were athousand bulges and rents and rusty pipes and dirty vents on and in it.The ports were clouded over with dust, resembling the eyes of a blindhog.
Everyone wailed a little sighing wail.
"Is that the rocket ship _Glory Be to the Highest_?" cried Mrs.Bellowes, appalled.
Mr. Thirkell nodded and looked at his feet.
"For which we paid out our one thousand dollars apiece and came all theway to Mars to get on board with you and go off to find Him?" askedMrs. Bellowes.
"Why, that isn't worth a sack of dried peas," said Mrs. Bellowes.
"It's nothing but junk!"
_Junk_, whispered everyone, getting hysterical.
"Don't let him get away!"
Mr. Thirkell tried to break and run, but a thousand possum traps closedon him from every side. He withered.
Everybody walked around in circles like blind mice. There was aconfusion and a weeping that lasted for five minutes as they went overand touched the Rocket, the Dented Kettle, the Rusty Container forGod's Children.
"Well," said Mrs. Bellowes. She stepped up into the askew doorway ofthe rocket and faced everyone. "It looks as if a terrible thing hasbeen done to us," she said. "I haven't any money to go back home toEarth and I've too much pride to go to the Government and tell thema common man like this has fooled us out of our life's savings. Idon't know how you feel about it, all of you, but the reason all of uscame is because I'm eighty-five, and you're eighty-nine, and you'reseventy-eight, and all of us are nudging on toward a hundred, andthere's nothing on Earth for us, and it doesn't appear there's anythingon Mars either. We all expected not to breathe much more air or crochetmany more doilies or we'd never have come here. So what I have topropose is a simple thing--to take a chance."
She reached out and touched the rusted hulk of the rocket.
"This is _our_ rocket. We paid for our trip. And we're going to _take_our trip!"
Everyone rustled and stood on tiptoes and opened an astonished mouth.
Mr. Thirkell began to cry. He did it quite easily and very effectively.
"We're going to get in this ship," said Mrs. Bellowes, ignoring him."And we're going to take off to where we were going."
Mr. Thirkell stopped crying long enough to say, "But it was all a fake.I don't know anything about space. He's not out there, anyway. I lied.I don't know where He is, and I couldn't find Him if I wanted to. Andyou were fools to ever take my word on it."
"Yes," said Mrs. Bellowes, "we were fools. I'll go along on that. Butyou can't blame us, for we're old, and it was a lovely, good and fineidea, one of the loveliest ideas in the world. Oh, we didn't reallyfool ourselves that we could get nearer to Him physically. It was thegentle, mad dream of old people, the kind of thing you hold onto for afew minutes a day, even though you know it's not true. So, all of youwho want to go, you follow me in the ship."
"But you can't go!" said Mr. Thirkell. "You haven't got a navigator.And that ship's a ruin!"
"You," said Mrs. Bellowes, "will be the navigator."
She stepped into the ship, and after a moment, the other old ladiespressed forward. Mr. Thirkell, windmilling his arms frantically,was nevertheless pressed through the port, and in a minute the doorslammed shut. Mr. Thirkell was strapped into the navigator's seat, witheveryone talking at once and holding him down. The special helmetswere issued to be fitted over every gray or white head to supply extraoxygen in case of a leakage in the ship's hull, and at long last thehour had come and Mrs. Bellowes stood behind Mr. Thirkell and said,"We're ready, sir."
He said nothing. He pleaded with them silently, using his great, dark,wet eyes, but Mrs. Bellowes shook her head and pointed to the control.
"Takeoff," agreed Mr. Thirkell morosely, and pulled a switch.
Everybody fell. The rocket went up from the planet Mars in a greatfiery glide, with the noise of an entire kitchen thrown down anelevator shaft, with a sound of pots and pans and kettles and firesboiling and stews bubbling, with a smell of burned incense andrubber and sulphur, with a color of yellow fire, and a ribbon of redstretching below them, and all the old women singing and holdingto each other, and Mrs. Bellowes crawling upright in the sighing,straining, trembling ship.
"Head for space, Mr. Thirkell."
"It can't last," said Mr. Thirkell, sadly. "This ship can't last. Itwill--"
It did.
The rocket exploded.
Mrs. Bellowes felt herself lifted and thrown about dizzily, like adoll. She heard the great screamings and saw the flashes of bodiessailing by her in fragments of metal and powdery light.
"Help, help!" cried Mr. Thirkell, far away, on a small radio beam.
The ship disintegrated into a million parts, and the old ladies,all one hundred of them, were flung straight on ahead with the samevelocity as the ship.
As for Mr. Thirkell, for some reason of trajectory, perhaps, he hadbeen blown out the other side of the ship. Mrs. Bellowes saw himfalling separate and away from them, screaming, screaming.
_There goes Mr. Thirkell_, thought Mrs. Bellowes.
And she knew where he was going. He was going to be burned and roastedand broiled good, but very good.
Mr. Thirkell was falling down into the Sun.
_And here we are_, thought Mrs. Bellowes. _Here we are, going on out,and out, and out._
There was hardly a sense of motion at all, but she knew that she wastraveling at fifty thousand miles an hour and would continue to travelat that speed for an eternity, until....
She saw the other women swinging all about her in their owntrajectories, a few minutes of oxygen left to each of them in theirhelmets, and each was looking up to where they were going.
_Of course_, thought Mrs. Bellowes. _Out into space. Out and out, andthe darkness like a great church, and the stars like candles, and inspite of everything, Mr. Thirkell, the rocket, and the dishonesty, weare going toward the Lord._
And there, yes, _there_, as she fell on and on, coming toward her,she could almost discern the outline now, coming toward her was Hismighty golden hand, reaching down to hold her and comfort her like afrightened sparrow....
"I'm Mrs. Amelia Bellowes," she said quietly, in her best companyvoice. "I'm from the planet Earth."
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