The evening world. Newspaper, February 4, 1922, Page 6

+2 THE EVENING WORLD'S FICTION SECTION side, him. He gold trips to the moon and return for 6 cents. “One night a woman stopped by our telescope. ‘Isn't this Prof. Robert Temple?’ she asked, And my father . answered: ‘Yes, my dear. I have found an agreeabie occupation that keeps me out of doors.’ But he could not restrain a hacking cough. The lady placed her eye to the telescope, and my father commenced his little speech: ‘You are looking at the earth’s great satellite, The large crater in the centre of the telescope is Copernicus. To the left He could say no more. And I noticed that the lady was wiping her eyes, She reached into her pocketbook, But my father cleared his throat. ‘Ro, my dear, please . + » not that’ ‘You're very brave,’ she said quaveringly, and turned away quickly. My father had known his days of splendor But I never heard him complain, for he was a scholar, @ very great scholar indeed. He taught me history and Greek and Latin and mathematics in the day time, and told people about the stars at night “Near our telescope was a park called Madison Square, and just across was the finest hotel of its day, the Fifth Avenue Hotel. “One night a.man crossed the street, and holding to his hand was a child. At the curb the man stopped short, scowled, then laughed. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘ow are you, Prof, Temple?’ My father made no reply, but I knew he was angry. ‘I want to see the moon and the Pleiades, insisted the child. She was hardly more than eight, while I was then thirteen. The man dropped her hand in erder that he might shake his fist. My father was no longer silent. ‘Damoigeau! Damoiseau!’ he tried. While the big man bellowed: *Pontecoulant!’ Trembling, I dodged in between them. The large man wheeled and crossed the street. I asked about the man who had shaken his fist. ‘He is no one,’ declared my father. ‘He thinks Pontecoulant was a greater mathematician than Da- moiseau. He is an ignoramus. But gradually I learned that this gentleman owned people and institutions body and soul. My father had occupied the chair of mathematics at one of these institutions, and they had quarrelled. So bitter had become their argument that my parent had been compelled to resign.” The man arose. “The name I selected for you is Sir- tus. Because it is the brightest star and, very near, Also, because Sirius is the Dog Star. “Come Sirius, tomorrow we shall fin- ish the tennis court.” HE following morning a truck with two grocery boxes stopped in the road. “Put them in the room downstairs,” directed John, During dinner Bessie watched the man, She was silent as long as it was possible for Bessie to be silent, then burst forth in a breathless whis- per: “Read this!” She flourished a newspaper, “SGrocery robbed at Bethel.’ I saw you come down the hill last night at eight minutes of 10. It’s only seven miles to Bethel, With those legs of yours And, I saw that truck slip up to your house this morning and unload two grocery boxes!” “They were boxes of books.” “Boxes of books!” the maid echoed causticalty, “Sirius,” said the man on his hill top that night. “One night when my father was at the restaurant drinking his tea, a voice that I remembered said: ‘1 want = to see the Pleiades’” “But it is June, I stammered, ‘and the Pleiades are not in the sky.’ ‘If you cannot show them to me,’ she said, ‘then T'll show them to you.’ Alas! A yu ed out and the lady who had bewitched me was bodily car- ried into the hostelry, “But the next day I went to. the hotel with a gift such as Anthony might have carried to the Queen of the Nile; a double cut of raisin pie done up neatly in a brown paper bag into which I had slipped a few lines, trans- lated from the Fifteenth Idyl of Theo- critus, This precious gift I intrusted to a stately person at the door. “A fortnight passed. On the elev- enth night she appeared as if by mage. “Can the Pleiades be seen to- night?’ she asked breathlessly. Her father stalked up, In the presence of the young lady, I shouted: ‘ Damoi- seau! Damoiseau was the greater!’ I then picked up my heels* and flew around the corner, “As [ passed the hotel the following evening, a voice came to me from the skies, ‘Wait,’ it said. I looked up. She was leaning from a window three floors up and presently she was at my side, Through the great hotel she led me—the Princess and the Pauper, and up we went in a golden elevator. “Now my knees began to tremble for we had entered her father’s room. She presently found a key upon a ring. ‘Pull on this handle—hard F harder,’ she commanded, We were crouching over q black safe, The door swung slowly opeg. And he little daughter of my father's enemy took something from the inside, then turned to me with her hands behind her back. ‘She ordered me to lie on the floor with my face down and my hands at the side of my eyes. I did this will- ingly, near the bed, so I could roll ya- der at the least noise. “Close your eyes tight,’ she whis- pered. I felt her slip something under my hands. ‘Now, open! And keep on looking until you see something.’ “Out of darkness came a faint glow like a nebula and a twinkling point of light. It was Alcyone! I knew it at once! Another twinkling point, Elec- tra. Then came Atlas, Maia, Merope and Taygeta. Calaeno became faintly visible and I imagined Asterope and the lost Pleione, I was looking into the autumn skies at the Pleiades. “Leaping up from the floor, I gazed at the one who had worked this cosmic miracle. She picked something from the floor, ‘They are mine!’ she chant- ed. ‘All mine when I'm eighteen.’ Her great-great-grandfather had brought them in a ship. They were hers—the Pleiades—to wear in her hair! * ‘Suddenly, ‘Quick!’ she gasped. ‘Help me close the safe!’ We closed the safe with a clang. ‘This way!’ And we scurried through a door, and into darkness. There she held me and listened breathlessly. ‘He has gone into the ‘room with the books,’ she breathed, ‘and you can get out this door. But stil) she held to my arm. ‘Don't be afraid. We're safe.’ Then » SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1922. going to do with the life that is yours.’ The ghost of a twinkle came into his faded eyes. “What, then, sir, is the greatest thing to do? “When he spoke it was solemnly, ‘Write your name among the stars, my gon,’ “A man with a fur coat to his ears dropped a coin in the cup and my father commenced his dissertation on the moon. “The coup rang with another coin and still another. My father’s voice had become thin and hollow. His hand trembled as he adjusted the telescope. ‘There is money in the cup for your tea,’ I suggested. He counted the money, and told me to go to the res- taurant. I gulped a sandwich and hurried back. He stepped down into the street, then turned and said in a low, tremulous voice: ‘Write your name among the stars, my son—among the stars.’ “IT waited, but he did not return, An ambulance raced down 23d Street and stopped in front of our little restau- rant. I leaped to the back step. But a police officer pushed me aside. Then a newsboy said in my ear, ‘Who ls the old man? And I answered, ‘He is my father,’ and ran sobbing up the snow-covered street. “When I reached the corner the am- bulance was a block away. But some one had paused at our telescope, And ST THE SIDE OF THE TELESCOPE WAS A MAN WHO KNEW NOTHING ON EARTH—BUT ALL ABOUT THE STARS she laughed, T like pie and I[ ate it— every bit—the raisin pie you sent me.’" The man and the dog picked their way down the rocky hillside, T had been decreed long since that the progeny of the Princess should take many blue ribbons at the bench shows of the future, A limousine from Wideacre Kennels turned into the driveway and shortly disappeared with Princess Blue Mouse on the back seat. John Temple took his friend to the hilltop. “Sirius, my friend, your Prin- cess will return. In the mean time I can tell you a story in tune with your own sad heart. “The Pleiades were in the sky that night; but the Pleiades were cold and distant. The night was December 21— the longest night of that year. “*You have told me, sir,’ I addressed my father, ‘that the principal stars of the Pleiades form a dipper; is it pos- sible that they form a question mark in the sky?’ After a long moment, he assented ‘An interrogation point Clearly, my son, seven of the stars form a question mark in the sky. Perhaps they are asking what you are so it was necessary for me to wipe my eyes, clear my throat and recite my father’s dissertation on the moon: ‘You are looking at the world’s great satellite, The crater in the centre of the telescope is Copernicus. To your left are the Apennines. . . . You see, my friend, I had come into my in- heritance: A shining brass telescope and the whole firmament—to look at.” Several days later John Temple said to his dog: “Sirius, you seem happier to-night and I suspect it is because of the re- turn of the Princess Blue Mouse Happier and wiser. That is what love does for one—not always happier, but sometimes wiser. And how do I know so much about love? Ah, my friend, you shall see! “In my twenty-sixth year—and that was three years ago—iI occupied the chair of astronomy at a college. “Up until that time, Sirius, [ had labored diligently preparing an ex- haustive work on cometary astron- omy. This book was nearing comple- tion when an inexplicable accident happened in the college observatory, “While making photographs of sun- spots, the dark glass connected with the telescope became displaced and I “ ‘When I was twenty, Was apprised that my beard was om fire, “Bevera] days iater I was sum. moned by the dean. The month was June; the hour, early in the evening of what was called, “Undergraduate Night.” With my chin in gauze ban- dages and my mind occupied with my book on comets, I sent excuses and continued 4o work. “A second message from Dean Thomas was more peremptory: One of the trustees of the college desired to see me, “When I was nearing the dean’s house a burst of laughter came from the campus. A temporary rostrum had been ereeted and upon this one of the class bards was singing: “ "He's bagged his twenty asteroids, This Nimrod super-wise, And with Homerle skill has writ An epic of the skies. . . Attention Right ascension! I'll say that he is clever He's the only man who eyer Singed his whiskers ‘gainst the sun, Attention Right ascension! He's the only man who ever, ,. “On the veranda of the dean's house My assistant, Mr. Marsdon, was con- versing in the shadows with a young lady. They too were laughing. 6 4 BAN THOMAS was stand- ing by the mantel of his library. Near him, sunken in a chair, was an old man with chin on his Dreast and eyes gleaming beneath overhanging stay brows. ‘Prof. Temple,’ said the dean to ma ‘you were recommended for the chair of astronomy a year ago by a former member of the Board of Trustees—Mr, Waters of the New York Library, May I ask how inti- mately Mr. Waters was acquainted with you?’ “Not at all intimately,’ I replied. however, Mr. Waters had noticed I was reading on subjects with which he was conver- sant. He iater made an arrangement whereby I was allowed to work one night a week in the Columbia Obser- vatory and this resulted in my first Position as an instructor and there- after as an assistant professor of mathematics.’ “*May I ask your age?’ inquired the dean. “IT told him: ‘TDwenty-six.’ “"We thought you were much older. May I also inquire as to your univere sity?’ “T have no university.’ “What is your schooling?’ “Until I was thirteen I was tutored by my father. After that I worked in libraries,’ “In a mild voice the elderly man commenced: ‘Suppose, then, I put one question in order to decide whether or not you are qualified to teach the higher branches of mathematics?’ “I told the gentleman I would try to answer his question. “Then he asked, ‘Who in your opin- ion, Prof. Temple, was the greater mathematician—Damoiseau or Ponte- coulant?’ “Then I recognized my father’s en- emy. I told him I had answered his question in front of the Fifth Avenue Hotel when I was thirteen years of age. I left the room. “On the veranda I paused. { heard Dean Thomas call Mr. Marsdon; then a woman's yoice came to me. “‘kre you the man who singed his whiskers against the sun?’ I looked down—and I was gazing upon the Pleiades caught in a woman's hair. “She asked: ‘Did you ever again deny that the Pleiades could be seen in June?’ “‘No,’ I said, ‘but I was sorry not to show them to you that autumn.’ “My father took me abroad that summer and we did not retarn until December.’ “*The Pleiades are visible in Decems ber,’ I suggested. “We were in New York only a night or two, and on one of those nights T escaped from the hotel long after my father had gone to sleep. And I found a shining brass telescope pointing at the sky,’ she said. ‘And I looked through the telescope, and there were the Pleiades, A man stopped at the telescope. I said: “You must drop a nickel im the cup.” He dropped in a coin. Then I saw a boy running up the middle of the street. He was cry- ing and the boy was you.’ “T can't remember of ever crying, It must have been a dream.’ “‘a strange thing then took place,’ she went on, ‘The boy choked back his sobs and came up to the man. The telescope was trained upon the Pleiades, but the boy began to explain the moon: “You are now looking at the earth's greatest satellite. . The man laughed, yet the boy continued to explain. After the man had left I came up to the telescope. But the boy was gazing into the sky and saying over and over to himself: ‘{ shall write my name among the stars!" Was it a dream?’ she asked. “No.” I answered. ‘That was the night \y father died, But I have not writtc.. my name among the stars,’ “But you will, the Pleiade said quietly, ‘I know you will. “Her voice made me feel that noth- A Complete Story Every Saturday . =e