Illinois. In contrast I cannot forbear to quote Le ffaçasé, though his
faults, at the opposite end of the scale, were just as glaring: "It is
in Kentucky now, birthstate of Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of
the United States, a country which once stretched south of the
Forty-ninth Parallel from the Atlantic to the Pacific. I have been
traveling extensively in what is left of Lincoln's nation. 'Dukes,'
remarked Chesterton, 'don't emigrate.' This country was settled by the
poor and thriftless and now few more than the poor and thriftless remain
in it.
"Let me try to present an overall picture: What is left of the country
has become a nineteenth century Ireland, with all economic power in the
hands of absentees. It is not that everyone below the level of a
millionaire is too stupid to foresee possibility of complete
destruction; or the middle and lower classes virtuously imbued with such
fanatical patriotism they are prepared for mass suicide rather than
leave. Because dukes _are_ emigrating and sending the price of
shippingspace into brackets which make the export of any commodity but
diamonds or their own hides a dubious investment, even the pawning of
all the family assets would not buy steerage passage for a year old
baby. Besides there are not enough bottoms in the world to transport a
hundred and fifty million people. If the Grass is not stopped, except
for a negligible few, it will cover Americans when it covers America.
"No wonder a strange and conflicting spirit animates our people. Apathy?
Yes, there is apathy; you can see it on the faces in a line of relief
clients wondering how long an industrially stagnant country can continue
their dole--even though now it consists of nothing but unpalatable
chemicals--socalled 'Concentrates.' Despair? Certainly. The riots and
lootings, especially the intensified ones recently in Cleveland and
Pittsburgh, are symptoms of it. The overcrowded churches, the terrific
increase in drugging and drinking, the sex orgies which have been taking
place practically in the open in Baltimore and Philadelphia and Boston
are stigmata of desperation.
"Hope? I suppose there is hope. Congress sits in uninterrupted session
and senators lend their voices night and day to the destruction of the
Grass. The Federal Disruptions Commission has published the eleventh
volume of its report and is currently holding hearings to determine how
closely the extinct buffalograss is related to _Cynodon dactylon_. Every
research laboratory in the country, except those whose staffs and
equipment have been moved with their proprietary industries, is
expending its energies in seeking a salvation.
"Perhaps only in the Deep South, as yet protected by the width of the
lower Mississippi, is there something approaching a genuine hope,
although ironically that may be the product of ignorance. Here the
overlords have gone and the poor whites, unsupported by an explicit
kinship, have withdrawn into complete listlessness. Some black men have
fled, but to most the Grass is a mere bogey, incapable of frightening
those who have survived so much. Now, for the first time since 1877 the
polls are open to all and there are again Negro governors, and black
legislatures. And they are legislating as if forever. Farm tenancy has
been abolished, the great plantations have been expropriated and made
cooperative, the Homestead Act of 1862 has been applied in the South and
every citizen is entitled to claim a quartersection. There is a great
deal of laughter at this childish lawmaking, but it goes on, changing
the face of the region, the lawmakers themselves not at all averse to
the joke."
Everything Le ffaçasé wrote was not only dull, but biased and unjust as
well. It was true capital was leaving the country rapidly, but what
other course had it? To stay and attempt to carry on industry in the
midst of the demoralization was obviously impractical. The plants
remained and when a way was found to conquer the Grass we would be glad
to reopen them, for this would be a practical course, just as the flight
of capital was a practical course; standards of living were now so
reduced in the United States it would be more profitable to employ cheap
American labor than overpaid Latin or European.
_55._ I had now no fixed abode, dividing my time between Rio and Buenos
Aires, Melbourne and Manchester. General Thario and his family lived in
Copenhagen, overseeing our continental properties, now of equal
importance with the South American holdings. Before leaving, and indeed
on every trip back home, he visited his son--no easy thing to do, what
with the young man's constant movement and the extreme difficulty of
going from east to west against the torrent pouring in the opposite
direction. Joe had married the female of the snapshot, or contracted
some sort of permanent alliance with her--I never got it quite straight
and the Tharios were deplorably careless about such details; and she
proved as eccentric as he was. No appeal to selfinterest, no pleading he
forgo his morbid preoccupation with the Grass for the sake of his
family, could move them.
"A W--you have seen it, heard it, smelled it. Can't you
explain--miraculously touched with the gift of lucidity for fact as you
are for the fictions of production, overhead and dividends? Oh, not to
Mama--either she understands better than I or not at all--but to the Old
Man or Connie?
"As a child you learn for the first time of death: the heart is
shuttered in a little cell, too cruel for breathing; the sun is gray. In
an instant you forget; the sky is bright; the blood pounds. Years later
the adolescent falls in love with death; primps his spirit for it;
recalls in unpresumptuous brotherhood Shelley and Keats and Chatterton.
Afterward the flush fades; we are reconciled to life, but the promise is
still implicit. Now, however, it must be earned, awaited. Haste would
destroy the savor. The award assured, pace becomes dignified.
"But death is not death; life is never mocked. The Grass is not death
any more than it is evil. The Grass is the Grass. It is me and I am it;
'in my father's house there are many mansions, if it were not so I would
not have told you.'
"No, I suppose not; yet it hurts my liver to offer the old boy
incomprehensible reasons or verbiage like 'compulsion neurosis' when all
he wants is to protect me from my own impulses as he protected me from
the army. Florence and I delight in him--he comes again next week if
possible--but we cannot convey to him the unthinkableness of
leaving...."
I heard about this visit later from the general. Joe had scoured Chicago
for the alcoholic commodities now practically unprocurable, and returned
in triumph to the couple's furnished room. There they entertained him
with two bottles of cointreau and a stone demijohn of cornwhisky.
"Touched ... filial affection ... even drank the cointreau--fiddling
stuff, no wonder it was still available in the drought ... better son a
man never had....
"Girl's all right. Moved in circles ... perhaps not accustomed ... bit
rough in speech, but heart of gold ... give you the shirt right off her
back ... hum ... manner of speaking ... know what I mean...."
But she would not add her persuasions to those of the general. "Joe's
got to stay. It's not something he sat down and thought up, the way you
plan dinner or whether blue goes good with your new permanent. He's got
to stay because he's got to stay. And of course, so do I. We couldnt be
satisfied anywhere we couldnt see the Grass. Life's too dull away from
it ... but of course that's only part--it's too big to explain...."
"But George--Joe as you call him ... highly talented ... sensitive ...
shouldnt be allowed to decay," the general argued. "Fascination ...
understand, but effort of will ... break the spell. Europe ...
birthplace of culture ... reflection ... give him a proper perspective
... chance to do things...."
Even when the evening lengthened and he became more lucid under the
stimulus of cornwhisky and cointreau he could not shake them. "Judicious
retreat, especially in the face of overwhelming superiority, has always
been a military weapon and no captain, no matter how valiant, has ever
feared to use it."
