Chapter II

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"Day after to-morrow," says I.

He winked at me, and smiled.

Says I, -

"Sandy, out with it. Come - no secrets among friends. I notice you don't ever wear wings - and plenty others don't. I've been making an ass of myself - is that it?"

"That is about the size of it. But it is no harm. We all do it at first. It's perfectly natural. You see, on earth we jump to such foolish conclusions as to things up here. In the pictures we always saw the angels with wings on - and that was all right; but we jumped to the conclusion that that was their way of getting around - and that was all wrong. The wings ain't anything but a uniform, that's all. When they are in the field - so to speak, - they always wear them; you never see an angel going with a message anywhere without his wings, any more than you would see a military officer presiding at a court-martial without his uniform, or a postman delivering letters, or a policeman walking his beat, in plain clothes. But they ain't to FLY with! The wings are for show, not for use. Old experienced angels are like officers of the regular army - they dress plain, when they are off duty. New angels are like the militia - never shed the uniform - always fluttering and floundering around in their wings, butting people down, flapping here, and there, and everywhere, always imagining they are attracting the admiring eye - well, they just think they are the very most important people in heaven. And when you see one of them come sailing around with one wing tipped up and t'other down, you make up your mind he is saying to himself: 'I wish Mary Ann in Arkansaw could see me now. I reckon she'd wish she hadn't shook me.' No, they're just for show, that's all - only just for show."

"I judge you've got it about right, Sandy," says I.

"Why, look at it yourself," says he. "YOU ain't built for wings - no man is. You know what a grist of years it took you to come here from the earth - and yet you were booming along faster than any cannon-ball could go. Suppose you had to fly that distance with your wings - wouldn't eternity have been over before you got here? Certainly. Well, angels have to go to the earth every day - millions of them - to appear in visions to dying children and good people, you know - it's the heft of their business. They appear with their wings, of course, because they are on official service, and because the dying persons wouldn't know they were angels if they hadn't wings - but do you reckon they fly with them? It stands to reason they don't. The wings would wear out before they got half-way; even the pin-feathers would be gone; the wing frames would be as bare as kite sticks before the paper is pasted on. The distances in heaven are billions of times greater; angels have to go all over heaven every day; could they do it with their wings alone? No, indeed; they wear the wings for style, but they travel any distance in an instant by WISHING. The wishing-carpet of the Arabian Nights was a sensible idea - but our earthly idea of angels flying these awful distances with their clumsy wings was foolish.