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Of Age
 Of Age
Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era
FRANCES M. CLARKE AND REBECCA JO PLANT
 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing
worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and
certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in
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reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same
condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Clarke, Frances M., author. | Plant, Rebecca Jo, 1968-author.
Title: Of age : boy soldiers and military power in the Civil War era /
Frances M. Clarke, and Rebecca Jo Plant.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022053524 (print) | LCCN 2022053525 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197601044 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197601068 (epub) | ISBN 9780197601075
Subjects: LCSH: United States—History—Civil War, 861–1865—Participation, Juvenile. |
United States—History—Civil War, 861–1865—Children. |
Children and war—United States—History—19th century. |
Children and war—Confederate States of America. |
Child soldiers—United States—History—19th century. |
Child soldiers—Confederate States of America.
Classification: LCC E540 .C47 C53 2023 (print) | LCC E540 .C47 (ebook) |
DDC 973.7083—dc23/eng/20221108
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053524
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053525
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197601044.001.0001
To the young people in our lives: Frances Clarke, Kathleen
Clarke, and Samuel Philip Steiger
 Contents

Acknowledgments
Note on Terminology

Introduction

I: PARENTAL RIGHTS AND THE DUTY TO BEAR ARMS:

CONGRESS, COURTS, AND THE MILITARY
1. Competing Obligations: Debating Underage Enlistment in the
War of 1812
2. A Great Inconvenience: Prewar Legal Disputes over Underage
Enlistees
3. Underdeveloped Bodies: Calculating the Ideal Enlistment Age

II: THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ORIGINS OF UNDERAGE

ENLISTMENT
4. Instructive Violence: Impressionable Minds and the Cultivation of
Courage in Boys
5. Pride of the Nation: The Iconography of Child Soldiers and
Drummer Boys
6. Paths to Enlistment: Work, Politics, and School

III: MALE YOUTH AND MILITARY SERVICE DURING THE

CIVIL WAR
7. Contrary to All Law: Debating Underage Service in the United
States
8. Preserving the Seed Corn: Youth Enlistment and Demographic
Anxiety in the Confederacy
9. Forced into Service: Enslaved and Unfree Youth in the Union and
Confederate Armies
Epilogue: A War Fought by Boys: Reimagining Boyhood and
Underage Soldiers after the Civil War

Appendix A: Counting Underage Soldiers

Appendix B: Using the Early Indicators of Later Work Levels,
Disease, and Death Database to Determine Age of Enlistment in
the Union Army, by Christopher Roudiez
Notes
Bibliography
Index
 Acknowledgments

