Read Ebook: They Were Different by Kenney Neil J Orban Paul Illustrator

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Ebook has 130 lines and 10845 words, and 3 pages

I MUST tell you of something that happened one day last summer, when I was at the Zo?logical Garden in Philadelphia.

Among the persons standing around the cage where the monkeys were kept, was an old lady who had on a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. All at once, a big brown monkey stretched out his paw between the bars, snatched the spectacles, and scampered away, chattering and grinning with delight.

Of course, the poor lady was in distress. The keeper came to the rescue, and, by driving the monkey about the cage with a long pole, forced him at last to drop the spectacles. But one of the glasses had come out of it; and this the thief still held in his mouth, and refused to give up.

The keeper followed him sharply with the pole. Away he went, swinging from one rope to another, screaming and scolding all the time, until the keeper was so tired, that I feared he would have to let the monkey keep the glass. But this the keeper said would never do; for he knew, that, if he let the monkey carry the day, he never could control him again.

So the keeper still plied his pole. The monkey dodged it as well as he could, until the blows came so thick and fast, that he could bear them no longer, when he opened his mouth, and let the glass drop.

Now comes the funniest part of the story. The glass fell quite near the bars, just where the old lady was standing; and a gentleman took her parasol, which had a hooked handle, to draw it within reach. But he put the parasol in a little too far, and it slipped out of his hand.

Instantly a large yellow monkey wrapped his long tail around it, and started off. Imagine the feelings of the poor old lady--first robbed of her spectacles, and then of her parasol!

But her property was all recovered at last; the robbers were both punished; and she went on her way in peace.

MRS. E. S. R.

PUSS AND HER THREE KITTENS.

OUR old cat has kittens three; What do you think their names should be? One is a tabby with emerald eyes, And a tail that's long and slender; But into a temper she quickly flies, If you ever by chance offend her. I think we shall call her this-- I think we shall call her that; Now, don't you fancy "Pepper-pot" A nice name for a cat?

One is black, with a frill of white, And her feet are all white fur, too; If you stroke her, she carries her tail upright, And quickly begins to purr, too. I think we shall call her this-- I think we shall call her that; Now, don't you fancy "Sootikin" A nice name for a cat?

One is a tortoise-shell, yellow and black, Wi It's getting to be a serious problem in our untrained condition. The prof's wouldn't even let us play handball for fear of injury so consequently we're nothing but a living cliche, skin and bones. Donald feels it strongly. We shall have to try to buoy each other and go on our combined reserves. Pray that we don't get too weak. It's been almost 24 hours since we've eaten, as there wasn't time for breakfast. Our clothes seem to be drying slightly though it's still cool enough to make it uncomfortable and dangerous. This is the way colds grab you.

We did pretty well in our choice of an underground location--we thought. Our mistake was in overlooking the police trained mind of our bloodhound friend, Trainor. He's a shrewd man and not unintelligent though sadly misguided. How we should like to have him on our side!

In five days of sniffing around he had us located, and in another, he had enough proof of activity to report to Thurlow and come after us with a bench warrant of arrest. It's peculiar that we couldn't stall him or dodge him some way with our much touted IQ, but probably we were still too naive about human relations and most assuredly unversed in the devious twistings of the police mind. After all, though we're twenty-six years old, our experience with people put us in about the three year old class. So you see? Were it to begin all over again the outcome would be different. We would be more practical and worldly. You learn.

There was no sense fighting him, because he had the law enforcement agencies of the whole state in back of him. All he had to do was whisper "Sic 'em" and we were dead. So we went along quietly to see Thurlow and that dear man took a singularly fiendish delight in imposing an impossible fine on us for contempt of court. Our particular transgression wasn't definitively covered by law so neither was the fine. The fact that Thurlow was fining us for teaching methods instead of the contempt charge didn't dawn on us until just yesterday. How completely ignorant can you get?

He gave us a pretty, selfrighteous speech about the good of the community and a judge's place in it, mentioning in passing that everything wasn't covered by law so it was up to the judge to handle matters as he saw fit. That was what he was trained and elected for and that was what he was doing. Nothing personal, understand. As it was, and well he knew it, we couldn't begin to pay the fine so we were informed that we'd have to sit it out in the county jail at the rate of two dollars a day.

The fine was five hundred dollars.

