexy," I said, "sit down and take the load off your brains.You didn't hire me, and you can't fire me. I report to the AdvisoryCouncil. Now, listen to me. This man is the greatest find sincePharoah's daughter went snipe hunting in the bulrushes. He knows stuffand things."

"Stuff?" wheezed the college president. "Things?"

"Ask him. Anything at all. He's got more answers than a quiz program."

MacDowell stiffened like a strychnine victim. "I refuse," he proclaimedstentoriously, "to lend myself to such a display. The dignity of myoffice—"

Helen MacDowell had been staring at Hank with frank curiosity.

Now she said, "Papa, why don't you follow Jim's suggestion? Ask Mr.Cleaver a question."

That got him. "Very well," he said. "I will ask a single question. Butif he fails to answer it—"

He had a dirty look in his eyes. I said, "Serve it straight, Doc. Notricky place names or technical phrases."

"I shall merely ask our rustic friend," said MacDowell stiffly, "toexplain to us the fundamental laws of motion as established by SirIsaac Newton." And he glared at Hank and me malevolently.

Merely! I looked at Hank, and the blank expression on his pan gave methe queasies. He said wonderingly.

"Sir Isaac Newton, Jim? Who's he?"

"Skip that part, Hank," I advised. "What the Doc wants to know is: whatnatural laws apply to things moving? You know—what do they have to door can't do?"

"Oh!" Hank's brow furrowed. He knotted his ham-like paws and unknottedthem again. Finally a light shone in his eyes and he said.

"Well, far's I can see, fust thing is that they can't get goin' bythemselves, or if once they do, they can't stop less'n somethin' stops'em."

I glanced at MacDowell, who had gulped audibly. I said,

"Keep going, guy. You're hot as a firecracker."

"Well, seems like everything in motion makes an equal motion likeitself, an' it don't matter whether what it acts on is still or movin'.An' if there's anything else actin' along with it, both movements isgoin' to have a say in the showdown."

Me, I'm a publicity man, not a physicist. It was all a deep fog in mymind, but MacDowell's eyes were bulging.

"Go on!" he ordered grimly.

"Lastwise," drawled Hank, "'Pears like whenever there's a movement oneway, there ought to be an equal kick-back 'tother way." He hesitatedfor a long moment. Then he shrugged. "Reckon that's all I can think ofoffhand."

MacDowell repeated numbly, "That's all he can think of—offhand!" andstaggered to his chair. He tottered for seconds, then dropped into it."The product of a genius' thoughts for years. And he solves it in fiveminutes!"

Then he snapped out of it, and was he sore!

"You, Blakeson!" he yelled.

"Yeah?"

"This is one of your tricks! What do you mean by this outrageousimposter? You can't deceive me! This man has studied physics. Heknows—"

"Physics?" interrupted Hank eagerly. "Say, you're darn tootin' I'vestudied physics. An' take it from me, all these here now drugstorethings ain't no good. You get you a batch of fresh wild-cherrysaplings, bile 'em in water for a half hour, an' add—"

"Quiet," I pleaded, "is requested for the sake of those who are asleep.Dr. MacDowell, I give you my word of honor Hank is just what he appearsto be. A man of the soil, gifted with great talents. Or rather, onegreat talent—that of common sense."

"A—a moment!" MacDowell silenced me with an uplifted palm. "Mr.Cleaver, are you acquainted with the principles of Mendel?"

"Nup!" acknowledged Hank cheerfully.

"Perhaps, then, you'd be kind enough to derive an answer for thisquestion? A man has a black dog and a white one. He mates them. Thefemale whelps four puppies. Of the four, how many will you expect to beblack, how many white?"

Horse-sense Hank cast a sidelong glance at Helen, and blushed. But hedidn't bat an eyelash.

"This here now black hound, what color was his old man an' woman?"

"They were also black."

"An' 'tother one's mammy an' pappy was white?"