"Pop," George Thario had retorted goodhumoredly, "you dragged in the
metaphor, not I. Youve heard of the Alamo and Vicksburg and Corregidor?
Well, this is them--all rolled into one."
_56._ The first snows of this ominous winter halted progress of the
Grass. It went sluggish and then dormant first in the far north, where
only the quick growingseason, once producing cabbages big as hogsheads,
had allowed it to spread at a rate at all comparable to its progress
farther south. But by now there could be no doubt left that _Cynodon
dactylon_, once so sensitive to cold that it had covered itself, even in
the indistinguishable Southern California winter, with a protective
sheath, had become inured to frost and chill, hibernating throughout the
severest cold and coming back vigorously in the spring.
It now extended from Alaska to Hudson Bay, covering all Manitoba and
parts of Ontario. It had taken to itself Minnesota, the northern
peninsula of Michigan, Wisconsin, a great chunk of Illinois, and stood
baffled on the western bank of the Mississippi from Cairo to its mouth.
The northwestern, underpopulated half of Mexico was overrun, the Grass
moving but sluggishly into the estados bordering the Gulf Coast.
I cannot say this delusive safety was enjoyed, for there was
unbelievable hardship. In spite of the great bulk of the country's
coalfields lying east of the Grass and the vast quantities of oil and
natural gas from Texas, there was a fuel famine, due largely to the
breakdown of the transportation system. People warmed themselves after a
fashion by burning furniture and rubbish in improvised stoves. Of course
this put an additional strain on firedepartments, themselves suffering
from the same lack of new equipment, tires, and gasoline, afflicting the
general public and great conflagrations swept through Akron, Buffalo and
Hartford. Garbage collection systems broke down and no attempt was made
to clear the streets of snow. Broken watermains, gaspipes and sewers
were followed by typhus and typhoid and smallpox, flux, cholera and
bubonic plague. The hundreds of thousands of deaths relieved only in
small degree the overcrowding; for the epidemics displaced those
refugees sheltered in the schoolhouses, long since closed, when these
were made auxiliary to the inadequate hospitals.
The strangely inappropriate flowering of culture, so profuse the year
before, no longer bloomed. A few invincible enthusiasts, mufflered and
raincoated, still bore the icy chill of the concert hall, a quorum of
painters besieged the artist supply stores for the precious remaining
tubes of burntumber and scarletlake, while it was presumed that in
traditionally unheated garrets orthodox poets nourished their muse on
pencil erasers. But all enthusiasm was individual property, the reaction
of single persons with excess adrenalin. No common interests united
doctor and stockbroker, steelworker and truckdriver, laborer and
laundryman, except common fear of the Grass, briefly dormant but ever in
the background of all minds. The stream of novels, plays, and poems
dried up; publishers, amazed that what had been profitable the year
before was no longer so, were finally convinced and stopped printing
anything remotely literate; even the newspapers limped along crippledly,
their presses breaking down hourly, their circulation and coverage alike
dubious.
The streets were no more safe at night than in sixteenth century London.
Even in the greatest cities the lighting was erratic and in the smaller
ones it had been abandoned entirely. Holdups by individuals had been
practically given up, perhaps because of the uncertainty of any footpad
getting away with his loot before being hijacked by another, but small
compact gangs made life and property unsafe at night. Tempers were
extraordinarily short; a surprised housebreaker was likely to add
battery, mayhem and arson to his crimes, and altercations which commonly
would have terminated in nothing more violent than lurid epithets now
frequently ended in murder.
Since too many of the homeless took advantage of the law to commit petty
offenses and so secure some kind of shelter for themselves, all law
enforcement below the level of capital crimes went by default. Prisoners
were tried quickly, often in batches, rarely acquitted; and sentences of
death were executed before nightfall so as to conserve both prison space
and rations.
In rural life the descent was neither so fast nor so far. There was no
gasoline to run cars or tractors, but carefully husbanded
storagebatteries still provided enough electricity to catch the news on
the radio or allow the washingmachine to do the week's laundry. To a
great extent the farmer gave up his dependence on manufactured goods,
except when he could barter his surplus eggs or milk for them, and
instead went back to the practices of his forefather, becoming for all
intents and purposes practically selfsufficient. Soap from woodashes and
leftover kitchen grease might scratch his skin and a jacket of rabbit or
wolverine hide make him selfconscious, but he went neither cold nor
hungry nor dirty while his urban counterpart, for the most part, did.
One contingency the countrydweller prepared grimly against: roaming
hordes of the hungry from the towns, driven to plunder by starvation
which they were too shiftless to alleviate by purchasing concentrates,
for sale everywhere. Shotguns were loaded, corncribs made tight, stock
zealously guarded. But except rarely the danger had been overestimated.
The undernourished proletariat lacked the initiative to go out where the
food came from. Generations had conditioned them to an instinctive
belief that bread came from the bakery, meat from the butcher, butter
from the grocer. Driven by desperation they broke into scantily supplied
food depots, but seldom ventured beyond the familiar pavements. Famine
took its victims in the streets; the farmers continued to eat.
I arrived in New York on the clipper from London in mid-January of this
dreadful winter. I had boarded the plane at Croydon, only subconsciously
aware of the drive from London through the traditionally neat
hedgerows, of the completely placid and lawabiding England around me,
the pleasant officials, the helpful yet not servile porters. Long Island
shocked me by contrast. It had come to its present condition by slow
degrees, but to the returning traveler the collapse was so woefully
abrupt it seemed to have happened overnight.
Tension and hysteria made everyone volatile. The customs officials,
careless of the position of those whom they dealt with, either inspected
every cubic inch of luggage with boorish suspicion and resultant damage
or else waved the proffered handbags airily aside with false geniality.
The highways, repeating a pattern I had cause to know so well, were
nearly impassable with brokendown cars and other litter. The streets of
Queens, cluttered with wreckage and refuse, were bounded by houses in a
state of apathetic disrepair whose filthy windows refused to look upon
the scene before them. The great bridges over the East River were not
being properly maintained as an occasional snapped cable, hanging over
the water like a drunken snake, showed; it was dangerous to cross them,
but there was no other way. The ferryboats had long since broken down.
At the door of my hotel, where I had long been accustomed to just the
right degree of courteous attention, a screaming mob of men and boys
wrapped in careless rags to keep out the cold, their unwashed skins
showing where the coverings had slipped, begged abjectly for the
privilege of carrying my bags. The carpet in the lobby was wrinkled and
soiled and in the great chandeliers half the bulbs were blackened.
