"You certainly can," said the stranger. "I'm sort of manager here, and whenever you see any particular part of the earth you'd like to live in, you just let me know and I'll arrange it."

He smiled and was gone.

IX

It was two hundred years before Priscilla Kennicott definitely decided that she could stand it no longer in heaven; it was another hundred years before she located a desirable place on earth to return to.

She finally selected a small town in the American northwest, far from the Puritan-tainted Plymouth; a small town in the midst of fields of beautiful waving grain; a small town free from the artificiality of large cities; a small town named Gopher Prairie.

She made known her desire to the manager; she said goodby to a small group of friends who had gathered to see her off; she heard the sound of the eternal harp playing and hymn singing grow gradually fainter and fainter; she closed her eyes.

When she opened them again she found herself on Main Street in Gopher Prairie.

X

From the "Heavenly Harp and Trumpet":

Mrs. Priscilla Kennicott, one of our most popular angels, left these parts last Tuesday for an extended visit to the Earth. Mrs. K. confided to Ye Editor that she would probably take up her residence in Gopher Prairie, Minn., under the name of Carol Kennicott. The "Harp and Trumpet" felicitates the citizens of Gopher Prairie on their acquisition of a charming and up-to-date young matron whose absence will be keenly regretted by her many friends in the heavenly younger married set. Good luck, Priscilla!

XI

Heaven.

Five years later.

The monthly meeting of the Celestial Browning Club.

Seated in the chair reserved for the guest of honor, the manager.

The meeting opens as usual with a reading by Brother Robert Browning of his poem "Pippa Pa.s.ses"; as he proclaims that "G.o.d's in his heaven, all's right with the world", the members applaud and the manager rises and bows.

The chairman announces that "today we take up a subject in which I am sure we are all extremely interested--the popular literature of the United States".

The members listen to selected extracts from the writings of Gene Stratton-Porter, Zane Grey, and Harold Bell Wright; at the conclusion they applaud and the manager again bows.

"I am sure", says the chairman, "that we are all glad to hear that things are going so nicely in the United States." (Applause.) "And now, in conclusion, Brother Voltaire has requested permission to address us for a few minutes, and I am sure that anything Brother Voltaire has to say will be eminently worthwhile."

Brother Voltaire rises and announces that he has listened with interest to the discussion of American literature; that he, too, rejoices that all is well in this best of all possible United States; and that he hopes they will pardon him if he supplements the program by reading a few extracts from another extremely popular American book recently published under the name of "Main Street".

XII

At the next meeting of the Celestial Browning Club it was unanimously voted that the privileges of the club be denied Brother Voltaire for the period of one year, and that the name of Priscilla Kennicott be stricken from the list of non-resident members of heaven.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH

In the Manner of F. Scott Fitzgerald

This story occurs under the blue skies and bluer laws of Puritan New England, in the days when religion was still taken seriously by a great many people, and in the town of Plymouth where the "Mayflower", having ploughed its plat.i.tudinous way from Holland, had landed its precious cargo of pious Right Thinkers, moral Gentlemen of G.o.d, and--Priscilla.

Priscilla was--well, Priscilla had yellow hair. In a later generation, in a 1921 June, if she had toddled by at a country club dance you would have noticed first of all that glorious ma.s.s of bobbed corn-colored locks. You would, then, perhaps, have glanced idly at her face, and suddenly said "Oh my gosh!" The next moment you would have clutched the nearest stag and hissed, "Quick--yellow hair--silver dress--oh Judas!"

You would then have been introduced, and after dancing nine feet you would have been cut in on by another panting stag. In those nine delirious feet you would have become completely dazed by one of the smoothest lines since the building of the Southern Pacific. You would then have borrowed somebody's flask, gone into the locker room and gotten an edge--not a bachelor-dinner edge but just enough to give you the proper amount of confidence. You would have returned to the ballroom, cut in on this twentieth century Priscilla, and taken her and your edge out to a convenient limousine, or the first tee.