"We will," said Dr. MacDowell weakly "assume that to be so." He knew hehad lost again. And so he had. For Hank's answer was bland simplicity.

"Why, then, them there pups would just natcherally hafta be all black."

"H-how do you know?" demanded MacDowell faintly.

"Just seems as if," said Hank. He scratched his head. "'Course," hesaid cautiously, "them there wouldn't be good show dogs, them pups.They wouldn't breed true wuth a damn. Next time they was mated,their pups would be mixed colors. I'd say 'bout three to one for theblacks."[1]

President MacDowell shuddered violently. He fell back into his chair,covered his eyes with shaking fingers.

"Take him away!" he pleaded. "A lifetime of study, and—Get him out ofmy sight, Jim Blakeson! Oooooh!"

The last I saw of him, he was ripping the diplomas off his officewalls, tearing them into shreds of despair.

So that was that. But Horse-sense Hank didn't go back to his turnippatch. Because Helen MacDowell followed us from the office, her eyesglowing. She said, "He's marvelous, Jim. Marvelous! What are you goingto do now?"

"I was thinking," I told her gloomily, "of trying a perfect crime withyour old man as 'X-marks-the-spot.' Any objections?"

She said thoughtfully, "You might wait till I get next month'sallowance. Daddy's not bad when you get used to him, Jim. But I meanabout Mr. Cleaver. Is he planning to stay here in town?"

Hank shuffled his feet. "Seems if I oughta go on back to my turnips,"he opined. "Durn things'll go to seed if I don't."

Helen turned it on, and what I mean, when she did it really went on.Her smile wasn't even directed my way, but I caught the backwash andmade next year's New Year resolutions ten months in advance.

"But how disappointing, Mr. Cleaver! I was hoping we might have dinnersomewhere and talk a little while—"

"Great idea!" I said. "I'll call Tony's—"

"—just the two of us," she continued, "alone."

Hank swallowed with difficulty. And stayed. Who wouldn't?

So I put him up at my apartment. At first he demurred.

"I don't wanta be no expense to you, Jim," he protested.

But he wasn't. Because one night I took him to the College Clubbe, agambling joint on the outskirts of town. He looked awful in a renteddinner jacket; the smartly garbed croupiers laughed when he walkedinto the casino. But he who laughs last, laughs last. We moved to theroulette table and watched for a few minutes.

Finally red came up three times running. So when the croupier calledfor bets, I laid a couple chips on the black. Hank frowned. As thewhite ball rattled around in its groove he reached out suddenly, movedmy chips to the other side of the board, to the red.

I said, "Hey, wait a minute, guy! Don't be a—"

Then the ball stopped rolling and the attendant purred, "Twenty-onered, passé!" and raked to my little bet an equal number of chips.

I pointed at the neat, even rows of chips and bills stacked before thecroupier.

"You see that stuff, my friend? That's money, not hay. You may be agenius at some things, but this is the old gambola. A risk any way youlook at it. Lay off my bets!"

And this time I moved my entire bet to the black column. Why not? Itwas due.

But Hank said plaintively, "Shucks, Jim, it stands to reason—"

And once again he reached out and shifted my bet to the red. Someone inthe crowd snickered. I went to move it back but the croupier, faintlyhaughty, said,

"No further play, sir, if you please!"

Then the ball stopped—on the red 36!

I looked at Hank. He looked back guiltily.

"It seemed like it ought to, Jim," he said.

I gave up. I handed him my chips. I said, "This is where I get off.Take over, Professor. I've got to see a man about a town car!"

And I walked to the bar for a drink. I felt sort of sorry for theowners of the College Clubbe. It was tough luck for them that, afterall these years, they should be the ones to play host to the firstfool-proof "system" in the history of gambling.

About twenty minutes later the crowd was shoulder deep about theroulette table. I decided it was time to go take a look-see, andfought my way to Hank's side. When I reached there I found that playhad been temporarily halted.