Though the building was served by its own powerstation, the elevators no
longer ran, and the hot water was rationed, as in a fifthrate French
pension. The coverlet on the bed was far from fresh, the window was
dusty and there was but one towel in the bathroom. I was glad I had not
brought my man along for him to sneer silently at an American luxury
hotel.
I picked up the telephone, but it was dead. I think nothing gave me the
feeling that civilization as we knew it had ended so much as the blank
silence coming from the dull black earpiece. This, even more than the
automobile, had been the symbol of American life and activity, the
essential means of communication which had promoted every business deal,
every social function, every romance; it had been the first palliation
of the sickbed and the last admission of the mourner. Without telephones
we were not even in the horse and buggy days--we had returned to the
oxcart. I replaced the receiver slowly in its cradle and looked at it a
long minute before going back downstairs.
_57._ I had come home on a quixotic and more or less unbusinesslike
mission. It had long been the belief of Consolidated Pemmican's chemists
that the Grass might possibly furnish raw material for food concentrates
and we had come to modify our opinion about the necessity for a
processing plant in close proximity. However, at secondhand, no
practicable formula had been evolved. Strict laws against the
transportation of any specimens and even stricter ones barring them from
every foreign country made experiment in our main research laboratories
infeasible; but we still maintained a skeleton staff in our Jacksonville
plant and I had come to arrange the collection of a large enough sample
for them to get to work in earnest. It was a tricky business and I had
no one beside myself whom I could trust to undertake it except General
Thario, and he was fully occupied.
In addition to being illegal it also promised little profit, for while
dislocation of the normal foodsupply made the United States our main
market for concentrates, American currency had fallen so low--the franc
stood at $5, the pound sterling at $250--it was hardly worthwhile to
import our products. Of course, as a good citizen, I didnt send American
money abroad, content to purchase Rembrandts, Botticellis, Titians or El
Grecos; or when I couldnt find masterpieces holding a stable price on
the world market, to change my dollars into some of the gold from Fort
Knox, now only a useless bulk of heavy metal.
My first thought was Miss Francis. Though she had more or less dropped
from public sight, my staff had ascertained she was living in a small
South Carolina town. My telegrams remaining unanswered, there was
nothing for me to do but undertake a trip there.
Despite strict instructions my planes had not been kept in proper
condition and I had great difficulty getting mechanics to service them.
There were plenty of skilled men unemployed and though they were not
eager to earn dollars they were willing to work for other rewards. But
the pervading atmosphere of tension and anxiety made concentration
difficult; they bungled out of impatience, committed stupidities they
would normally be incapable of; they quit without cause, flew into rages
at the machines, the tools, their fellows, fate, at or without the
slightest provocation.
My pilot was surly and hilarious by turn and I suspected him of
drinking, which didnt add to my confidence in our safety. We flew low
over railroadtracks stretching an empty length to the horizon, over
smokeless factorychimneys, airports whose runways were broken and whose
landinglights were dark. The land was green and rich, the industrial
life imposed upon it till yesterday had vanished, leaving behind it the
bleaching skeleton of its being.
The field upon which we came down seemed in slightly better repair than
others we had sighted. The only other ship was an antique biplane which
deserved housing in a museum. As I looked around the deserted
landingstrip a tall Negro emerged leisurely from one of the buildings
and walked toward us.
"Where are the airport officials?" I asked rather sharply, for I didnt
relish being greeted by a janitor.
"I am the chief dispatcher. In fact, I am the entire personnel at the
moment."
My pilot, standing behind me, broke in. "Boy, where're the white folks
around here?"
The chief dispatcher looked at him steadily a long moment before
answering. "I imagine you will find people of various shades all over
town, including those allegedly white. Was there anyone in particular
you were interested in or are you solely concerned with pigmentation?"
"Why, you goddam--"
I thought it advisable to prevent a possible altercation. I recalled Le
ffaçasé's articles on the Black South which I had considered vastly
overdrawn. Evidently they were not, for the chocolatecolored man spoke
with all the ease and assurance of unquestioned authority. "I want to
get to a Miss Francis at--" I consulted my notes and gave him the
address. "Can you get me a taxi or car?"
He smiled gravely. "We are without such luxuries at present, I regret to
say. But there will be a bus along in about twenty minutes."
It had been a long time since I suffered the wasted time and
inconvenience of public transportation. However, there was no help for
it and I resigned myself philosophically. I walked with the chief
dispatcher into the airport waitingroom, dull with the listless air, not
of unoccupancy, but disuse.
"Not much air travel," I remarked idly.
"Yours is the first plane in a month."
"I wonder you bother to keep the airport open at all."
"We do what we can to preserve the forms of civilization. The substance,
unfortunately, cannot be affected by transportation, production,
distribution, education or any other such niceties."
I smiled inwardly. What children these black people were, afterall. I
was relieved from further ramblings by the arrival of the bus which was
as laughable as the chief dispatcher's philosophizing. The dented and
rusty vehicle had been disencumbered of its motor and was hitched to
four mules who seemed less than enthusiastic over their lot. I got in
and seated myself gingerly on one of the dilapidated seats, noting that
the warning signs "For White" and "For Colored" had been smeared over
with just enough paint to make the intent of obliteration clear without
actually doing so.
_58._ How Miss Francis contrived to make every place she lived in,
apartment, chickenhouse or cottage, look exactly alike was remarkable.
Nothing is more absurd than the notion that socalled intellectual
workers are always alert--as Miss Francis demonstrated by her greeting
to me.
"Well, Weener, what is it this time? Selling on commission or an
interview?"
It was inconceivable any literate person in the United States could be
ignorant of my position. "It is neither," I returned with some dignity.
"I am here to do you a favor. To help you in your work." And I explained
my proposition.
She squatted back on her heels and gave me that old, familiar, searching
look. "So you have made a good thing out of the Metamorphizer afterall,"
she said irrelevantly and untruthfully. "Weener, you are a consistent
character--a beautifully consistent character."
"Please come to the point, Miss Francis. I am a busy man and I have come
down here simply to see you. Will you accept?"
"No."
"No?"
"I doubt if I could combine my research with your attempt to process the
inoculated _Cynodon dactylon_. However, that would not prevent me from
taking you up and using you in order to further a good cause. But I am
not yet ready--I shall not be ready for some time, to go directly to the
Grass. That must come later. No, Weener."
I was exasperated at the softness of my impulse which had made me seek
out this madwoman to do her a favor. I could not regret my charitable
nature, but I mentally resolved to be more discriminating in future.
Besides, the thought of Miss Francis for the work had been sheer
sentimentality, the sort of false reasoning which would make of every
mother an obstetrician or every hen an oologist.
As I sauntered through the drowsy streets, killing time till the driver
of the ridiculous "bus" should decide to guide his mules back to the
airport, I was struck by the lack of tension, of apprehension and
anxiety, so apparent in New York. Evidently the Black South suffered
little from the brooding fear and terror; I put it down to their
childish thoughtlessness.