It was of some such yellow-haired Priscilla that Homer dreamed when he smote his lyre and chanted, "I sing of arms and the man"; it was at the sight of such as she that rare Ben Johnson's Dr. Faustus cried, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" In all ages has such beauty enchanted the minds of men, calling forth in one century the Fiesolian terza rima of "Paradise Lost", in another the pa.s.sionate arias of a dozen Beethoven symphonies. In 1620 the pagan daughter of Helen of Troy and Cleopatra of the Nile happened, by a characteristic jest of the great Ironist, to embark with her aunt on the "Mayflower".

Like all girls of eighteen Priscilla had learned to kiss and be kissed on every possible occasion; in the exotic and not at all uncommon pleasure of "petting" she had acquired infinite wisdom and complete disillusionment. But in all her "petting parties" on the "Mayflower" and in Plymouth she had found no Puritan who held her interest beyond the first kiss, and she had lately reverted in sheer boredom to her boarding school habit of drinking gin in large quant.i.ties, a habit which was not entirely approved of by her old-fashioned aunt, although Mrs. Brewster was glad to have her niece stay at home in the evenings "instead", as she told Mrs. Bradford, "of running around with those boys, and really, my dear, Priscilla says some of the FUNNIEST things when she gets a little er--'boiled', as she calls it--you must come over some evening, and bring the governor."

Mrs. Brewster, Priscilla's aunt, is the ancestor of all New England aunts. She may be seen today walking down Tremont Street, Boston, in her Educator shoes on her way to S. S. Pierce's which she p.r.o.nounces to rhyme with HEa.r.s.e. The twentieth century Mrs. Brewster wears a highnecked black silk waist with a chatelaine watch pinned over her left breast and a spot of Gordon's codfish (no bones) over her right. When a little girl she was taken to see Longfellow, Lowell, and Ralph Waldo Emerson; she speaks familiarly of the James boys, but this has no reference to the well-known Missouri outlaws. She was brought up on blueberry cake, Postum and "The Atlantic Monthly"; she loves the Boston "Transcript", G.o.d, and her relatives in Newton Centre. Her idea of a daring joke is the remark Susan Hale made to Edward Everett Hale about sending underwear to the heathen. She once asked Donald Ogden Stewart to dinner with her niece; she didn't think his story about the lady mind reader who read the man's mind and then slapped his face, was very funny; she never asked him again.

The action of this story all takes place in MRS. BREWSTER'S Plymouth home on two successive June evenings. As the figurative curtain rises MRS. BREWSTER is sitting at a desk reading the latest instalment of Foxe's "Book of Martyrs".

The sound of a clanking sword is heard outside. MRS. BREWSTER looks up, smiles to herself, and goes on reading. A knock--a timid knock.

MRS. BREWSTER: Come in.

(Enter CAPTAIN MIKES STANDISH, whiskered and forty. In a later generation, with that imposing mustache and his hatred of Indians, Miles would undoubtedly have been a bank president. At present he seems somewhat ill at ease, and obviously relieved to find only PRISCILLA'S aunt at home.)

MRS. BREWSTER: Good evening, Captain Standish.

MILES: Good evening, Mrs. Brewster. It's--it's cool for June, isn't it?

MRS. BREWSTER: Yes. I suppose we'll pay, for it with a hot July, though.

MILES (nervously): Yes, but it--it is cool for June, isn't it?

MRS. BREWSTER: So you said, Captain.

MILES: Yes. So I said, didn't I? (Silence.)

MILES: Mistress Priscilla isn't home, then?

MRS. BREWSTER: Why, I don't think so, Captain But I never can be sure where Priscilla is.

MILES (eagerly): She's a--a fine girl, isn't she? A fine girl.

MRS. BREWSTER: Why, yes. Of course, Priscilla has her faults but she'd make some man a fine wife--some man who knew how to handle her--an older man, with experience.

MILES: Do you really think so, Mrs. Brewster? (After a minute.) Do you think Priscilla is thinking about marrying anybody in particular?

MRS. BREWSTER: Well, I can't say, Captain. You know--she's a little wild. Her mother was wild, too, you know--that is, before the Lord spoke to her. They say she used to be seen at the Mermaid Tavern in London with all those play-acting people. She always used to say that Priscilla would marry a military man.

MILES: A military man? Well, now tell me Mrs. Brewster, do you think that a sweet delicate creature like Priscilla--

A VOICE (in the next room): Oh d.a.m.n!

MRS. BREWSTER: That must be Priscilla now.