The croupier, green-gilled and glistening with sweat, stood before analmost chipless board. The counters were chin-high before Hank. Themanager pressed through, spoke briefly to the croupier, then turned toHank.

"I understand, sir, you wish to make a final wager against the house.Your entire stake on the fall of a single number?"

Hank nodded, embarrassed at being the center of attention.

"I sorta thought," he gulped, "it might be smart."

I groaned. The chips before Hank were a rainbow. At a rough estimate,he was about thirty grand to the pink. To stake all that on one roll—a38-to-1 shot for a 35-to-1 return—

"No, Hank!" I tugged his coat sleeve. "Cash in! Don't take a crazychance like that!"

He looked at me aggrievedly. "But it ain't what you might call achance, Jim. 'Pears to me like it's a sure thing for number nineteen tocome up. Way I see it—" He nodded to the manager. "Let 'er ride. Theworks on number nineteen."

The manager nodded to the croupier, the croupier set the tinyball spinning. The crowd tensed, and a white blur chittered itsunpredictable path about the whirling wheel. The wheel slowed, theball slowed, my heart slowed. Then all three swooped into action,the last with a lurching thump. The ball hesitated on the rim of thedouble-zero, bounced to the 32, jogged to the lip of the 19, settledthere—

Then hopped! The watchers groaned, and the voice of the croupier wasa high, thin bleat.

"Twenty-four—black—passé!"

My town car, my penthouse and my financial independence wentwhuppety-flicker, like the tag end of a film racheting through aprojector. I glared into Hank's bewildered face, bawled at himaccusingly,

"See, you dope! All because you—"

He looked dazed, incredulous. He stammered,

"But it had to be the nineteen, Jim! It couldn't be anything else,don't you see? It couldn't—"

"It couldn't," I wailed, "but it was! You—"

Then he was no longer limp, uncertain, at my side. He was making aleaping dive across the table at the croupier. The man yipped once,lunged backward, and a pellet rolled from his hand. It was a duplicateof that which now spun in the roulette wheel, but not quite a dupe!

Instead of solid ivory, I knew it would turn out to have a steel core,responsive to magnetic influence. The only thing that could break downthe analytical perfection of Horse-sense Hank was a gimmick! A gimmickis a polite way of describing a cheap gambling trick.

"The durned crook!" Hank was howling. "He gypped me! I knew thenineteen was due! Just as sure as fate it was due!"

Those were the last intelligible words for quite a while. For at thatinstant some resourceful employee jerked a switch, plunging the CollegeClubbe into darkness. People began to scream and struggle and run. Iheard the meaty impact of flesh on flesh, then the clatter of ivorytokens on the polished flooring.

I remember thinking sadly, "Good-bye, Mr. Chips!"

Then a more brilliant thought struck me. I remembered that thoseivories were cashable at any time. Tomorrow! After the excitement haddied down. I scrambled for the abandoned table, scooped up two doublehandfuls, then two more. It was our money, rightly.

I hightailed it for the exit. It took me a little time to get away.Everyone else had the same idea. But I finally made it. There was nouse looking for Hank in that mob, so I grabbed a taxi to town, hopinghe'd be able to come home under his own power.

But he was already home when I got there. He was just finishing afinancial census at my desk, dreamily counting crisp, crunchy billsinto piles before him.

"—and seventy-eight, eight hundred and seventy-nine—" He saw me andgrinned. "Hi, Jim! Got part of what I deserved, anyhow. See? 'Bout sixthousan' bucks!"

I sniffed. "Chicken feed! I've got the rest of it. The real stuff!Ten buck chips!"

With a calm, superior smile I began to unload my colorful cargo besidehis pile of green. But Hank didn't look enthusiastic. I waited for theooohs and aaahs, and when none came I snapped,

"Well, what's the matter? You sore because I made out better than youdid?"

