Read Ebook: The Galaxy Primes by Smith E E Edward Elmer

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Ebook has 1704 lines and 71495 words, and 35 pages

PAGE

The Princess and the Apple-Tree 11

Sparrow Tree Square 19

The Twins 27

Miss Waterlow in Bed 35

Sand Babies 43

Poor Anne 51

A Voyage to India 59

Barbara's Birthday 67

The Baby Show 75

The Magic Hill 85

The Three Daughters of M. Dupont 93

Castles by the Sea 101

THE PRINCESS AND THE APPLE-TREE

Once upon a time there was a beautiful Princess, who loved all lovely things, and most she loved the flowers and the blossoming trees in her father's garden. Now there was a humble man called Silvio, whose business it was to tend the flowers and the trees in the King's garden, and to him also they were a never-ending happiness, because of their beauty. So it was that their love for lovely things drew them together, and Silvio loved the Princess, and sometimes they walked hand-in-hand together.

But the King was angry, for it was in his mind that the Princess should marry a greater man than this; and he came upon Silvio in the garden, and commanded him to leave that country, and never to be found there again. And Silvio said, "How can I leave the garden which I love?" Whereupon the King laughed, and said, "Stay, then," and touched him with the wand which he carried ... and in a moment there was no Silvio there, but only another apple-tree in the garden. For the King of that country was a great magician, and many were afraid of him.

The days went by, and still the Princess sought Silvio in the garden, but he did not come. So she went to her father, the King, and asked of him. And the King laughed, and said, "He was pruning an apple-tree. I did not like the way he pruned it. He will never come back." Then the Princess said, "Which was the tree he was pruning?" And the King led her to the window, and showed her the tree. And the Princess was astonished, for she did not know that there had been an apple-tree there. And, when she was alone, she went to the apple-tree, saying, "It is the last thing which he touched;" so she touched it with her hand. And the apple-tree trembled gently, and the blossom fell upon her head. So it was on the next day, and the next....

And Summer came, but Silvio did not come, and Autumn came, and still she thought of Silvio. One day, while she was beneath the apple-tree, she cried out suddenly, "O Silvio, let me not forget you!"--and the tree shook, and an apple fell into her lap. The Princess took a little silver knife, and peeled the apple, so that the peel was unbroken, and she threw the peel over her shoulder, saying, "See whom I love!" And she looked behind her, and there was the letter "S" upon the ground. So it was upon the next day and the next. And upon the fourth day she took an apple from another tree, and the peel broke beneath her knife; and she picked a second apple, and the peel fell in this shape or that; whereupon she went quickly back to her own tree. And always an apple fell into her lap, and always it told her that it was Silvio whom she loved.

There came a day when there was only one apple upon the tree. Then was she afraid, for she said, "How shall I know whom I love when the tree is empty?" So she went near to it. Very close, then, she felt to Silvio, and he to her; and suddenly she stretched out her arms, and said, "Apple-tree, apple-tree, you have seen whom it is that I love. Send him back to me!" And she put her arms round the tree, and clung to it, crying, "Comfort me!" And it moved within her arms. Whereupon she was frightened, and drew her arms away, putting her hands before her eyes ... and when she opened her eyes, there was Silvio waiting for her, a golden apple in his hand. But there was no apple-tree.

This is the story which the eldest Vanderdecken girl read aloud underneath the Umbrella Tree. And they said, "Now read us another." But Diana, who had never had a story read to her before, said, "I'm glad they were together again."

SPARROW TREE SQUARE

Mrs. F. M. James was very fond of Diana, but she was fond of Mr. F. M. James, too, and a time came when she found that she couldn't look after both of them; for it would happen sometimes that, when Diana wanted to play trains, Mr. F. M. James didn't, or that when Mr. F. M. James did, then Diana had thought of some other game. So one day she said:

"I think, dear, we had better get Diana a nurse, and then I can devote myself entirely to you."

"Certainly, my love, you should devote yourself entirely to me," said Mr. F. M. James, "but I cannot allow a common nurse to look after Diana Fitzpatrick Mauleverer. The F. M. James's have their pride."

"Then who is to look after her?" asked Diana's Mother.

"She must look after herself."

