A Parody Outline of History Part 2

"Now this is a sorrowful jest and a very unfair jest that is happening,"

said he. "For I who have dreamed a beautiful dream of the land of my imagining will quite probably henceforth be known only as the discoverer of what will turn out to be merely one more hideous and stupid country."

And tears came to the eyes of Colombo, for on the waves behind him floated the torn and scattered pages of the poem which sang the imagined vision of Beauty of him whom men long and long ago called the Dreamer.

Thus it was in the old days.

a.n.a.lYSIS AND SUMMARY OF THE FOREGOING ARTICLE In the Manner of Dr. Frank Crane

There is a lesson for us all in this beautiful story of how Columbus realized his ambition to be a great discoverer.

Men called Columbus a Dreamer--but that is just what folks once said about Thomas A. Edison and Henry Ford.

The world has a place for Dreamers--if they are Practical Dreamers.

Columbus was ambitious. Ambition is a great thing if it is unselfish ambition. By unselfish I mean for the greatest good of the greatest number. Shakespeare, the great teacher, shows us in "Macbeth" what happens to the selfishly ambitious man.

Columbus got ahead by paying attention to small details. Whatever he did, he did to the best of his ability. Even when engaged in teaching geography to the Queen, Columbus was the best geography teacher he knew how to be. And before long he was made Royal Geographer.

In our daily lives let us all resolve to be good teachers of geography.

We may not all become Royal Geographers--but there will be to us the lasting satisfaction of having done our best. And that, as a greater than I has said, is "more precious than rubies--yea, than much fine gold".

Chapter Three

MAIN STREET: Plymouth, Ma.s.s.

In the Manner of Sinclair Lewis

I

1620.

Late autumn.

The sour liver-colored sh.o.r.es of America.

Breaking waves das.h.i.+ng too high on a stern and rockbound coast.

Woods tossing giant branches planlessly against a stormy sky.

Cape Cod Bay--wet and full of codfish. The codfish--wet and full of bones.

Standing on the deck of the anch.o.r.ed "Mayflower", gazing reflectively at the sh.o.r.es of the new world, is Priscilla Kennicott.

A youthful bride on a s.h.i.+p full of pilgrims; a lily floating in a dish of prunes; a cloissone vase in a cargo of oil cans.

Her husband joins her. Together they go forward to where their fellow pilgrims are preparing to embark in small boats.

Priscilla jumps into the bow of the first of these to shove off.

As the small craft b.u.mps the sh.o.r.e, Priscilla rises joyously. She stretches her hands in ecstasy toward the new world. She leans forward against the breeze, her whole figure alive with the joy of expectant youth.

She leaps with an irrepressible "Yippee" from the boat to the sh.o.r.e.

She remains for an instant, a vibrant pagan, drunk with the joy of life; Pan poised for an unforgettable moment on Plymouth Rock.

The next minute her foot slips on the hard, wet, unyielding stone.

She clutches desperately. She slides slowly back into the cold chill saltness of Cape Cod Bay.

She is pulled, dripping and ashamed, into the boat. She crouches there, s.h.i.+vering and hopeless. She hears someone whisper, "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."

A coa.r.s.e mirthless chuckle.

The pilgrims disembark.

II

Plymouth.

A year later.

Night.

She lay sleepless on her bed.

She heard the outside door open; Kennicott returning from prayer meeting.

He sat down on the bed and began pulling off his boots. She knew that the left boot would stick. She knew exactly what he would say and how long it would take him to get it off. She rolled over in bed, a tactical movement which left no blanket for her husband.

"You weren't at prayer meeting," he said.

"I had a headache," she lied. He expressed no sympathy.

"Miles Standish was telling me what you did today at the meeting of the Jolly Seventeen." He had got the boot off at last; he lay down beside her and pulled all the blankets off her onto himself.

"That was kind of Miles." She jerked at the covers but he held them tight. "What charming story did he tell this time?"

"Now look here, Prissie--Miles Standish isn't given to fabrication. He said you told the Jolly Seventeen that next Thanksgiving they ought to give a dance instead of an all-day prayer service."

"Well--anything else?" She gave a tremendous tug at the bedclothes and Kennicott was uncovered again.

"He said you suggested that they arrange a series of lectures on modern religions, and invite Quakers and other radicals to speak right here in Plymouth and tell us all about their beliefs. And not only that but he said you suggested sending a message to the Roman Catholic exiles from England, inviting them to make their home with us. You must have made quite a little speech."

"Well this is the land of religious freedom, isn't it? That's what you came here for, didn't you?" She sat up to deliver this remark--a movement which enabled Kennicott to win back seven-eighths of the bed covering.

"Now look here Prissie--I'm not narrow like some of these pilgrims who came over with us. But I won't have my wife intimating that a Roman Catholic or a Quaker should be allowed to spread his heresies broadcast in this country. It's all right for you and me to know something about those things, but we must protect our children and those who have not had our advantages. The only way to meet this evil is to stamp it out, quick, before it can get a start. And it's just such so-called broadminded thinkers as you that encourage these heretics. You'll be criticizing the Bible next, I suppose."