The Last Supper: And Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

from my feet,” he said, “for it is a cursed and lousy land. I will go away to the wilderness where others went before. Better in the wilderness with the savages than in this cursed land.”
    But first there was that which the distraint had failed to unearth, and from the corner of the barnyard, Henry Adams dug up a clay pot which contained forty golden crowns. Protest and prudence went hand in hand; lightening will strike from the heavens, but only a fool expects gold from the same source.
    Then, with the money tucked securely away under his belt, Henry Adams set about to do that which had to be done, and by the time he was high on the moor, cutting over to Squire Aldrich’s place, all of the sky behind him in the direction of the great manor house was lit with a ruddy glow. Thus, his heart eased by justice, his soul lightened by a fair vengeance, he trudged along to reclaim his flesh and blood.
    Even from the Aldrich place, the great fire at St. David’s was visible. Not the manor house, but all of the barns, cotes, bins, silos, pens and stacks were a burnt offering; and the Squire said, with a grave face,
    â€œI know not what devil you have raised, Henry, but you go away and I am left here to put it down.”
    â€œI do not go from fear but from hatred of this place and this land.”
    â€œThen go tonight,” the Squire said, “before the chase starts. I hate this Lord of St. David as much as you do, but I have no stomach for burning and destroying.”
    â€œWas I to bear what he did in silence?”
    â€œThere are other ways,” the Squire muttered.
    â€œI knew of no other ways,” said the ancestor, “but if you want me to go, I will go.”
    â€œI will give you a wagon and a driver to bear you and your family to the sea, and I will lend you money.”
    â€œI want no money,” Henry Adams said stiffly, with little enough grace. “I thank you for your hospitality and for the wagon, I will pay. I will take me and mine and go to a seacoast town—and then to a place where, things are different from here.”
    And that night the ancestor went, with his wife and his nine children—on the long, long journey to the place called America.

The Vision of Henry J. Baxter
    â€œ T HERE’S NO DOUBT ABOUT IT,” MR. BAXTER SAID TO HIS wife, Clarise, at dinner that night, “the Russians have the H bomb.”
    â€œI don’t believe a word of it,” his wife answered calmly, raising her voice just a little to span the expanse of mahogany table that lay between them.
    â€œI’m afraid you have to believe it, my dear,” Mr. Baxter said gravely. “I was talking to Somerville out at the plant—he’s heading up that new atomic project we’ve undertaken for Washington, and there’s a cool ten million in it if there’s a penny—anyway, I was talking to him, and he says there’s no doubt about it, they have it, and he should know, my dear.”
    â€œBut it’s impossible, Henry,” his wife smiled, helping herself to the buttered peas that the butler was holding at her side. “I do like buttered peas. I think there’s no vegetable quite so delicious. Do you know that the Thompsons have a new West Indian houseman. They brought him back from Kingston. They’re right when they say you can’t find help in this country any longer. Not competent help. He has the most charming accent. It’s impossible, Henry.”
    â€œWhat is impossible?” Mr. Baxter frowned.
    â€œThat the Russians should have the H bomb. They’re just savages. It’s like saying that those blacks who have been causing such trouble for the planters in that place—oh, what is that place I mean, Henry?”
    â€œKenya?”
    â€œYes, Kenya. It’s like saying that those awful people have the H bomb. Only last week Mr. Eugene Lyons lectured about Russia at the women’s club—really,