Genre Short Story. Page - 2

e discovered New Jersey. He made a map of the whole coast, and claimed all the country back of it for the King of England.

There is no proof that Cabot knew whether this country had inhabitants or not. He saw it from his ships; but he did not make any attempt to settle it, and thus establish a legal right to the soil. He simply declared it the property of the Crown of England, and it is upon this claim that England afterward based her right to the eastern coast of North America.

And so New Jersey was discovered from the east.

About a quarter of a century after Sebastian Cabot's voyage, the French took up the idea that they would like to discover something, and Francis I. sent an Italian mariner, named John Verrazano, across the Atlantic Ocean.

After having sailed far enough, John Verrazano discovered the coast of North America, which he called "a new land never before seen by any man, ancient or modern." He took possession of it in the name of his king, and, in order to settle the

agreed.

"I'll give ya three bucks for it," said the junk man to theoffice manager.

Stewardship

A wise man approached three young men standing around idly."Here is a coin worth a hundred dollars," the wise man said to thefirst youth. "What should I do with it?"

"Give it to me," he said at once.

"Rather than reward such selfishness and greed," responded thewise man, "it would be better to throw the money into the sea." Andwith this, the wise man threw the coin into the water. "Now," hesaid to the second youth, "here is another coin. What should I dowith it?"

The second youth, feeling shrewd, answered, "Throw it into the sea."

But the wise man said, "That would be a careless waste. Tofollow a bad example only because it is an example is folly. Betterthan throwing this money away would be to give it to the poor." Andhe gave the money to a beggar sitting nearby. "I have one lastcoin," the wise man went on, talking to the third youth. "Whatshall I do with

hould so much like to put Chirp into Dicky's cage."

"I have been thinking of the very same thing," said Charles. "Let us run and ask mamma if we may do it."

Away they ran and asked.

"Why," said their mamma, "it certainly will have rather a strange appearance. The two birds do not seem suitable companions. It is an odd fancy, children; but you may do it if you like."

No sooner said than done. Off ran Fanny and Charles--took the little Foundling out of his old lantern--opened the door of Dicky's cage--and at once put him in, and fastened the door. In a moment, Dicky flew up to his top perch, and stood looking down very earnestly; and the little Foundling, though he could stump about on his lame toes, never moved, but sat looking up at Sir Dicky. The nestling looked like a poor little ragged lame beggar-boy whom a sprightly gentleman in a bright yellow coat had been so compassionate as to take into his house.

[Illustration]

Presently the Foundling went to the seed-box, a

to do, but it took more guts that he had to jump off a bridge, so he went on the Road instead.

After he got over his shakes--and he sure had 'em bad--he decided that, if he never took another drink, it'd be the best thing for him. So he didn't. He had a kind of dignity, though, and he could really talk, so he and I teamed up during the wheat harvest in South Dakota. We made all the stops and, when we hit the peaches in California we picked up Sacks and Dirty Pete.

Sacks got his monicker because he never wore shoes. He claimed that gunny-sacks, wrapped around his feet and shins, gave as much protection and more freedom, and they were more comfortable, besides costing nix. Since we mostly bought our shoes at the dumps, at four bits a pair, you might say he was stretching a point, but that's one of the laws of the Road. You don't step on the othe

I said, "Fine, go ahead. About your resignations--"

Mel said something indistinguishable--I'd caught him on a bite of steak.

Hazel, belligerent, demanded: "Are you asking us to resign?"

Apparently I wasn't. So they stuck, and another crisis was met. Unfortunately, by then, I'd forgotten the shock and warning I got from the cat.

* * * * *

Things moved swiftly, more easily. The GG took over, becoming, in effect, my staff. They'd become more: five different extensions of me, each capable of acting correctly. As a team, they meshed beautifully.

Too beautifully, at one point. Dex and Hazel were seeing eye-to-eye, even in the dark, and I worried about the effect on the others. I might as well have worried about the effect of a light bulb on the sun. They married or some such, refused time off, and the GG functioned, if anything, better. It was almost indecent the way the five got along together.

