(A True Experience)
by Kenneth B. Pritchard
On one evening in 1916, before the United States had entered the World
War, I happened to be out with my mother. The place was Bridgeport,
Connecticut, near the corner of Main and State Streets. The stars were
shining, as usual, though I gave them no particular notice.
We had turned the corner and traversed several feet, when I chanced to
look up into the sky. Lo and behold, the stars had formed themselves
into one great patch in the heavens, in the form of letters, and those
letters spelled words!
I could read some, at the time, but I tugged at my mother’s arm and
asked her what it said. I am hazy as to her answer. Perhaps she told me
that there was nothing there, or ignored the childish gesture entirely.
At any rate, I looked up again and the words were still there. I don’t
believe that my mother even glanced at them.
You are anxious to learn what it said? Well, it took years for that
memory to come back to me, but I now have it, in what I am fairly sure
are the correct words. The exact ones do not make any difference, for I
am sure of their meaning. The message in the sky read, “The United
States of America will run red with blood!”
A short time after peering at the stars, some invisible forces took
hold of them. The brilliant orbs were shifted as by a mighty hand. They
moved like checkers on a vast board. And then, the stars ceased their
journeyings; they were once more on their accustomed courses. I lowered
my head; the gigantic show was over!
Delusion, you say? I’m afraid I don’t agree with you.
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