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Leila's Books
AS IT MAY BE: A Story of the Future
AS IT MAY BE: A Story of the Future
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Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. It is also searchable and contains hyper-links to chapters.
***
PREFACE
AS my readers follow the ideas in this book they may say it is impossible for such things to come about, but when we think of the wonderful and seemingly impossible things that are happening every day, we may well say "Nothing is impossible."
There is nothing more wonderful than our birth, yet do we often think of the strangeness of it all?
Is it not a more hopeful view to think the world is growing better instead of worse?
We who believe this may be in the wrong, but surely it is pleasanter to think the world is progressing, rather than to feel we have lived for naught.
None of us know about the future, still we are entitled to our opinions.
This book is merely the product of imagination, but suffice it to say if the world ever reaches such a state of goodness as is described herein, many will be happier than they are today.
—BESSIE STORY ROGERS.
Rockport, Mass., Nov. 23, 1904.
***
CHAPTER I
HOW strange and mysterious everything seems, yet with all the strangeness I feel sure that this place is familiar or has been so to me at some time. I certainly have been here before, but when and under what conditions?
I think I will look around me and investigate my surroundings, to see if I can find anything that looks familiar.
There is the grand old ocean; that certainly looks natural. What stories of suffering the old sea would tell. Many a husband and father have found watery graves in this beautiful, but wicked old ocean. Many have said their fond good-bye to wife and children, thinking soon to be back in their happy, but lowly homes, little dreaming that the mighty deep would claim them before they could see their dear ones again.
These men of the sea are indeed a hard-working, sturdy, courageous people, and I say "God bless them."
It seems almost impossible for me to take my eyes from the mighty sheet of water, and yet I hardly know whither to turn.
I should like to find the beach where I used to spend so many happy hours. If my memory serves me correctly it was not far from this very place. I will walk on a short distance; perhaps I may be able to find this familiar spot.
No, I do not see anything that looks like the beach. It has gone, I am sure. Everything about here has changed. I will walk a little further, I may be able yet to find something familiar. What about my good friend the blacksmith? I may be able to find him. How I used to enjoy seeing him at his forge, and how I loved to watch the fire start from the black, and seemingly lifeless coal. I was only a child and yet hardly a day passed that I did not go to see my friend. No, I do not see the blacksmith's shop, he must have changed his place of business to some other part of the town.
One more place I must try to find, and that is my stable where I kept "Babe," the dearest horse that ever lived. It was only a minute's walk from here to the stable, I will go along and see if I am doomed to disappointment again. Dear old "Babe," what rollicking times we had together. Do you remember how you lifted the cover on the grain chest, you old rogue? And how you would bow your head for an apple or a lump of sugar? I am sure I shall find you, for you never failed me and surely you won't now. What! my horse and stable gone? All my dear friends gone? It must be that my mind has gone, too.
Where am I? I must be dreaming; I feel so queer and unnatural. Everything is strange and new to me, yet I am positive this is the place where I spent my childhood days. I must tarry here awhile, for I know not where to go.
***
PREFACE
AS my readers follow the ideas in this book they may say it is impossible for such things to come about, but when we think of the wonderful and seemingly impossible things that are happening every day, we may well say "Nothing is impossible."
There is nothing more wonderful than our birth, yet do we often think of the strangeness of it all?
Is it not a more hopeful view to think the world is growing better instead of worse?
We who believe this may be in the wrong, but surely it is pleasanter to think the world is progressing, rather than to feel we have lived for naught.
None of us know about the future, still we are entitled to our opinions.
This book is merely the product of imagination, but suffice it to say if the world ever reaches such a state of goodness as is described herein, many will be happier than they are today.
—BESSIE STORY ROGERS.
Rockport, Mass., Nov. 23, 1904.
***
CHAPTER I
HOW strange and mysterious everything seems, yet with all the strangeness I feel sure that this place is familiar or has been so to me at some time. I certainly have been here before, but when and under what conditions?
I think I will look around me and investigate my surroundings, to see if I can find anything that looks familiar.
There is the grand old ocean; that certainly looks natural. What stories of suffering the old sea would tell. Many a husband and father have found watery graves in this beautiful, but wicked old ocean. Many have said their fond good-bye to wife and children, thinking soon to be back in their happy, but lowly homes, little dreaming that the mighty deep would claim them before they could see their dear ones again.
These men of the sea are indeed a hard-working, sturdy, courageous people, and I say "God bless them."
It seems almost impossible for me to take my eyes from the mighty sheet of water, and yet I hardly know whither to turn.
I should like to find the beach where I used to spend so many happy hours. If my memory serves me correctly it was not far from this very place. I will walk on a short distance; perhaps I may be able to find this familiar spot.
No, I do not see anything that looks like the beach. It has gone, I am sure. Everything about here has changed. I will walk a little further, I may be able yet to find something familiar. What about my good friend the blacksmith? I may be able to find him. How I used to enjoy seeing him at his forge, and how I loved to watch the fire start from the black, and seemingly lifeless coal. I was only a child and yet hardly a day passed that I did not go to see my friend. No, I do not see the blacksmith's shop, he must have changed his place of business to some other part of the town.
One more place I must try to find, and that is my stable where I kept "Babe," the dearest horse that ever lived. It was only a minute's walk from here to the stable, I will go along and see if I am doomed to disappointment again. Dear old "Babe," what rollicking times we had together. Do you remember how you lifted the cover on the grain chest, you old rogue? And how you would bow your head for an apple or a lump of sugar? I am sure I shall find you, for you never failed me and surely you won't now. What! my horse and stable gone? All my dear friends gone? It must be that my mind has gone, too.
Where am I? I must be dreaming; I feel so queer and unnatural. Everything is strange and new to me, yet I am positive this is the place where I spent my childhood days. I must tarry here awhile, for I know not where to go.
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