He shifted uncomfortably and refused to meet my eye. He said,

"Well, it ain't exactly that, Jim. Only—"

"Only what?"

"Only," he gulped, "them chips ain't gonna do much good, way I figger.'Pears to me like after what happened tonight, that there place ain'tnever gonna open up no more."

He was right, of course. Hank was always right. I still have twohatfuls of roulette chips; you can have them, parcel post collect.The College Clubbe folded the next morning, but the story of why itcollapsed got around. And Hank became something of a celebrity.

That's how, in spite of Doc MacDowell's pigheadedness, the rest ofthe Midland University faculty got to hear about my rural protégé. Tohear was to visit; to visit was to listen with awe. They handed himstumpers; he up-rooted them and handed them back with Q.E.D.'s tackedon them.

At first, Horse-sense Hank was a sort of perambulating parlor game tothe professoriat. They came and tried out on him the trick questionsto which they—and presumably only they—knew the answers. No soap!They asked him about the variable nature of light waves; he derived,alone and unaided, a formula which Professor Hallowell of the PhysicsDepartment identified as the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction.

They asked him about electronic structures. First they had to tellhim what an electron was; after that, he did the talking. He confusedme and practically everyone else present. He kept talking abouta "whatchamaycallit." Finally Dr. Enderby of the Blair ResearchFoundation pinned him down as to the exact nature of this mysterioussomething.

Blair grayed visibly when he discovered that Hank's "whatchamaycallit"was identical in meaning, value and structure with h—that abstrusephysical concept known as Planck's constant.

Hank offered apologetically, "They ain't no word to describe itexactly. It—well, it just is, that's all. I reckon if you wantedto, you could say it was the diff'rence in energy values in them therelight rays we been talkin' about. But that ain't all. It's more'n that.It's also the amount of diff'rence in the way things are. I mean, whenyou bet or gamble, the whatchamaycallit comes into the picture."

Blair wept. "Heisenberg! The uncertainty factor! Identical withPlanck's constant!" He went home gibbering.

Then the graybeards realized that Hank was not just a freak; he was theAnswer Man in person. They started digging up toughies that had stymiedthem for years. They served them in simple language and Hank dished upreplies in homespun.

Me, I don't pretend to understand half the stuff I heard them talkingabout. So you'll have to overlook it if I botch the job of retelling. Irecall hearing an astronomer ask one night,

"Mr. Cleaver, what in your opinion is the explanation of the observedfact that celestial bodies apparently always move in conic sections ofelliptic or infinite orbits?"

Hank twiddled his fingers and said, "Why, 'pears to me that's onaccount of nature is lazy."

Someone ejacul*ted, "Nature lazy?"

"Sure. Movin' things take the shortest path."

The astronomer, frankly dubious, said, "But, really! An ellipse couldhardly do that because a 'shortest path'—"

"No?" said Hank. "You take a flat piece of paper. The quickest wayacrost it is a straight line, ain't it?"

"Naturally."

"You take a globe of the world, though, an' things don't work the same.You want to go from, say, Los Angeles to Japan, you wouldn't followstraight across one of them lines of latitude, would you? You'd sort ofhump up by way of Alaska."

A listener nodded eagerly. "That's right. You'd take the arc of a greatcircle. The Great Circle route."

"Well," said Hank, "same thing in the universe—which has got, near's Ican figger out, another right angle in it besides the ones we know an'see."

"You mean another dimension? A fourth dimension?"

"Call it that. Anyhow, in this sort of super-globe which has fourdimensions, stands to reason that the shortest distance from one pointto another will be a closed figger. A sort of lopsided circle."

That stopped them cold for a moment. But Tomkins, the astronomer,wasn't through yet.

"Our observations, Hank, also indicate that in this universe, everyother galaxy is running away from ours as fast as it can. Why is this?"

Cleaver repeated unbelievingly, "Runnin' away?"