So from that day Diana looked after herself. She woke herself in the morning, dressed herself, took herself out for a walk, told herself to get-on-with-her-dinner-there-was-a-darling, sang herself to sleep in the afternoon, gave herself tea, brushed her hair and took herself downstairs to her Father and Mother, took herself back again if they were out, gave herself a bath, read to herself while she had her supper, and at the end of the day said good-night to herself and left herself in bed. When she was there, she made up little rhymes for herself, before going to sleep. One of them went like this:

I am telling you all this because I want you to understand how proud she felt on that first morning when she took herself to Sparrow Tree Square to feed the birds. There were other children there, but they had nurses with them. Sometimes the children ran away and pretended they didn't belong to the nurses and sometimes the nurses lagged behind and pretended they didn't belong to the children, but Diana Fitzpatrick Mauleverer James knew! She was the only entirely-all-by-herself person there. And she had given herself a bag full of bread-crusts to feed the sparrows with, and she had let herself wear the green coat with fur trimmings, and she was utterly and entirely happy. She nodded to William and Wilhelmina Good, who were walking up and down in a very correct way, William in green, too, and Wilhelmina, who had been growing rather quickly lately, in blue. She laughed like anything at a little boy who was trying to count the sparrows, and kept making it thirty instead of thirty-one, because one of them hid between his legs. How angry he was because he couldn't make it thirty-one! Silly little boy! She bowed politely to the Vanderdecken girls--over-dressed as usual--and agreed with them that it was a fine morning. They were feeding the sparrows, too, but they just had little bits of bread which their nurses gave them out of their pockets. Not like Diana, who had her crusts in a real grown-up bag!

Now then!

The sparrows flew round Diana Fitzpatrick Mauleverer James, and sat waiting for her.

"All right, darlings," she said as she opened her bag.

Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!

She had forgotten to put the bread-crusts in!

THE TWINS

They are twins, and their names are William and Wilhelmina Good. When Mr. Good was told about them, he lit a cigar, and said, "I shall call the boy William--after myself;" and then he thought for a long time, and said, "And I shall call the girl Wilhelmina--after her brother." He threw his cigar away, and went and told Mrs. Good, who had wanted to call them John and Jane. Mrs. Good said, "Very well, dear, but I don't like the name of William, and I shall call my dear little boy Billy for short." And Mr. Good said, "Certainly, my love, but if it comes to that, I don't much care about the name of Wilhelmina, not for shouting up the stairs with, so my dear little girl had better be called Billy, too." Mrs. Good said, "Very well, dear, but won't it be rather confusing?" And Mr. Good said, "No, dear, not to people of any intelligence;" and he took out his watch at the end of its chain, and swung it round and round and round, and looked at it, and said, "My watch is a fortnight fast," and put it back in his pocket, and returned to his library.

This search, with its attendant fanfare and studiedly blatant publicity, was so planned and engineered that two selected women did not arrive at the spaceport until a bare fifteen minutes before the scheduled time of take-off. Thus it made no difference whether the women liked the men or not, or vice versa; or whether or not any of them really wanted to make the trip. Pressures were such that each of them had to go, whether he or she wanted to or not.

"Cut the rope, Jim, and let the old bucket drop," Garlock said. "Not too close. Before we make any kind of contact we'll have to do some organizing. These instruments," he waved at his console, "show that ours is the only Operator Field in this whole region of space. Hence, there are no Operators and no Primes. That means that from now until we get back to Tellus...."

"There will be little if any lepping, and nothing else at all. At the table, if we want sugar, we will reach for it or have it passed. We will pick up things, such as cigarettes, with our fingers. We will carry lighters and use them. When we go from place to place, we will walk. Is that clear?"

"You seem to be talking English," Belle sneered, "but the words don't make sense."

"I didn't think you were that stupid." Eyes locked and held. Then Garlock grinned savagely. "Okay. You tell her, Lola, in words of as few syllables as possible."

"Why, to get used to it, of course," Lola explained, while Belle glared at Garlock in frustrated anger. "So as not to reveal anything we don't have to."

"Thank you, Miss Montandon, you may go to the head of the class. All monosyllables except two. That should make it clear, even to Miss Bellamy."

"You asked for it. Keep on asking for it and you'll keep on getting it." Then, aloud, to all three, "In emergencies, of course, anything goes. We will now proceed with business." He paused, then went on, bitingly, "If possible."

"One minute, please!" Belle snapped. "Just why, Captain Garlock, are you insisting on oral communication, when lepping is so much faster and better? It's stupid--reactionary. Don't you ever lep?"

"With Jim, on business, yes; with women, no more than I have to. What I think is nobody's business but mine."

"What a way to run a ship! Or a project!"

"Forty-two, twenty, forty?" he sneered.

"You flatter me." Her glare was an almost tangible force; her voice was controlled fury.

"Thirty-nine, twenty-two, thirty-five. Five seven. One thirty-five. If any of it's any of your business, which it isn't. You should be discussing brains and ability, not vital statistics."

"I can do anything any man ever born can do, and do it better!"

"Okay. Compute a Gunther field that will put us two hundred thousand feet directly above the peak of that mountain."

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