Walking thus reflectively, head down, I looked up suddenly--straight
into the face of the Strange Lady I had driven from Los Angeles to Yuma.
I'm sure I opened my mouth, but no words came out. She was hurrying
rapidly along, paying no attention either to me or to her surroundings,
aloof and exquisite. I think I put out my hand, or made some other
reflexive gesture to stop her, but either she failed to notice or
misunderstood. When I finally recovered myself and set out after her,
she had vanished.
I waited for the bus, wondering if I had been victim of an
hallucination....
_59._ In spite of Miss Francis' blindness to her own interest I still
had a prospective superintendent for the gathering and shipping of the
grass: George Thario. Unless his obsession had sent him down into
Mississippi or Louisiana, I expected to find him in Indianapolis.
The short journey west was tedious and uncomfortable, repeating the
pattern of the one southward. At the end of it there was no garrulous
chief dispatcher, for the airport was completely deserted, and I was
thankful for an ample stock of gas for the return flight.
I had no difficulty locating Joe in an immense, highceilinged
furnishedroom in one of the ugliest gray weatherboarded houses, of which
the city, never celebrated for its architecture, could boast. The first
thing to impress me was the room's warmth. For the first time since
landing I did not shiver. A woodfire burned in an open grate and a
kerosene heater smelled obstinately in an opposite corner. A grandpiano
stood in front of the long narrow windows and on it slouched several
thick piles of curlyedged paper.
He greeted me with something resembling affection. "The tycoon himself!
Workers of the world--resume your chains. A W, it's a pleasure to see
you. And looking so smooth and ordinary and unharassed too, at the
moment everyone else is tearing himself with panic or anguish. How do
you do it?"
"I look on the bright side of things, Joe," I answered. "Worry never
helped anybody accomplish anything--and it takes fewer muscles to smile
than to frown."
"You hear that, Florence?"
I had not noticed her when I came in, the original of the snapshot,
sitting placidly in a corner darning socks. I must say the photograph
had done her less than justice, for though she was undoubtedly
commonlooking and sloppy, with heavy breasts and coarse red cheeks and
unconcealedly dyed hair, there was yet about her an air of great
vitality, kindness, and good nature. Parenthetically she acknowledged my
presence with a pleasant smile.
"You hear that? Remind me the next time I am troubled by a transposition
or a solopassage that it takes less muscles to smile than to frown. For
I have got to work at last, A W; the loafing and inviting of my soul is
past, my soul has responded to my invitation. You remember Crisodd's
Devilgrass Symphony? A horrible misconception if ever there was one, a
personal insult to anyone who ever saw the Grass; a dull, unintentional
joke; bad Schoenberg--if that isnt a tautology--combined with faint
memories of the most vulgar Wagner--if that isnt another
tautology--threaded together on _Mighty Like a Rose_ and _Alexander's
Ragtime Band_. But what am I saying, A W, to you who are so free from
the virus of culture? What the hell interest have you in Crisodd's
symphony or my symphony or anybody's symphony, except the polyphony of
profits?"
"I hope no one thinks I'm a narrowminded man, Joe," I reproved him. "I
venture to say I have as much interest in Art as the next person. Ive
done a bit of writing myself, you know, and literature--"
"Oh sure. I didnt mean to hurt your feelings."
"You did not. But while I believe Music is a fine thing in its place, I
came to discuss a different subject."
"If you mean taking Joe back to Europe with you, youre out of luck, Mr
Weener," put in Florence placidly. "He's almost finished the first
movement and we'll never leave the Grass till it's all done."
"You mistake me, Mrs Thario. I have a proposition for your husband, but
far from taking him away from the Grass, it will bring him closer to
it."
"Impossible," exclaimed Joe. "I am the Grass and the Grass is me; in
mystical union we have become a single entity. I speak with its voice
and in the great cadences which come from its heart you can hear
Thario's first, transfigured and magnified a hundred thousand times."
I was sorry to note his speech, always so simple and unaffected in
contrast to his letters, was infected with an unbecoming pomposity.
Looking at him closely I saw he had lost weight. His flesh had shrunk
closer to his big frame and the lines of his skull stood out sharply in
his cheek and jaw. There was the faintest touch of gray in his hair and
his fingers played nervously with the ragged and illadvised beard on his
chin. He hardly looked the man who had evaded serious work in order to
encourage a silly obsession, comfortably supported all the while by a
sizable remittance from his father.
I outlined to them my plans for gathering samples of the weed. Florence
tucked her stillthreaded needle between her teeth and inspected the
current pair of socks critically. Joe walked over to the piano and
struck several discordant notes.
"I understand there are several parties making expeditions onto the
Grass," I said.
"Lots," confirmed Joe. "There's a group sent out by Brother Paul on some
very mysterious mission. It's called the Sanctification of the
Forerunner. God knows how many thousands he's made his suckers cough up,
for theyre equipped with all the latest gadgets for polar exploration,
skis and dogsleds, moompitcher cameras, radios and unheardof quantities
of your very best pemmican. They started as soon as the snow was thick
enough to bear their weight and if we have an untimely thaw theyll go to
join the Russians.
"Then there's the government bunch, the Disruptions Commission having
finally and reluctantly produced an idea, but exactly what it is they
havent confided to an eager citizenry. Smaller groups too: scientists
and nearscientists, enthusiasts who have got the notion somehow that
animals or migratory game are roaming the snow on top of the
grass--exactly how they got there is not explained--planning to
photograph, hunt or trap; and just plain folk making the trip for the
hell of it. We might have gone ourselves if it hadnt been for the
symphony."
"Your symphony is concerned with the Grass?" I asked politely.
"It's concerned with combinations of sound." He looked at me sharply and
banged out harsher discords. "With life, if you want to talk like a
programnote."
"If you go on this expedition it will give you an opportunity to gather
new material," I pointed out.
"If I look out the window or consult my navel or 'meditate while at
stool' or cut my finger I will get new material with much less hardship.
The last thing a composer or writer or painter needs is material; it is
from excess of material he is the besotted creature he is. He may lack
leisure or energy or ability or an active colon, but no masterpiece ever
was or conceivably could be thwarted from lack of material."
"Yet you have tied yourself to the Grass."
"Not to prostitute it to whatever talents I have, but because it is the
most magnificent thing on earth."
"Then of course youll go," I said.
"Why don't you go yourself, A W? Do you good to live out in the open."
"I can't afford the time, Joe; I have too many things that need my
personal attention."
He struck a series of great thumping notes. "And so have I, A W, so have
I. I'm afraid youll have to get somebody else."
I could neither understand nor shake his obstinacy and when I left them
I had almost determined to abandon the whole project, for I could not
think whom else trustworthy I could get. His idea of my own
participation was fantastic; I had long since come to the point where it
was necessary to delegate all such duties to subordinates.
