“That was a subsonic,” the Perfesser snapped. “What is Little Sam-a short-wave transmitter?”
“Little Sam’s the baby,” I said, short-like. “Don’t go calling him outa his name, either. Now, s’pose you tell us what you want.”
He pulled out a notebook and started looking through it.
“I’m a-a scientist,” he said. “Our foundation is studying eugenics, and we’ve got some reports about you. They sound unbelievable. One of our men has a theory that natural mutations can remain undetected in undeveloped cultural regions, and—” He slowed down and stared at Uncle Les. “Can you really fly?” he asked. -
Well, we don’t like to talk about that. The preacher gave us a good dressing-down once. Uncle Los had got likkered up and went sailing over the ridges, scaring a couple of bear hunters outa their, senses.
And it ain’t in the Good Book that men should fly, neither. Uncle Les generally does it only on the sly, when nobody’s watching.
So anyhow Uncle Les pulled his hat down further on his face and growled.
“That’s plumb silly. Ain’t no way a man can fly. These here modem contraptions I hear tell about-‘tween ourselves, they don’t really fly at all. Just a lot of crazy talk, that’s all.”
Galbraith blinked and studied his notebook again.
“But I’ve got hearsay evidence of a great many unusual things connected with your family. Flying is only one of them. I know it’s theoretically impossible-and I’m not talking about planes-but—”
“Oh, shet your trap.”
“The medieval witches’ salve used aconite to give an illusion of flight -entirely subjective, of course,”
“Will you stop pestering me?” Uncle Les said, getting mad, on account of he felt embarrassed, I guess. Then he jumped up, threw his hat down on the porch and flew away. After a minute he swooped down for his hat and made a face at the Perfesser. He flew off down the gulch and we didn’t see him for a while.
I got mad, too.
“You got no call to bother us,” I said. “Next thing Uncle Les will do like Paw, and that’ll be an awful nuisance. We ain’t seen hide nor hair of Paw since that other city feller was around. He was a census taker, I think.”
Gaibraith didn’t say anything. He was looking ldnda funny. I gave him a drink and he asked about Paw.
“Oh, he’s around,” I said. “Only you don’t see him no more. He likes it better that way, he says.”
“Yes,” Galbraith said, taking another drink. “Oh, God. How old did you say you were?”
“Didn’t say nothing about it.”
“Well, what’s the earliest thing you can remember?”
“Ain’t no use remembering things. Clutters up your haid too much.”
“It’s fantastic,” Gaibraith said. “I hadn’t expected to send a report like that back to the foundation.”
“We don’t want nobody prying around,” I said. “Go way and leave us alone.”
“But, good Lord!” He looked over the porch rail and got interested in the shotgun gadget. “What’s that?”
“A thing,” I said.
“What does it do?”
“Things,” I said.
“Oh. May I look at it?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll give you the dingus if you’ll go away.”
He went over and looked at it. Paw got up from where he’d been sitting beside me, told me to get rid of the damyankee and went into the house. The Perfesser came back. “Extraordinary!” he said. “I’ve had training in electronics, and it seems to me you’ve got something very odd there. What’s the principle?”
“The what?” I said. “It makes holes in things.”
“It can’t fire shells. You’ve got a couple of lenses where the breech should-how did you say it worked?”
“I dunno.”
“Did you make it?”
“Me and Maw.”
He asked a lot more questions.
“I dunno,” I said. “Trouble with a shotgun is you gotta keep loading it. We sorta thought if we hooked on a few things it wouldn’t need loading no more. It don’t, neither.”
“Were you serious about giving it to me?”
“If you stop bothering us.”
“Listen,” he said, “it’s miraculous that you Hogbens have stayed out of sight so long.”
“We got our ways.”
“The mutation theory must be right. You must be studied. This is one of the most important discoveries since—” He kept on talking like that. He didn’t make much sense.
Finally I decided there was only two ways to handle things, — and after what Sheriff Abernathy had said, I didn’t feel right about killing nobody till the Sheriff had got over his fit of temper. I don’t want to cause no ruckus.
“S’pose I go to New York with you, like you want,” I said. “Will you leave the family alone?”
He halfway promised, though he didn’t want to. But he knuckled under and crossed his heart, on account of I said I’d wake up Little Sam if he didn’t. He sure wanted to see Little Sam, but I told him that was no good. Little Sam couldn’t go to New York, anyhow. He’s got to stay in his tank or he gets awful sick.
Anyway, I satisfied the Perfesser pretty well and he went off, after I’d promised to meet him in town next morning. I felt sick, though, I can tell you. I ain’t been away from the-folks overnight since that ruckus in the old country, when we had to make tracks fast.
Went to Holland, as I remember. Maw always had a soft spot fer the man that helped us get outa London. Named Little Sa.i~i after him. I fergit what his name was. Gwynn or Stuart or Pepys-I get mixed up when I think back beyond the War between the States.
That night we chewed the rag. Paw being invisible, Maw kept thinking he was getting more’n his share of the corn, but pretty soon she mellowed and let him have a demijohn. Everybody told me to mind my p’s and q’s.
“This here Perfesser’s awful smart,” Maw said. “All perfessers are. Don’t go bothering him any. You be a good boy or you’ll ketch heck from me.”
“I’ll be good, Maw,” I said. Paw whaled me alongside the haid, which wasn’t fair, on account of I couldn’t see him.
“That’s so you won’t fergit,” he said.
“We’re plain folks,” Uncle Les was growling. “No good never come of trying to get above yourself.”
“Honest, I ain’t trying to do that,” I said. “I only figgered—”
“You stay outa trouble!” Maw said, and just then we heard Grandpaw moving in the attic.
Sometimes Grandpaw don’t stir for a month at a time, but tonight he seemed right frisky.
So, natcherally, we went upstairs to see what he wanted.
He was talking about the Perfesser.
“A stranger, eh?” he said. “Out upon the stinking knave. A set of rare fools I’ve gathered about me for my dotage! Only Saunk shows any shrewdness, and, dang my eyes, he’s the worst fool of all.”
I just shuffled and muttered something, on account of I never like to look at Grandpaw direct. But he wasn’t paying me no mind. He raved on.
“So you’d go to this New York? ‘Sblood, and hast thou forgot the way we shunned London and Amsterdam-and Nieuw Amsterdam-for fear of questioning? Wouldst thou be put in a freak show? Nor is that the worst danger.”
Grandpaw’s the oldest one of us all and he gets ldnda mixed up in his language sometimes. I guess the lingo you learned when you’re young sorta sticks with you. One thing, he can cuss better than anybody I’ve ever heard.
“Shucks,” I said. “I was only trying to help.”
“Thou puling brat,” Grandpaw said. “Tis thy fault and thy dam’s. For building that device, I mean, that slew the Haley tribe. Hadst thou not, this scientist would never have come here.”
“He’s a perfesser,” I said. “Name of Thomas Galbraith.”
“I know. I read his thoughts through Little Sam’s mind. A dangerous man. I never knew a sage who wasn’t. Except perhaps Roger Bacon, and I had to bribe him to-but Roger was an exceptional man.