The Book of Gud Part 21

"So I raised them up as best I could. The girl she was good and dutiful and married a good man. But the boy, he was smart and did not marry anybody; and he became the President of his country just as I knew he would. While I am not saying whether he is my son or not, I can not say he isn't; and he can't, either, because he can't remember whether it was himself or his sister that was brought that day by the fine lady and exchanged for his brother. So you see, sir, just how it is."

Gud did not see, but disliked to admit it, so he asked that the rich mother of the President of the Great Republic be brought also before him.

As she came into the room he saw what a grand old lady she was, for she walked erect and proud and her manners were queenly and stately, and Gud could see how she impressed all the poor men in the courtroom with her greatness.

When the rich mother of the President began speaking in a low, melodious voice that quivered with emotion, she said:

"Your honor, there is naught I can tell save to confess that when my child was born I was so overwhelmed with maternal emotion that I became ambitious for my child. But I knew that I was rich and lived in a mansion and that riches are a handicap to any child. I recalled that it was always the boys born in log cabins and nurtured in poverty that became our great men, and presidents of our great Republic.

"So I took my darling babe with me in my car and drove out into the mountains where the soil was rocky and the people were poor, and finally I came to a very picturesque log cabin that had only three sides. I stopped the car, and took my own child and stole toward the cabin and peeped in. There sat a poor, blind, widowed mother knitting with a ball of coa.r.s.e yarn.

"And over in the corner I saw a cow trough and a horse blanket and it was from there that the cry of the child came. So I stole over and raised the blanket and saw there the faces of two sweet babes. I closed my eyes and tore off the wrappings from my own child and quietly placed him in the trough; and then, seizing one of the babes in the trough, I wrapped it in the silken robes I had taken from my own child and hastened back to my car.

"The child I stole, when he learned to talk, told me that he was a boy."

"Pardon me, madame," interrupted Gud, "but what was the s.e.x of your own child that you left in the cow trough?"

At the question the refined lady blushed painfully. "Do not insult me, sir," she said icily. Then she continued: "I raised this child of the poor blind widow and he became the best dancer of the younger set. But while I lavished on him all of a fond mother's care, deep in my heart was the love for my own child that I had so bravely committed to the care of the poor blind widow in the log cabin with only three sides.

"So I employed detectives to keep secret watch about the cabin, and when the two children were old enough to be dressed distinctively the detective reported to me that one was a boy and one was a girl.

"It was then that I realized my grievous error in exchanging my own child for one of two twins, for I could not know whether the boy or the girl was my own child. So I waited to see how they would turn out. And when the girl married a clam digger down on the river I decided to say nothing to her. But when the boy worked his way through college by delivering milk before dawn, I sent for him and confessed to him that I was either his mother or his sister's mother.

"So from that day to this he has been a dutiful son to me as well as to the poor blind widow who may also be his mother. And when he was elected President of our Great Republic, both she and I rejoiced. All would be well, if only his love for his mother had not prompted him to wish to have her painting hung in the memorial shrine. That is all I have to confess."

Chapter XLIII

Who shall say that his love was not good For the dummy of cloth and wax and wood?

I know that more curious things exist Than the love of a dreaming ventriloquist.

He liked to perch her on his knee Combing her black hair lovingly, Then talk by the hour just as though She understood and ought to know.

Her chatter merged with his and twice, I know, he struck her ... it wasn't nice.

Repenting, he bought her costly things-- Gowns, rare necklaces and rings.

One night they found him on the floor Stark dead ... each year I wonder more Why, killing himself, he never wrote Of the dagger he sank in her wooden throat.

Chapter XLIV

Now the fame of Gud's wisdom was broadcast about, so that important personages of other worlds came and laid their problems at the feet of Gud and begged of him solutions.

Among them were two citizens of a world that was in dire distress. And one of these citizens was a Keeper of Morals of his sphere, and the other was the Vital Statistician.

To Gud the Statistician said: "Our world is full, so that there is no more room for further population, and I have therefore ordered that the issue of birth permits be curtailed."

"And in doing so," cried the Keeper of Morals, "you have ignored the law which bade us be fruitful and multiply."