_60._ Perhaps it was Joe's sly remark about it doing me good to be out
in the open, or the difficulty of getting a conveyance, but I decided to
walk to my hotel. Taxis of course disappeared with gasoline, but
ingenious men, unwilling to be pauperized by accepting the dole, had
devised rickshaws and bicycle carriages which were the only means of
local transportation. The night was clear and cold, the stars gleaming
in distant purity, but all around, the offensive smell of the disheveled
city played on my disgusted nostrils.
"In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Brother, are you saved?"
When the figure had come out from the shadow of a building to accost me
my first thought had been of a holdup, but the odd salutation made this
seem unlikely. "What do you want?" I asked.
"Brother, are you a Christian man?"
I resented the impertinence and started to walk on; he followed close
beside me. "Harden not your heart, miserable sinner, but let Jesus
dissolve your pride as he washes away your other sins. Be not high and
mighty for the high shall be low and the mighty powerless; in a short
time you will be food for grass. The Grass is food for the Ox, the
divine Ox with seven horns which shall come upon the world with a great
trumpeting and bellowing soon after the Forerunner."
I knew of the great multiplication of insanity and hoped I could reach
the hotel before he grew violent. "What is your name?" I temporized.
"Call me Brother Paul, for I was once Saul the worldly; now I am your
brother in Christ."
"Brother Paul! The radio preacher?"
"We are all members one of another and He who watches the sparrow fall
makes no distinction between one manmade label and another. All of us
who have found Christ Jesus with the help of Brother Paul are called
Brother Paul. Come to the Loving Arms, O miserable sinner, and be
Brother Paul also."
I thought it might be very confusing. "I have always been interested in
religion."
"O puny man. Interested in life and interested in death, interested in
being and interested in begetting, interested in religion and interested
in dung. Turn from those interests which the devil pays upon your soul's
mortgage; your Savior resides in the heart of the Grass--withhold not
your precious soul from Him. At this very moment the Forerunner is being
sanctified and after her there will come the Ox to eat the Grass and
then the end of the world. Give Brother Paul your worthless earthly
possessions, give your soul to Jesus and hasten that glorious day.
Hallelujah!"
The fervid jumble ended in a near scream. What a waste of oratorical and
perhaps organizational energy, I mused as I strode along rapidly, still
intent on escaping the fanatic. Under different circumstances, I
thought, a man like this might turn out to be a capable clerk or minor
executive. Suddenly I had a hunch.
"Mr--?"
"Brother Paul. I have no earthly name."
"I wish youd come with me for a few minutes; I have a proposition which
might interest you."
In the darkness I could see him peering at me suspiciously. "Is this
some worldly seduction from the Christian path?"
"I think you will find what I have to offer a material aid to your
church."
"I have no church," he said. "We are Christians and recognize no manmade
institution."
"Well, then, to your movement or whatever you call it." In spite of his
reluctance, which was now as great as mine had been originally, I
persuaded him to accompany me. He sat uneasily forward while I told him
who I was and sketched the plan for collecting some of the Grass.
"What is this to me? I have long ago put aside all material thoughts and
now care only for the life of the spirit."
This must be true, I thought, noting his shabby clothes, sweatgreasy
muffler at once hiding and revealing lack of necktie, and cracked shoes,
one sock brown, the other black. "It is this to you: if you don't want
the salary and bonus attached to organizing and superintending the
expedition--and I am prepared to be generous--you can turn it over to
Brother Paul. I imagine it will be acceptable."
He shook his head, muttering, "Satan, Satan." The lower part of his face
was wide and divided horizontally, like an inverted jellymold. It
tapered up into bracketing ears, supporting gingery eaves. I pressed
home my arguments.
"I will put your proposition to Brother Paul," he conceded at length.
"I thought distinctions between one man and another were worldly and
trivial," I prodded him. "Arent you Brother Paul?"
"Satan, Satan," he repeated.
I'm sure it could have been nothing but one of those flashes of
intuition for which successful executives are noted which caused me to
pick this man in spite of his absurd ranting and illfavored appearance.
Not intuition really, but an ability to evaluate and classify
personalities instantly. I always had this faculty; it helped me in my
early experiences as a salesman and blossomed out when I entered my
proper field.
Anthony Preblesham--for that was his worldly name--did not disappoint my
judgment for he proved one of the most aggressive men I ever hired. The
Brother Paul hocuspocus, which he quickly dropped, had merely caught and
canalized an abounding energy that would otherwise have flowed aimlessly
in a stagnant world. In Consolidated Pemmican he found his true faith;
his zeal for our products proved as great if not greater than his former
hysteria for the salvation of mankind. It was no fault of his that the
expedition he led proved fruitless.
The men Tony Preblesham took with him were all Brother Pauls who--since
they disdained them--had not been told of material rewards but given the
impression they were furthering their fanatical creed. They built a camp
upon the Grass, or rather upon the snow which overlay the Grass, near
what had once been Springfield, Illinois. Digging down through the snow
to the weed, they discovered it to have lost most of its rubbery
qualities of resistance in dormancy, and cut with comparative ease more
than four tons which were transported with the greatest difficulty to
the Florida plant. Here, to anticipate, their work came to nothing, for
no practicable method was found for reducing the grass to a form in
which its nutritive elements could be economically extracted.
_61._ The secrecy surrounding the government expedition could not be
maintained and it was soon learned that what was planned was nothing
less than an attempt to burn great areas of the weed while in its
dormant state. All previous attempts to fire the Grass had been made
when the sap was running and it was thought that in its dryer condition
some measure of success might be obtained. The public instantly
translated possibility into probability and probability into virtual
certainty, their enthusiastic optimism making the winter more bearable.
The party proceeded not more than a couple of miles beyond the eastern
edge, dragging with them a flexible pipeline through which was pumped
fueloil, now priceless in the freezing cities. Methodically they sprayed
a square mile and set it afire, feeding the flames with the oil. The
burning area sank neatly through the snow, exposing the grass beneath:
dry, yellow and brittle. The stiff, interwoven stolons caught; oil was
applied unstintedly; the crackling and roaring and snapping could be
heard by those well beyond the perimeter of the Grass and the terrific
heat forced the temporary abandonment of the work.
The spotbroadcasters in emotional voices gave the news to those whose
radios still functioned. Reporters flashed their editors, BURNING
SUCCESSFUL. WILL STOP GRASS IF MULTIPLIED. All over the country
volunteer crews were instantly formed to repeat the experiment.
When the flames died down the men crept closer to inspect the results.
