«Why?»
«It is obvious that he wants us to disobey that command, isn’t it? And who ever heard of men obeying a command unless they knew—or thought they knew—who gave it? If anybody ever learns who gave that command, he can decide whether to obey it or not. As long as he doesn’t know, it’s psychologically almost impossible for him to obey it.»
The President nodded slowly. «I see what you mean. Men either obey or disobey commands—even commands they think come from God—according to their own will. But how can they obey an order, and still be men, when they don’t know for sure where the order came from?»
He laughed. «And even the Commies don’t know for sure whether we Capitalists did it or not. And as long as they’re not sure—»
«Did we?»
The President said, «I’m beginning to wonder. Even though I know we didn’t, it doesn’t seem more unlikely than anything else.» He tilted back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. After a while he said softly, «Anyway, I don’t think there’s going to be a war. Either side would be mad to start it.»
There wasn’t a war.
RUSTLE OF WINGS
Poker wasn’t exactly a religion with Gramp, but it was about the nearest thing he had to a religion for the first 50 or so years of his life. That’s about how old he was when I went to live with him and Gram. That was a long time ago, in a little Ohio town. I can date it pretty well, because it was just after President McKinley was assassinated. I don’t mean there was any connection between McKinley’s assassination and my going to live with Gram and Gramp; it just happened about the same time. I was about ten.
Gram was a good woman and a Methodist and never touched a card, except occasionally to put away a deck that Gramp had left lying somewhere, and then she’d handle it gingerly, almost as though it might explode. But she’d given up, years before, trying to reform Gramp out of his heathen ways; given up trying seriously, I mean. She hadn’t given up nagging him about it.
If she had, Gramp would have missed the nagging, I guess; he was so used to it by then. I was too young, then, to realize what an odd couple they made—the village atheist and the president of the Methodist missionary society. To me, then, they were just Gramp and Gram, and there wasn’t anything strange about their loving and living together despite their differences.
Maybe it wasn’t so strange after all. I mean, Gramp was a good man underneath the crust of his cynicism. He was one of the kindest men I ever knew, and one of the most generous. He got cantankerous only when it came to superstition or religion—he refused ever to distinguish between the two—and when it came to playing poker with his cronies, or, for that matter, when it came to playing poker with anyone, anywhere, any time.
He was a good player, too; he won a little more often than he lost. He used to figure that about a tenth of his income came from playing poker; the other nine-tenths came from the truck farm he ran, just at the edge of town. In a manner of speaking, though, you might say he came out even, because Gram insisted on tithing—giving one tenth of their income to the Methodist church and missions.
Maybe that fact helped Gram’s conscience in the matter of living with Gramp; anyway, I remember that she was always madder when he lost than when he won. How she got around his being an atheist I don’t know. Probably she never really believed him, even at his most dogmatic negative.
I’d been with them about three years; I must have been about thirteen at the time of the big change. That was still a long time ago, but I’ll never forget the night the change started, the night I heard the rustle of leathery wings in the dining room. It was the night that the seed salesman ate with us, and later played poker with Gramp.
His name—I won’t forget it—was Charley Bryce. He was a little man; I remember that he was just as tall as I was at the time, which wouldn’t have been more than an inch or two over five feet. He wouldn’t have weighed much over 100 pounds and he had short-cropped black hair that started rather low on his forehead but tapered off to a bald spot the size of a silver dollar farther back. I remember the bald spot well; I stood back of him for a while during the poker and recall thinking what a perfect fit that spot would be for one of the silver dollars—cartwheels, they were called—before him on the table. I don’t remember his face at all.
I don’t recall the conversation during dinner. In all probability it was largely about seeds, because the salesman hadn’t yet completed taking Gramp’s order. He’d called late in the afternoon; Gramp had been in town at the broker’s with a load of truck, but Gram had expected him back any minute and had told the salesman to wait. But by the time Gramp and the wagon came back it was so late that Gram had asked the salesman to stay and eat with us, and he had accepted.
Gramp and Charley Bryce still sat at the table, I recall, while I helped Gram clear off the dishes, and Bryce had the order blank before him, finishing writing up Gramp’s order.
It was after I’d carried the last load and came back to take care of the napkins that poker was mentioned for the first time; I don’t know which of the men mentioned it first. But Gramp was telling animatedly of a hand he’d held the last time he’d played, a few nights before. The stranger—possibly I forgot to say that Charley Bryce was a stranger; we’d never met him before and he must have been shifted to a different territory because we never saw him again—was listening with smiling interest. No, I don’t remember his face at all, but I remember that he smiled a lot.
I picked up the napkins and rings so Gram could take up the tablecloth from under them. And while she was folding the cloth I put three napkins—hers and Gramp’s and mine—back into our respective napkin rings and put the salesman’s napkin with the laundry. Gram had that expression on her face again, the tight-lipped disapproving look she wore whenever cards were being played or discussed.
And then Gramp asked, «Where are the cards, Ma?»
Gram sniffed. «Wherever you put them, William,» she told him. So Gramp got the cards from the drawer in the sideboard where they were always kept, and got a big handful of silver out of his pocket and he and the stranger, Charley Bryce, started to play two-handed stud poker across a corner of the big square dining room table.
I was out in the kitchen then, for a while, helping Gram with the dishes, and when I came back most of the silver was in front of Bryce, and Gramp had gone into his wallet and there was a pile of dollar bills in front of him instead of the cartwheels. Dollar bills were big in those days, not the little skimpy ones we have now.
I stood there watching the game after I’d finished the dishes. I don’t remember any of the hands they held; I remember that money seesawed back and forth, though, without anybody getting more than ten or twenty dollars ahead or behind. And I remember the stranger looking at the clock after a while and saying he wanted to catch the 10 o’clock train and would it be all right to deal off at half-past 9, and Gramp saying sure.
So they did, and at 9:30, it was Charley Bryce who was ahead. He counted off the money he himself had put into the game and there was a pile of silver cartwheels left, and he counted that, and I remember that he grinned. He said, «Thirteen dollars exactly. Thirteen pieces of silver.»
«The devil,» said Gramp; it was one of his favorite expressions.
And Gram sniffed. «Speak of the devil,» she said, «and you hear the rustle of his wings.»