"Yes. Our spectroscopes show a 'red shift' in the apparent motion ofall stars. This proves that the universe is expanding—"

"Why, no!" said Hank. "Gosh, no!"

"No?"

"Why, you got it all backward," explained Horse-sense Hank. "Whatyou're sayin' ain't reasonable. Truth of the matter is, the universeain't expandin' at all. It's just a-standin' still. Reason things lookthataway to us is because—we're contractin'!"

And that really did stop them! Even when Hank explained that the sameeffect would be visible to a man standing in the middle of the floor ofa gigantic room while the walls receded, as would be visible to a manshrinking in the middle of a normal-sized room. They didn't get it,but they tried. They took it home to sleep on.

So grew the fame of Horse-sense Hank. And while all this was going on,another thing was happening, too. Hank was seeing Helen MacDowell,practically every night. And—well, if you've ever seen a superchargedcarton of honey and dynamite like Helen, you know the inevitableresults. Love, with a capital boom!

Old MacDowell had a fit—ee-eye-ee-eye-oh! But it did him no good.His mood was one of kill and boo, but Helen's was one of bill andcoo. It got so every time I saw Hank and Helen together they looked areproduction of the Laocoön[2] group.

And then the ripples in the path of true love began to straighten out.The Isaminder Research Fund heard about Hank and granted him a fivethousand dollar fellowship, and Dr. MacDowell snorted,

"Preposterous! They must be crazy!"

Then the Lowell Observatory made him an honorary member for his greathelp in unveiling the mystery of white dwarf stars, and MacDowell said,

"What do you think of that?"

Then the Advisory Council of Midwestern U. went over our prexy'shead and offered Hank the chair of General & Practical Sciences, andMacDowell, bug-eyed, told me hopefully,

"You know, Jim, the first time I saw that young man I said he'd goplaces!"

And when the Nobel Committee voted to Hank Cleaver the annualawards for outstanding work in the fields of physics, astronomy andpsychology, MacDowell capitulated completely. He rubbed his handstogether, beamed like an April morning, and said,

"God bless you, my children! Would you like block letters or script onthe announcements? Anything at all to please your little hearts!"

So it was arranged. A big church wedding for Helen and Hank, and ofcourse I was to be best man. And Hank should have been the happiest guyalive. But was he? No. As the days narrowed toward the fateful one, hebegan to grow moody and thoughtful. Several times I caught him sittingby himself, pondering and shaking his head. Once I heard him mutter ina low under-tone,

"Mebbe it wouldn't exactly work like that—"

He was puzzling out some deep problem. Just what, I didn't know. I wastoo busy to quiz him about it. And then came the day when wedding bellswere to peal.

I went to the church to see that everything was in apple-pie order. Ileft Hank wandering in a sort of daze, impressed on him the necessityof being there at eleven sharp, told him to take a drink and stoplooking like Sydney Carton, and wondered if he'd stop the ceremony totell the preacher his words were unreasonable.

Time zipped by. The guests began to arrive. The organist came in andstarted practicing. The preacher came. Helen arrived, surrounded by abevy of chattering bridesmaids. But no Hank. I called the apartment;the phone continued to laugh at me. Dr. MacDowell came back to thevestry room and pouted,

"Where is he, Jim? It's getting near eleven."

"He must be on his way," I said hopefully.

But eleven came—and still no Hank. And then it was eleven-fifteen, andeleven-thirty, and people were beginning to cough and get restless. Oneof the bridesmaids got hysterical. Helen shot Emily Post to the fourwinds and came to me in the vestry room almost in tears.

"Jim," she pleaded, "he's not here! He must have been hurt orsomething. Can't you find out?"

"I'll try," I told her. She left, and her old man came in. He wasupset, and I don't mean he had a hangover. His eyes bulged like bumpson a cucumber.

"Blakeson," he bellowed, "where's Cleaver?"