The heat had melted the snow for many yards outside the orbit of fire,
revealing a border of dull and sodden grass. Beyond this border a
blackened crater had eaten its way straight down to the reclaimed earth
below. Shouting and rejoicing greeted this evidence of triumph. What if
the Grass could advance at will in summer? It could be subdued in winter
and thus kept in check till the ingenuity which devised this one victory
could win another.
Working furiously, the oil was again sprayed, this time over a still
larger piece and again the flames lit the sky. The President issued a
Proclamation of Thanksgiving; the American dollar rose to $175 to the
pound, and several prominent expatriates began to think seriously of
returning home.
The second fire burned through the night and aided by a slight change in
the weather thawed the snow over a great area. Eagerly the expedition,
now swollen into a small army, returned to continue their triumphant
labors. The bright sun shone upon the dirtied snow, upon naked muddy
earth in the center of the crater, upon the network of burnt and
blackened stems and upon the wide band of grayishgreen grass the
retreating snow had laid open to its rays. Grayishgreen, but changing in
color at every moment as the work of spraying began again.
Changing color, becoming more verdant, thrusting blades into the air,
moving its long runners upward and sideways and downward toward the
destroyed part. Revived by the heat, relieved of the snow, the Grass,
fighting for its life with the same intensity which animated its
attackers, burst into a fury of growth. It covered the evidences of
destruction in less time than the burning had taken. It tore the
pipeline from its tormentors' hands and drove them away with threats of
swift immolation. Defiantly it rose to a pinnacle, hiding its
mutilation, and flaunted its vivid tendrils to bear witness to its
invulnerability till a killing frost followed by another snowfall
covered it again.
Since the delusive hope had been so high, the disappointment threw the
public into a despair greater than ever before. The nervous tension of
anxiety was replaced by a listlessness of resignation and the suicide
rate, high before, now doubled. For the first time a general admission
was to be heard that no solution would be found and in another season
the end would come for the United States. Facing the prospect squarely,
an exodus of the little people, as distinguished from the earlier flight
of men of wealth and foresight, from the country began.
This was the first countermeasure attempted since the Grass crossed the
Mississippi, and in reaction to its collapse, the return of Brother
Paul's expedition passed almost unnoticed. Only _Time_, now published in
Paris, bothered to report it for general circulation: "Last week from
some undisclosed spot in mid U.S. returned Mother, 'The Forerunner' Joan
(real name: unknown), and party. Dispatched Grassward by Brother Paul,
doom-predicting, advent-prophesying graminophile evangelist, the purpose
of Mother Joan's expedition had been her 'Sanctification,' above the
exact spot where the Savior was waiting in the midst of the Grass to
receive His faithful disciples. Said Brother Paul to reporters after
embracing The Forerunner enthusiastically, 'The expedition has been
successful.' Said Mother Joan, off the record, 'My feet hurt.'"
_62._ The coming of spring was awaited with grim foreboding, but the
Grass was not bound by any manmade almanac and unable to contain itself
till the melting of the snow, again leaped the barrier of the
Mississippi, this time near Natchez, and ran through the South like
water from a sloshed dishpan. The prized reforms of the black
legislatures were wiped out more quickly even than their
greatgrandfathers' had been in 1877. The wornout cotton and tobacco
lands offered hospitable soil while cypress swamps and winter-swollen
creeks pumped vitality into the questing runners. Southward and
eastward it spread, waiting only the opening of the first pussywillow
and the showing of the first crocus to jump northward and meet the
western advance there.
The dwindling remnants of cohesion and selfcontrol existing before now
disappeared completely. The capital was moved to Portland, Maine. Local
law and order vanished. The great gangs took over the cities and
extracted what tribute they could from the impoverished inhabitants.
Utilities ceased functioning entirely, what little goods remained were
obtainable only by barter, and epidemic after epidemic decreased the
population to fit the shrinking boundaries.
Brother Paul, deprived of the radio, now multiplied himself infinitely
in the person of his disciples, preaching unremittingly against
resistance, even by thought, to the oncoming Grass. Mother Joan's
infrequent public appearances attracted enormous crowds as she
proclaimed, "O be joyful; give your souls to Jesus and your bodies to
the Grass. I am The Forerunner and after me will come the Ox. Rejoice,
brothers and sisters, for this is the end of all your suffering and
misery."
On foot or rarely with the aid of a horse or mule, the panicstricken
population marched northward and eastward. Canadian officials, anxious
to apply immigration controls with the greatest possible latitude, were
thrust aside as though their existence were an irrelevance. Along the
lower reaches of the St Lawrence the refugees came like locusts to
devour the substance of the _habitants_. Into empty Ungava and almost
equally empty Labrador the hardier ones pushed, armed like their
forebears with only ax and shotgun. Northward and eastward, beyond the
Arctic Circle and onto the polar ice they trickled, seeking some place
which promised security from the Grass. Passenger rates to Europe or
South America, formerly at a premium, now shot to unparalleled heights.
I wound up my own affairs, disappointed at the failure to find a use for
the Grass, but still keeping it in view as a future objective, and
arranged for the removal of the Florida factory to Brazzaville. Heeding
the cabled importunities of Stuart Thario I risked my life to travel
once more into the interior to see Joe and persuade him to come back
with me. I found them in a small Pennsylvania town in the Alleghenies,
once a company owned miningvillage. The Grass, advancing rapidly, was
just beyond the nearest mountainridge, replacing the jagged Appalachian
horizon with a softer and more ominous one.
They appeared serene and content, Joe's haggard look of the winter
erased. "I'm in the middle of the third movement, A W," he told me, like
a man who had no time to waste on preliminaries or indirections. "Here."
He thrust an enormous manila envelope at me. "Here are the first two
movements. There are no copies and I cannot trust the mails or any other
messenger to get them out. If possible I'll send the Old Man the third
movement as soon as it's finished--and the fourth, if I have time. But
take the first two anyway; at least I'll know theyre preserved."
"Joe, Florence!" I exclaimed. "This is ridiculous. Insane. Come back
with me."
Silence.
"You can compose just as well in Europe, if it is so important to you.
In France, say, or England, away from this danger and discomfort. There
is no doubt the country is finished; come to safety while you can."
Florence was busy with a stack of musicpaper and offered no comment. Joe
put his hand for a second on my shoulder and then turned away, talking
with his eyes fixed out the window in the direction of the Grass.
"General Herkimer had both legs shot off at the battle of Oriskany. He
made his men put his back to a treestump and with a flintlock rifle
fired at the enemy until he bled to death. Commodore Lawrence, mortally
wounded, had only one order. Schoolbooks hold the words of John Paul,
selfnamed Jones, and of Hiram Ulysses Grant. Even yesterday, the old
tradition was alive: 'Enemy landing; issue in doubt.' If I finish my
symphony--"
"When you finish your symphony--" I encouraged.
"If you finish your symphony--" said Florence quietly.