"That have I done," replied the Statistician, "because the facts have obsoleted the law. Our world is full, and what good would it do to issue more birth permits when there is no more room to be born into?"

"But you should make room," protested the Keeper of Morals, "by issuing more death permits. Surely it is not as great a sin to die as it is not to be born."

"But I insist," declared the Statistician, "that to issue more death permits than there are people ready to sicken and die would be to encourage suicide and murder. Do you countenance such unmoral ways of dying?"

"Certainly not," retorted the Keeper of Morals, "suicide and murder are crimes. We must not encourage them, but neither must we discourage births, for we are commanded to be fruitful and multiply."

"I agree with you," said Gud, addressing himself to the Keeper of Morals, "in your belief that it is wrong to discourage births, and also wrong to encourage deaths--for unrestricted birth and unpremeditated death are great moral principles and nothing must be allowed to interfere with them."

"Exactly," replied the Keeper of Morals, "yet this Statistician is interfering by producing his unwelcome facts. He tells us that our world is full and that there is room in it for not a single being more."

Gud turned to the Statistician and demanded: "Is this fact that you have produced a true fact or is it only a statistical fact?"

And the Statistician replied: "The fact is a true fact. Indeed, when we left to come here to consult you, we were obliged to make dummies and leave them in our places so that we would find room for ourselves when we returned. All this I can readily prove to you, if you will come with us and see for yourself that there is room in our world for not a single being more."

"It is not necessary for me to go out of my way," said Gud, "to see your world, but I will send for it." And Gud called Fidu and commanded the Underdog to go and fetch the world from whence his visitors came.

So Fidu went and fetched that world, and brought it and laid it at the feet of Gud.

Gud looked upon that world and saw that the fact of its fullness was a true fact and that there was room thereon for not a single being more.

So Gud turned and said to the Keeper of Morals: "The fact of the absolute fullness of your world is a true fact and also obvious and incontrovertible. What do you propose to do about it?"

"Why, nothing, Your Deity," replied the Keeper of Morals, "it is not my business to deal with facts when they interfere with morals--I merely ignore them."

"Then," asked Gud, "why quarrel you with this Statistician? Why do you not let him and his facts alone?"

"And that I should do gladly, if he would but let me and my morals alone, but he is withholding the issuing of birth permits."

So Gud addressed the Statistician and said: "Why do you not let this man and his morals alone?"

"Because," the Statistician made reply, "his morals are incompatible with my facts, which are: First, our world is absolutely full: Second, there can be no more births than deaths: Third, we must either issue more death permits or cease to issue so many birth permits. That is absolutely logic, yet this Moralist refuses to accept it."

"I certainly do," shouted the Moralist. "Away with your sinful facts and your wicked logic! The morality of our world must be preserved at all costs. We must not encourage murder nor suicide, nor dare we discourage births, for that is also murder of those who would be born, and so it is race suicide. On these moral principles I stand as on the rock of truth, and no torrents of facts or floods of logic can dislodge me."

"You will have to admit," argued Gud, addressing the Vital Statistician, "that the Moralist has the courage of his convictions. Therefore the great truth of moral principle should be regarded above the smaller truths of material facts and mental logic--and many of the inhabitants of your world, if I know mortal nature, will agree with me."

"Sad but true," agreed the Statistician. "I am only able to hold my job because I am under civil service and not subject to popular election.

But you, Great Gud, appear to me to be a rational being."

"Oh, yes," confessed Gud, "I am quite rational at times; but from the nature of my position it is only right that I should uphold morality when it clashes with rationality, as I regret to say it often does.

Because I must do this, I can see both sides of the case, which neither of you gentlemen can. So to me the solution is very simple, and will outrage neither morals nor reason. Murder and suicide must not be encouraged, births must not be limited, yet your world is full.

Obviously, you must proceed to empty it. There is only one moral way to do that. You must have a war--preferably a righteous war. That requires a cause with two right sides. Such causes are plentiful. Any question that can be looked at from two sides, either of which, when looked at rightly is the right side, will serve as the cause for a righteous war.

This dispute that you gentlemen bring me will do nicely. Let the moralists fight for their moral principles and the rationalists fight for their facts."