"Do I look like a crystal ball?" I snarled. "Sit tight and amuse thecrowd with card tricks. I'm going out to find him." And I went ... butsomehow I had a feeling that it was a futile gesture.

I hope the card tricks were good. They had to be to hold that crowd,because it took me three days to find my friend Hank. And I finallylocated him in—you've guessed it!—the south forty of his farm nearWestville. Hank had reverted to the soil. Once again he was clad incoveralls and bulldog shoes. He had turned his back on civilization asa snake discards last year's skin, and the mouth that had once taughtpedagogues was again clogged to the incisors with cut plug.

He saw me coming across the field, rose and dusted his knees, and shookhis head dolefully.

"Nope, Jim," he said, "it ain't no use askin'. I ain't a-goin' back!"

"Man," I told him, "you're crazy! Don't you know the whole University'sin a fever because you skipped out? Why did you go? Helen's all bustedup. Don't you love her?"

He made a vain, twisting gesture with his hands. His eyes were bleak.

"Yup, Jim," he said.

"Then for goodness' sakes, why did you do it?"

He gulped wretchedly. "I—I can't marry her, Jim. I just can't. That'sall there is to it."

"Why?" I was sore now. "For Satan's sake, why? Something like thisdeserves an explanation."

"On account," he said, "on account of it wouldn't work."

"It wouldn't—" I stared at him. "Come clean!"

He said, "I figgered it all out, an' it won't work. Say I married her,Awright. Purty soon, stands to reason, we'd have a youngster. A boy, Ifigger. Some more years'd pass, he'd grow up. Fust thing you know, he'dbe a man hisself, an' he'd up an' fall in love with a girl.

"An' it just natcherally stands to reason that him bein' the kind ofboy he'd be, an' me bein' the kind of man I am, we'd be sure to have abig ruckus, because—"

I stared at him. "Because?"

"'Cause the kind of girl he'd fall for," said Hank, "would be some durnchorus girl. An'"—Hank's voice was heavy with parental firmness—"theyain't no son of mine is gonna marry no chorus girl!"

I felt like yesterday's lettuce. I said faintly,

"But—but that's ridiculous, Hank. You can't know—"

"I do know, Jim. Afore I met Helen, I never worried none about thefuture, let every day take care of itself. But when we planned ongettin' hitched, I started figgerin' out the logical results, theresults that had to be, by natcheral cause an' effect—"

He shrugged. "An' that's the answer. So it's better to never start thechain that'd make us all unhappy."

He held out a bronzed paw. "It's been nice knowin' you, Jim. You comevisit me once in a while, will you? An' if you ever get in a jam an' Ican help, just say the word."

I said, "So you mean it, then? The world offers you everything—fame,money, glory, love—and you're going to stay here in this—this cheesylittle old turnip patch!"

"Don't say that, Jim!" said Hank swiftly. "This is the best place inthe world for me. 'Cause I'm too durn logical. An' this is the oneplace where I'm at a disadvantage."

"What," I asked, wondering, "do you mean?"

He shook his head, dolefully this time.

"Turnips!" said Horse-sense Hank. "Everything else in the whole wideworld I can figger the results of. But turnips is hell. It don't matterwhere you plant 'em or what you try, they don't never do what youexpect 'em to."

[1] The two fundamental principles usually termed Mendelianare: (1) that of alternative inheritance, viz., that of twocorresponding but contrasted pairs of characters of the parents, onlyone appears in the offspring. This is known as the dominant character;the character not appearing is the recessive character. (2) The lawof segregation of characters, according to which both dominant andrecessive characters reappear pure in 25% each of the offspring ofhybrids.—Ed.

[2] Laocoön (lay-ock-o-on) was a priest of Apollo who warnedthe Trojans against the wooden horse of the Greeks. As a result heand his two sons were destroyed by serpents sent by Athene, who'dplaced her bet on Greece. This mythological tragedy is portrayed in amagnificent statue now in the Vatican at Rome.—Ed.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74221 ***