The sheriff almost cried when he found we were to be taking advantage of his hospitality. Very likely the full injustice of the judge's complacent little scheme finally got through to him. At any rate, sympathy or not, we had eight months and ten days to serve with time off possible for good behavior. That's where you found us when you finished your vacation and discovered you were temporarily out of a job.

Donald took quick advantage of a prisoner's rights to telephone Judge Kimball. He was still in bed but sounded fairly strong. His consternation over our new address was touching and real, but we were sadly informed that ethically the whole matter was beyond him. When Thurlow sat in for him in his district, then Thurlow was law and no reversal could be had outside of the due process of that law through a higher court. He, Kimball, could do nothing until he could get back on the bench. That might be several weeks yet as he wasn't to get out of bed or get excited in any way.

We hung up and had our first look at the familiar cells from the prisoner's viewpoint. The change in outlook was subtle but definite. The walls looked grayer.

Hope we're not boring you with all this, Kitten, but we must tell it to someone and you are closest and dearest to us. You missed out on nearly all our doings after we closed the school so call it a filling-in process. Someone should have the full story although what good it will ever do is debatable. Perhaps at some future time we can do something with it--if we get out of the present jackpot.

Got to move. The state police have taken over the operation and our sheriff is relegated to the role of visiting fireman. It's lamentable that we aren't in his bailiwick. Things might work out better.

These troopers are very efficient. Donald ESPs them folding a cordon around our end of the swamp. All we can do is head through its length now. Trainor is with them. Thurlow has joined them also. We get a tiny jab of pain as we pass over him. That impossible man!

Naturally our pupils fell off, thinking the school completely shut down, until you visited us and were able to pass the word that discreet visits wouldn't go unrewarded. Only a few drifted back for deeper learning and expansion, as you know. One happy thing about the others who were afraid to come back is that they would still make progress, having once been awakened, though it would be infinitely slow and groping. The nucleus that sat with us on those once a week school days grew stronger very rapidly, for knowledge is cumulative and progressive, and they began to realize what they in turn had to do when they were ready. Credit must be given their strength of mind for seeing and accepting such a responsibility with the enthusiasm they showed.

It was too good to last. Trainor's turn at afternoon shift came around and lasted the usual month which gave him plenty of opportunity to watch us like a hawk. He did. We were cautious but we couldn't know what he was watching for, because he didn't know either. He found out one afternoon. Visitors just don't come around and merely sit--staring at each other or the walls.

We learned another lesson from that: men with as much training as he had don't always consciously think things out with their surface minds. Their reactions became instinctive and as such, untraceable by the most adept telepath. We knew he was there to spy but that's about all.

The net result was a direct order from Thurlow cutting off not only all visitors, but as Trainor gleefully advised us, cancelling all accrued days off for good behavior. That's five days a month in this state and it was almost unbearable. The thorough injustice of the whole affair was beginning to gall mightily, getting under our rather thin skin in many places.

What seemed the final crushing blow was the news that filtered in to us from Judge Kimball's court reporter. He'd taken word to the sick man about our latest loving treatment by Thurlow and it angered Kimball enough to make him get out of bed--too soon. He died on the floor of his bedroom. So, not only do we lose a dear friend, but also any chance of his assistance. Thurlow would now sit for District One until election time. That put us entirely on our own resources.

After much deliberation, we decided to give in and go back to the university when our sentence was up and take advantage of its sheltering walls for our teaching. We would be absorbed into the faculty and soon all this unpleasantness would pass over.

How we passed the time until our release is unimportant to anyone but us. During the remaining months, we delved farther and farther into the mind and gained a much deeper insight into the workings of these gifts we had. Man could be so powerful and work so much for his own good--if he could only be made to realize the potential in his mind! He could even be happy.

The bright day came at last, and we walked out of our cell free to begin again. It was raining a gray rain outside, but to us the weather had never looked brighter. As we reached for the sheriff's phone to call the university, Trainor sidled up and laid a scrap of paper on the desk. A glance was enough to make us hang up on the uncompleted call.

It was another restraining order.

After that we tried to find work on the outside, but it was a sorry failure. The curse of being different is a mighty one indeed. No one seemed to care that we had feelings the same as others and that we could get just as hungry and thirsty without funds to buy.

