“Now, I hope you don’t take it as an offence, for I don’t mean any, but
really, for a man that has been in the Kingdom as long as I reckon you
have, you do seem to know powerful little about its customs.”
“Its customs!” says he. “Heaven is a large place, good friend. Large
empires have many and diverse customs. Even small dominions have, as you
doubtless know by what you have seen of the matter on a small scale in
the Wart. How can you imagine I could ever learn the varied customs of
the countless kingdoms of heaven? It makes my head ache to think of it.
I know the customs that prevail in those portions inhabited by peoples
that are appointed to enter by my own gate—and hark ye, that is quite
enough knowledge for one individual to try to pack into his head in the
thirty-seven millions of years I have devoted night and day to that
study. But the idea of learning the customs of the whole appalling
expanse of heaven—O man, how insanely you talk! Now I don’t doubt that
this odd costume you talk about is the fashion in that district of heaven
you belong to, but you won’t be conspicuous in this section without it.”
I felt all right, if that was the case, so I bade him good-day and left.
All day I walked towards the far end of a prodigious hall of the office,
hoping to come out into heaven any moment, but it was a mistake. That
hall was built on the general heavenly plan—it naturally couldn’t be
small. At last I got so tired I couldn’t go any farther; so I sat down
to rest, and begun to tackle the queerest sort of strangers and ask for
information, but I didn’t get any; they couldn’t understand my language,
and I could not understand theirs. I got dreadfully lonesome. I was so
down-hearted and homesick I wished a hundred times I never had died. I
turned back, of course. About noon next day, I got back at last and was
on hand at the booking-office once more. Says I to the head clerk—
“I begin to see that a man’s got to be in his own Heaven to be happy.”
“Perfectly correct,” says he. “Did you imagine the same heaven would
suit all sorts of men?”
“Well, I had that idea—but I see the foolishness of it. Which way am I
to go to get to my district?”
He called the under clerk that had examined the map, and he gave me
general directions. I thanked him and started; but he says—
“Wait a minute; it is millions of leagues from here. Go outside and
stand on that red wishing-carpet; shut your eyes, hold your breath, and
wish yourself there.”
“I’m much obliged,” says I; “why didn’t you dart me through when I first
arrived?”
“We have a good deal to think of here; it was your place to think of it
and ask for it. Good-by; we probably sha’n’t see you in this region for
a thousand centuries or so.”
“In that case, _o revoor_,” says I.
I hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my eyes and wished I
was in the booking-office of my own section. The very next instant a
voice I knew sung out in a business kind of a way—
“A harp and a hymn-book, pair of wings and a halo, size 13, for Cap’n Eli
Stormfield, of San Francisco!—make him out a clean bill of health, and
let him in.”
I opened my eyes. Sure enough, it was a Pi Ute Injun I used to know in
Tulare County; mighty good fellow—I remembered being at his funeral,
which consisted of him being burnt and the other Injuns gauming their
faces with his ashes and howling like wildcats. He was powerful glad to
see me, and you may make up your mind I was just as glad to see him, and
feel that I was in the right kind of a heaven at last.
Just as far as your eye could reach, there was swarms of clerks, running
and bustling around, tricking out thousands of Yanks and Mexicans and
English and Arabs, and all sorts of people in their new outfits; and when
they gave me my kit and I put on my halo and took a look in the glass, I
could have jumped over a house for joy, I was so happy. “Now _this_ is
something like!” says I. “Now,” says I, “I’m all right—show me a cloud.”
Inside of fifteen minutes I was a mile on my way towards the cloud-banks
and about a million people along with me. Most of us tried to fly, but
some got crippled and nobody made a success of it. So we concluded to
walk, for the present, till we had had some wing practice.
We begun to meet swarms of folks who were coming back. Some had harps
and nothing else; some had hymn-books and nothing else; some had nothing
at all; all of them looked meek and uncomfortable; one young fellow
hadn’t anything left but his halo, and he was carrying that in his hand;
all of a sudden he offered it to me and says—
“Will you hold it for me a minute?”
Then he disappeared in the crowd. I went on. A woman asked me to hold
her palm branch, and then _she_ disappeared. A girl got me to hold her
harp for her, and by George, _she_ disappeared; and so on and so on, till
I was about loaded down to the guards. Then comes a smiling old
gentleman and asked me to hold _his_ things. I swabbed off the
perspiration and says, pretty tart—
“I’ll have to get you to excuse me, my friend,—_I_ ain’t no hat-rack.”
About this time I begun to run across piles of those traps, lying in the
road. I just quietly dumped my extra cargo along with them. I looked
around, and, Peters, that whole nation that was following me were loaded
down the same as I’d been. The return crowd had got them to hold their
things a minute, you see. They all dumped their loads, too, and we went
on.
When I found myself perched on a cloud, with a million other people, I
never felt so good in my life. Says I, “Now this is according to the
promises; I’ve been having my doubts, but now I am in heaven, sure
enough.” I gave my palm branch a wave or two, for luck, and then I
tautened up my harp-strings and struck in. Well, Peters, you can’t
imagine anything like the row we made. It was grand to listen to, and
made a body thrill all over, but there was considerable many tunes going
on at once, and that was a drawback to the harmony, you understand; and
then there was a lot of Injun tribes, and they kept up such another
war-whooping that they kind of took the tuck out of the music. By and by
I quit performing, and judged I’d take a rest. There was quite a nice
mild old gentleman sitting next me, and I noticed he didn’t take a hand;
I encouraged him, but he said he was naturally bashful, and was afraid to
try before so many people. By and by the old gentleman said he never
could seem to enjoy music somehow. The fact was, I was beginning to feel
the same way; but I didn’t say anything. Him and I had a considerable
long silence, then, but of course it warn’t noticeable in that place.
After about sixteen or seventeen hours, during which I played and sung a
little, now and then—always the same tune, because I didn’t know any
other—I laid down my harp and begun to fan myself with my palm branch.
Then we both got to sighing pretty regular. Finally, says he—
“Don’t you know any tune but the one you’ve been pegging at all day?”
“Not another blessed one,” says I.
“Don’t you reckon you could learn another one?” says he.
“Never,” says I; “I’ve tried to, but I couldn’t manage it.”
“It’s a long time to hang to the one—eternity, you know.”
“Don’t break my heart,” says I; “I’m getting low-spirited enough
already.”