A new problem arose: temperature. We weren't repr

ou know. The man had a kind face and he handled Pine Tree very carefully. He sawed and smoothed Pine Tree many days, and as he worked he whistled and sang, for he was happy. Sometimes he would whistle some of the songs that Pine Tree had heard when he lived in the forest, and then sometimes those he had heard on the ocean, and again he would whistle the songs that Pine Tree had heard in the home of the children.

At last the man's work was finished. Pine Tree had been made into a wonderful musical instrument--a violin. The man took a bow and drew it across the strings, and as he did so he smiled and nodded his head, for the music was very sweet. The violin, which had once been Pine Tree, and then part of a ship, and the ridge-pole of the cottage and the barn, seemed to sing to the man the songs of the forest, the songs of the ocean, the songs of the home, and the songs of the lowly barn.

One day the man put the violin in a case and took it away on a long journey. When the case was opened, the vio

r, or folded in a blue handkerchief, and laid them, with fingers more or less worn and stubby from hard service, before the consul for his signature. Once, in the case of a very young Madchen, that signature was blotted by the sweep of a flaxen braid upon it as the child turned to go; but generally there was a grave, serious business instinct and sense of responsibility in these girls of ordinary peasant origin which, equally with their sisters of France, were unknown to the English or American woman of any class.

That morning, however, there was a slight stir among those who, with their knitting, were waiting their turn in the outer office as the vice-consul ushered the police inspector into the consul's private office. He was in uniform, of course, and it took him a moment to recover from his habitual stiff, military salute,--a little stiffer than that of the actual soldier.

It was a matter of importance! A stranger had that morning been arrested in the town and identified as a military desert

try, and one of them had somehow come into the possession of John Thacher's grandfather when grafted fruit was a thing to be treasured and jealously guarded. It had been told that when the elder Thacher had given away cuttings he had always stolen to the orchards in the night afterward and ruined them. However, when the family had grown more generous in later years it had seemed to be without avail, for, on their neighbors' trees or their own, the English apples had proved worthless. Whether it were some favoring quality in that spot of soil or in the sturdy old native tree itself, the rich golden apples had grown there, year after year, in perfection, but nowhere else.

"There ain't no such apples as these, to my mind," said Mrs. Martin, as she polished a large one with her apron and held it up to the light, and Mrs. Jake murmured assent, having already taken a sufficient first bite.

"There's only one little bough that bears any great," said Mrs. Thacher, "but it's come to that once before, and

e is not known for his great strategy yet his advice to the Danken is remarkably sound. He knows things he should not and gives wise council when he has no wisdom of his own. Learn how he does this and learn of his plans."

"When I have learned what you want, what of me then?"

"Your world is your own. We can arrange for a noble seat in many cities in the south. We can re-introduce you to your cousin in Gazu Tevel. You can act as a southern ambassador and advisor to the north."

"And you?"

Jon shrugged. "I will continue to do what I have done."

#

Red clouds of dust rose from the slave pits of Gazu Kadem. They saw the clouds hours before they saw the city itself. Two deep pits, thousands of feet across and nearly a thousand feet deep lay outside the city itself. Half a million slaves carved into the rock seeking iron, coal, gold, and the treasures of the old city now buried underneath the sand and clay above.

The minerals and artifacts were only one profitable comm

"They want this simple thing, man, perphs, peripherals. You and me, we're just parts for the machine. Aleph, which is the Al in residence, has got all these inputs--video, audio. radiation detectors, temperature sensors, satellite receivers--but they're dumb. What Aleph wants, Aleph gets--I've learned that much. He wants to use us, and that's all there is to it. Think of it as pure research."

"He? You mean Innis?"

"No, who gives a damn about lnnis? I'm talking about Aleph. Oh yeah, people will tell you Aleph's a machine, an AI, all that bullshit. Uh-uh. Aleph's a person--a weird kind of person, sure, but a definite person. Hell, Aleph's maybe a whole bunch of people."

"I'll take your word for it. Look, there's one thing I'd like to try. What do I have to do to get outside ... go for a spacewalk?"

"Easy enough. You have to get a license--that takes a three-week course in safety and operations. I can take you through it. I'm qualified as an ESA, extra-station activity instruc