Ahh! There it is again. Those words. Hunger and thirst. As if we needed a reminder. Donald is getting weaker in perception. He has always been the first to feel such things and we've never been able to trace the reason. We certainly have no--

God, that was a bad half hour, Puss. These troopers are so well trained that they're more telepathically dead than you can imagine. First, Donald was so weak he let one of them sneak up close enough for a quick rifle shot. It missed, but of course it told exactly where we were. Donald exerted himself and ESPed locations, finding that we had enough time to work on the trooper if we hurried. Normally we'd be no match for him but desperation can work wonders. We resorted to a base form of trickery by affecting to surrender to him. When he came up to put the cuffs on us, we played dirtier by offering him a knee that will keep him from attending his wife for a few days. Rotten trick, but we couldn't afford to let him get his hands on us or it would have been all finished. That makes another count against us. We left his rifle out of reach and ran.

Fortunately the others milled around for a precious minute or two when they found him, giving us still more time. Before they got moving again, we broke cover and made it across a county road into a farmer's barn where we burrowed into the hay. We'll stay here a while to rest. Not being the athletic type we sure need it.

To go back, our small supply of money was running dangerously low in spite of miserly budgeting. We didn't know what to do outside of robbing a bank to get more. Then it happened.

We were browsing through the library one day, when Donald ESPed a stack of returned books not yet filed hoping to turn up something new. The stack was mixed, holding such things as a treatise on grinding optical lenses, a copy of "Gone With the Wind", a couple of western novels, a thin edition of "The Purloined Letter" and several volumes for the home craftsman. Evidently some newlyweds were doing things to their well mortgaged dream house.

On the way home, Donald's idea burst in on both of us like some monstrous flashbulb. With our minds being so perfectly tuned through constant work during the years, what one ESPed the telepath had immediately and what one telepathed the ESPer received at once. It was a fine working agreement and became as habitual as breathing. Donald's idea was beautiful for all that it was lifted from another man. Its application was what burnished it to that bright luster of originality.

We would go to work in a carnival! If a man could hide a letter in an open letter rack, where better could we be hidden but in a carnival? It was wonderful.

We had no trouble getting into one. The owner took one look at what we could do and told us the answer mentally by wondering how little he could offer and still get us. It gave us a certain bargaining point but at our stage of the game all we wanted was in. The thought crossed our minds that we might be lowering our station in life but we were past caring.

We enjoyed the first real security we'd known for a long time. We found friendship and a certain amount of fame as moneymakers for the show. We got a raise after working on the boss for a while. Best of all we lost ourselves in the bustle of the show.

Shortly after our admission into the ranks of the carnies, we felt safe enough to put out feelers , mental this time, prodding small ideas into the best minds, giving them the urge to ask us questions of a leading nature and so eventually we began another class in telepathy, ESP, and their related subjects. As we traveled from state to state we picked up new pupils from other shows and lost others to the same shows, but the running count was about twenty most of the time.

We had to be so very careful in our selections for fear of a repetition of our former mishaps, but it went well. We made no mistakes and turned out some fine pupils, one in particular. He progressed fast enough in the short time we had him to become acutely adept, and when we told him he was ready to teach he accepted it by leaving the carnival to settle down with a home and wife. It was good to see the fruit of our work being put into practice.

Next season, we found that in the first pass across the country we were booked for the north end of our home state. For the first time in nearly two years we would be on almost familiar ground.

What you might not know is that our contact with you was another step in this whole sickening drama. How were we to suspect that the train ticket agent was one of those tenacious, bespectacled fellows who doggedly chewed on an idea until it made sense to him? Who would know that he was one of those spiteful, small people who enjoyed doing his civic duty as he saw it?

He wondered why so many people were taking the same train on the same day to the same place, when it had never happened before. People just don't travel three hundred miles to take in a one horse carnival.

Being a small town he knew most of the folks by name--or at least by sight--and he recalled that you, sweet, were once our secretary.

Imagine the excitement he felt at having such a momentous thing happen in his dull and uneventful life. How best to savour the taste of it? Why, call the sheriff, naturally. Oh, it must have been delicious. Let's hope he enjoys the memory.

With our luck it was out of the question to have anyone but Trainor answer the phone--and swing into high gear. Apparently Judge Thurlow had run for District One during the election and made it, giving up his own stamping grounds for some reason. It hardly seems possible that he'd do it just on the hope that we might decide to come home and set up shop. No man could be that vindictive, could he? Or are we still much too naive to be allowed out without a keeper? Who knows?

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