"If I finish my symphony, it must be in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont."
His speech took on a hushed, abstracted tone. "Massachusetts, Rhode
Island or Connecticut. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania--" his voice
rose higher-- "Maryland, Virginia or West Virginia--" his shoulders
shook and he seemed to be crying-- "North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, Florida ..."
I left them, convinced the madness of the country had found still
another victim. That night I thankfully boarded the European Clipper for
the last time. The next day I sank back into civilization as into a
comfortable bed.
_63._ "The United States, July 4 (N.A.N.A.)--'A decent respect for the
opinion of mankind' dictates the content of this summary. Less than two
centuries past, a small group of smugglers, merchants and planters
united in an insurrection which in its course gathered to itself such an
accreta of riffraff--debtors, convicts, adventurers, careerists,
foreigners, theoreticians, idealists, revolutionaries, soldiers of
fortune and restless men, that at the height of their numbers they
composed, with their sympathizers, perhaps a third of the people in the
country. After seven years of inept war in which they had all the
breaks, including that of a halfhearted enemy, they established 'upon
this continent a new nation.' Some of the phrases thrown off in the heat
of propaganda were taken seriously and despite shocked opposition
written into basic law.
"The cryptogram is readable backward or forward, straightaway or upside
down. Unparalleled resources, the fortuitous historical moment, the tide
of immigration drawing on the best of the world, the implicit good in
conception necessarily resultant in the explicit best of being; high
purpose, inventive genius, exploratory urge, competitive spirit,
fraternal enthusiasm, what does the ascription matter if the end product
was clear for all to see?
"Is it not fitting that a nation calling itself lightly 'God's Country,'
meaning a land abundantly favored by nature, should find its dispatch
through an act of the benefactor become understandably irritable? This
is not to pose the editorial question of justice, but to remember in
passing the girdled forests, abused prairies, gullied lands, the
stupidly harnessed plains, wasted coal, gas, petroleum; the millions of
tons of rich mud denied hungry soil by Mississippi levees and forced
profitlessly into the salt sea.
"A small part, a heartbreakingly small part of the United States remains
at this moment. In a matter of weeks even this little must be overrun,
stilled and covered green as all graves are. Scattered through the world
there will be Americans, participants in a bitter diaspora. For
them--and for their children to be instructed zealously in the
formalities of an antique civilization--there can be no Fourth of July,
no Thanksgiving; only one holiday will remain, and that continue through
all the year. Its name, of course, is Memorial Day. W.R.L."
_64._ This was the last dispatch from the once great editor. It was
assumed generally that he had perished with so many others. It was only
some time later I heard a curious story, for whose authenticity I cannot
vouch.
True to the flippant prediction of Jacson Gootes, Le ffaçasé returned to
the Church into which he had been born. He went further and became a lay
brother, taking upon himself the obligation of silence. Though an old
man, he stayed close to the advancing Grass, giving what assistance and
comfort he could to the refugees. The anecdotes of his sudden appearance
in typhusridden camps, mute and gaunt, hastening with water for the
feverish, quieting the terrified with a light touch, praying silently
beside the dying, sound improbable to me, but I mention them for what
they are worth.
_65._ When winter came again, the Canadian government petitioned the
Parliament at Westminster for crowncolony status and the assent of the
Queen's Privy Council was given to the ending of the premier Dominion.
All that was left of the largest landmass within the British
Commonwealth was eastern and northern Quebec, the Maritime Provinces and
part of the Northwest Territories.
The United States and more than half of Mexico had been wiped from the
map. From the Pacific to the Atlantic, from Nome to Veracruz stretched a
new Sargasso Sea of _Cynodon dactylon_. A hundred and eighty million
men, women, and children had been thrust from their homes by a despised
weed.
I cannot say life on the other continents--and I could call any of them,
except possibly Africa, my home--was undisturbed by the disappearance of
the United States. American competition gone, the tempo of businesslife
seemed to run slower and slower. Production dwindled, prices rose;
luxury articles were made in abundance, but manufacturers hesitated to
adopt American methods of massproduction for necessities.
Russia, after her new revolution, was a quiet backwater economically,
although politically she caused turmoil by giving a home to the Fourth
International. Germany became the leading iron and steel country, but it
was not an aggressive leadership, rather it was a lackadaisical
acceptance of a fortuitous role; while Britain, often on deathbed but
never a corpse, without question took the lead in international affairs.
Consolidated Pemmican and Allied Industries was now, if not the largest,
certainly one of the largest companies in the world. We purchased sheep
in Australia, beef and wheat and corn in South America, rice and millet
and eggs in Asia, fruit and sugar and milo in Africa, and what the
farmers of Europe could spare, to process and ship back in palatable,
concentrated form to a world which now constituted our market. Besides
all this we had of course our auxiliary concerns, many of which
dominated their respective fields. Ministers of finance consulted me
before proposing new budgets and there was not a statesman--outside the
Socialist Union--who didnt listen respectfully to my suggestions.
Tony Preblesham had proved an invaluable find. Never the type to whom
authority in the largest matters could be delegated, nevertheless he was
extremely handy as troubleshooter, exploiter of new territory or
negotiator with competitors or troublesome laborleaders. The pioneers
who had fled to the north had little to offer in payment for the vast
quantities of food concentrates they required, but the land was rich in
furs, timber, and other resources. With permission of the Danish
authorities I sent Preblesham to Julianthaab. There he established our
headquarters for Greenland, Iceland, and all that was left of North
America. From Julianthaab immediately radiated a network of posts where
our products were traded for whatever the refugees could bring in.
But the Americans who had gone into the icy wastes were not seeking
subsistence. They were striving mightily to reach some place of
sanctuary where they could no longer be menaced by the Grass. Beyond the
Arctic Circle? Here they might learn to imitate the Innuit, living on
fish and seals and an occasional obligingly beached whale. But could
they be sure, on territory contiguous or very nearly contiguous to that
supporting the weed, that they could count on immunity? They did not
believe so. They filled up Newfoundland in the hope that the narrow Gulf
of St Lawrence and the narrower Straits of Belle Isle might offer
protective barriers. They crossed on sleds to Baffin Island and in
homemade boats to Greenland. Before the Grass had wiped out their
families, and their less hardy compatriots left behind in Nova Scotia
and Prince Edward Island, these pioneers abandoned the continent of
their origin; the only effect of their passage having been to
exterminate the last of the Innuit by the propagation of the manifold
diseases they had brought with them.
In the south the tempo was slower, the striving for escape less
hysterical and more philosophic. When the Mexican peon heard the Grass
was in the next village he packed his few belongings and moved farther
away. From Tampico to Chiapas the nation journeyed easily south, not
regretting too loudly the lands left behind, not crowding or jostling
rudely on the highways, not failing to pause for siestas when the sun
was hot, but traveling steadily in a quiet resignation that seemed
beyond resignation--the extension of a gracious will.
_66._ But the rest of the world, even in the lethargy which had come
upon it in viewing the loss of most of North America, could not afford
to leave the Grass to its own devices, content to receive the refugees
it drove out or watch them die. A World Congress to Combat the Grass was
hastily called in London. It was a distinguished body of representatives
from all the nations and resembled at its best the now functionless
Federal Disruptions Committee.
At the opening sitting a delegation with credentials from the President
of the United States attempted to join in the proceedings. One of the
French members rose to inquire of the chairman, Where was the United
States? He, the delegate, had read of such a country, had heard it
spoken of--and none too favorably--but did it exist, _de facto_?
The delegate from Haiti asked for the floor and wished to assure his
distinguished colleague from the motherland of culture--especially did
he wish to assure this learned gentleman, bound as they were by the same
beautiful and meticulous language--that his country had good reason to
know the United States actually existed--or had done so at one time. His
glorious land bore scars inflicted by the barbarians. His own
grandfather, a great patriot, had been hunted down by the United States
Marines as a bandit. He implored a congress with humanitarian designs to
refuse admission to the delegates of the socalled United States.
One of the German delegates, after wiping the perspiration from the
three folds on the back of his neck, said he spoke with great diffidence
for fear of being misunderstood. The formerly existent country had twice
defeated, or apparently defeated, his own in a war and his distinguished
colleagues might misinterpret the spirit which moved him. Nevertheless,
he could not refrain from remarking that it appeared to him that a Just
Providence had wiped out the United States and therefore it would be
illogical if not blasphemous for this august body to admit a delegation
from a nonexistent country.
The American delegation attempted to point out feebly that Hawaii still
remained and Puerto Rico and Guam. The members from the various sections
of the British Commonwealth, arguing the precedents of the
governmentsinexile, urged the acceptance of their credentials. The
representative of Switzerland called for a vote and the credentials were
rejected.
This controversy being settled, the body, in high good humor, selected a
governing committee to take whatever measures it deemed necessary to
protect the rest of the world from the menace. After lengthy debate and
much conflicting testimony from experts a bold plan was endorsed. It was
decided to complete the digging of the Nicaragua Canal and blow up that
part of Central America lying between it and the Isthmus of Panama. It
was a colossal feat of engineering which would cost billions of pounds
and untold manpower, but the nations of the world, not without some
grumbling, finally agreed to the expenditure.
While technicians from all over the world directed laborgangs and
steamshovels, ammunitionships loaded with tons of explosives sailed from
every port for Panama and Colon. Though at first reluctant with their
contributions, the countries had reconsidered and poured forth their
shares without stint. All obsolete warmaterials were shipped to the
scene of action. Prisons were emptied to supply the needed manpower and
when this measure fell short all without visible means of support were
added to the roll.
Shortsightedly Costa Rica protested vigorously the proposed destruction
of its entire territory and there were even momentary uprisings of
patriots who proposed to defend their nation with the last drop of
blood, but commonsense and international amity prevailed, especially
when Costa Ricans were promised a territory twice as big as their native
country in the hinterland between Colombia and Venezuela, a valueless
tract both nations had been trying in vain to settle for decades.
Night and day the detonations of highexplosives killed fish on both the
Atlantic and Pacific sides of Central America and brought stunned birds
plummeting down from the skies to their death. The coastal plains fell
into the sea, great mountains were reduced to powder and little by
little the gap between North and South America widened.
But the progress of the work was infinitesimal compared with the advance
of the Grass. It swept over the ancient Aztec empire down to the Isthmus
of Tehuantepec. The ruins of Mayan civilization, excavated once, were
buried anew. The demolition engineers measured their daily progress in
feet, the Grass in miles. When the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific
met in Lake Nicaragua, the Grass was in Yucatan. When the first green
runners invaded Guatemala, a bare twenty miles of northern Panama had
been demolished and hardly a start had been made in the destruction of
Costa Rica.
Fleets of airplanes bombed the connecting strip in the area left by
engineers to the last, but as their flights went on the Grass crept into
British Honduras. The workers sent another twenty miles of Panama into
nothingness and the Grass completed the conquest of Guatemala. They blew
up another ten miles and the Grass took over El Salvador. Dynamite
widened the Nicaragua Canal to a ridiculously thin barrier as the Grass
overran Honduras.
They stood now almost facetoface, the width of one pitiful little Banana
Republic between them. On one hand the Grass, funneled and constricted
to a strip of land absurdly inadequate to support its gargantuan might,
on the other the combined resources of man, desperately determined to
destroy the bridge before the invader. In tropic heat the work was kept
up at superhuman pace. Gangs of native laborers fainting under their
loads were blown skyhigh by impatient technicians unwilling to waste the
time necessary to revive them. In selfdefense the South American states
doubled their contributions. At the edge of the weed all the offensive
weapons of the world were massed to stay it as long as possible, for
even a day's--even an hour's delay might be invaluable.
But the Grass overbore the heavy artillery, the flamethrowers, the
bombs, the radium, and all the devices in its path. The inventions of
war whose constant improvement was the pride of the human race offered
no more obstacle to the Grass than a few anthills might to a herd of
stampeding elephants. It swept down to the edge of the ditch and paused
at the fiftymile stretch of saltwater between it and the shapeless
island still offering the temptation of a foothold in front of the now
vastly enlarged Panama Canal.
If those engaged in the task, from coordinator-in-chief down to the
sweating waterboys, had worked like madmen before, they worked like
triple madmen now, for the wind might blow a single seed onto what had
been Costa Rica and undo all they had so far accomplished. The
explosions were continuous, rocking the diminishing territory with
ceaseless earthquakes. After an hour on the job men reeled away,
deafened, blinded and shocked.
On the South American side, as had been planned, great supercyclone fans
were set up to blow back any errant seed. Fed by vast hydroelectric
plants in the Colombian highlands, the noise of their revolving blades
drowned out the sounds of the explosions for all those nearby. The
oceans became interested participants and enormously high tides possibly
caused by the difference in level between the Atlantic and Pacific,
clawed away great hunks of land. The great island became a small island,
the small island an islet. At last nothing but ruffling blue water lay
between the Grass and South America. Over this stretch of sea the great
fans blew their steady breath, protecting the continent behind from the
fate of its northern twin.
The passage between was forbidden to all ships for fear they might
inadvertently act as carriers of the seed. The lost continent was not
only isolated, it was sealed off. From the sharp apex of the inverted
triangle to its broad base in the arctic ice the Grass flourished in one
undisputed prairie, the sole legatee of all the hopes, trials,
afflictions, dreams and victories of the men and women who had lived
there since the first alien foot was set upon its soil.