The ten years or so that it has taken us to write this book have been
absorbing, joyful, and challenging. Along the way, we’ve relished
archival discoveries, learned how to write together, and squabbled
about whether this or that footnote or sentence should be cut. Our
first thanks go to each other, for maintaining a friendship that has
enabled us to create work that combines the best of us both.
Many other people have contributed to this project over these
years. To start at the beginning, back in 2009 an archivist at the
National Archives in Washington, DC, took Frances on a behind-the-
scenes tour of the stacks. That tour revealed one of the main sets of
records that we eventually used to write this book—a collection
containing letters from parents trying to get their underage sons
discharged from service. We’ll be forever grateful to Mike Musick for
bending the rules and introducing us to this untapped treasure
trove. He had retired by the time we returned to NARA to start our
research, so we relied on Trevor Plante and DeAnn Blanton
thereafter to figure out the intricacies of military history records. On
multiple trips to NARA over the years, their expertise was invaluable.
Early on, we had help of various other kinds. Geoffrey West,
Hilary Coulson, and Danielle Thyer provided research assistance.
Hilary also worked on our behalf at the National Archives, as did
Michael Henderson. Kate Flach and Jordan Mylet helped us with the
laborious process of transcribing documents. Bill Plant, Rebecca’s
father, pitched in to assist with the equally time-consuming process
of searching Ancestry.com for birthdates and other available
information for soldiers enlisted in the 64th New York Infantry
Regiment.
In addition, archivists at various institutions directed us to
invaluable sources or facilitated archival trips. Among those who
went above and beyond are Ashley Cataldo, Paul Erickson, Lauren
Hewes, and Laura Wasowicz at the American Antiquarian Society;
Jim Green at the Library Company of Philadelphia; Peter Drummey,
Elaine Grublin, Conrad Wright, and Kate Viens at the Massachusetts
Historical Society; and Kevin Shupe at the Library of Virginia. For
help identifying court martial records of underage soldiers who
served in the Union army, we extend our appreciation to Tom Lowry.
Thanks also to Richard Dobbins for responding to our queries about
the American Civil War Database.
Researching and writing this book has been a labor-intensive
process, complicated by the fact that one of us lives in Sydney,
Australia, and the other in San Diego, California, while most of the
archives we needed were in eastern, midwestern, and southern
cities in the United States. We are very much indebted to the
American College of Learned Societies and the Australian Research
Council (DP140100983), which generously funded our project.
Without their support, which gave us the great gift of time to work
together, this book would not exist. In addition, we want to thank
the American Antiquarian Society, the Library Company of
Philadelphia, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Newberry
Library, the Virginia Historical Society, and the US Army Military
History Institute for grants that allowed us to conduct research in
their collections. The University of Sydney provided additional
support through a Thompson Fellowship, while the University of
California, San Diego, supported our work with Academic Senate
research grants and a Manuscript Forum Fellowship from the
Institute of Arts and Humanities.
The Manuscript Forum Fellowship proved to be especially
fortuitous, because it allowed us the opportunity to have Laura
Edwards comment on our work at a critical stage in the process. She
read our bulky draft with extraordinary care. She posed questions
and shared insights, based on her vast knowledge of nineteenth-
century legal history, that helped us to clarify and sharpen our
central arguments, while offering editorial suggestions that refined
our prose. We cannot thank her enough for her generosity.
 Our writing has also been informed by dozens of other
interlocutors. Susan Ferber, our editor at Oxford University Press,
has been wonderful, counselling us without ever being prescriptive,
and going over every sentence with an eagle eye. She also found
excellent readers for the press who have helped to improve this
work substantially. One of these readers was Jim Marten, whose own
work on the history of childhood and youth in the Civil War era has
been foundational in the field. To Jim and the anonymous reader
who offered astute comments on our manuscript, we are immensely
appreciative for the time you expended on our behalf. Jim has
assisted our work in other ways, including by extending an invitation
to contribute to a forum on age and the law in his role as editor for
the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. We are also
grateful to Corinne Field, Nicholas Syrett, and the American Historical
Association for organizing a series of seminars on the significance of
chronological age that allowed us to present a portion of chapter 3
to a lively group of experts. Thanks especially to Holly N. S. White,
who commented on our paper, sharing insights from her own work
on the social and legal significance of age in early America.
No thanks could be sufficient for Catherine Jones, who has read
multiple drafts of each chapter and provided countless hours of
expertise. Few scholars are better able than Kate to help sharpen an
argument, interpret sources, or parse an academic debate. Not only
has she generously answered questions and commented on
successive drafts, but she also organized a special forum on our
book for the 2021 Biennial Conference of the Society for the History
of Childhood and Youth. We very much look forward to returning the
favor.
Among others who have extended their support and expertise is
our incomparable friend Carolyn Eastman—sounding board, editor,
supplier of inspiration and distraction, and creator extraordinaire.
Our lives are infinitely better with you in them. In the United States,
Rebecca’s colleagues in the History Department at the University of
California, San Diego, have provided a warm and supportive
intellectual home. Thanks especially to Rachel Klein, a wonderfully
generous mentor and insightful reader, and to Pamela Radcliff, Frank
Biess, Ulrike Strasser, and Deborah Hertz for helping to keep a
semblance of community alive during the pandemic. Kate Flach,
Mary Klann, and Samantha de Vera provided helpful feedback on
drafts of the introduction and chapter 9, along with the great
pleasure of experiencing former PhD students as present-day
colleagues. Michelle Hovet read chapter 6 and provided constant
encouragement. For final proofreading, Michael Henderson stepped
in again and helped eliminate errors.
In Australia, Andy Kaladelfos provided advice on legal sources and
read early versions of chapter seven. Michael McDonnell offered
helpful comments on chapters one and two, while members of
reading groups at the University of Sydney (which included Thomas
Adams, David Brophy, Ann Curthoys, John Gagné, Miranda Johnson,
Chin Jou, Judith Keene, Cindy McCreery, Kirsten McKenzie, Andres
Rodriguez, Penny Russell, Rebecca Sheehan, and Sophie Loy Wilson)
workshopped multiple chapters at different stages.
Parts of chapter seven appeared in our article Law and History
Review, “No Minor Matter: Underage Soldiers, Parents, and the
Nationalization of Habeas Corpus in Civil War America.” We are
grateful to the anonymous readers whose responses continued to
inform our thinking, even after we had published the piece.
Finally, we thank our relatives. For Frances, this includes the
extended Clarke family, who provided respite during writing breaks
and celebrated some of the milestones along the way. When they
were small, my nieces, Frances and Kathleen, asked if I could
dedicate my next book to them. You had to wait a while, but I kept
my promise. It’s my greatest wish that neither of you ever know
what war is like.
For Rebecca, thanks go first to Bill and Allene Plant. My parents
have long supported my aspirations and valiantly tried, with
moderate success, to suppress questions concerning this book’s
publication date. I am fortunate to be able to turn to my sister, Alisa
Plant, and my brother-in-law, James Boyden, for practical as well as
emotional support. Alisa helped us craft a book proposal, edited our
introduction, and offered sage advice on publishing. Jim also
weighed in on our introduction when there was little time to spare.
 Finally, my greatest debts are to my husband, Rand Steiger,
whose buoyancy keeps us all afloat. Expressions of gratitude seem
paltry in the face of your unwavering love and support. And to my
son, Samuel Steiger, who grew from a boy to a man during the
writing of this book, watching you come of age has been my
greatest joy and privilege. This book is for you.
 Note on Terminology

Some of the terms used in this book reflect an ongoing

reassessment of language that has long been employed when
discussing slavery and the US Civil War. To underscore the fact that
slavery was a labor system in which some people continually exerted
power over others, not a set of fixed and uncontested identities, we
generally use the adjective “enslaved” rather than the noun “slaves,”
and the label “enslaver” rather than “slaveowner.” We also avoid the
sweeping and politically neutral terms “North” and “South” to refer
to the two sides in the conflict, since these geographical references
evoke too tidy a picture when it comes to mapping people’s social
and political affiliations. Such framing also implies that western
states and territories were entirely removed from the war, while
cordoning off conflicts between the United States and Native
Americans as unrelated to the effort to sustain the Union. Instead of
North and South, we usually refer to the United States and the
Confederacy.
We have not, however, followed the decision of the Army
University Press to substitute “US Army,” “Federals,” or “Federal
Army” for “Union army.” “Union,” they argue, refers to the nation
undivided; to accept the term “Union army” as a descriptor for
forces that hailed overwhelmingly from the northern half of the
country is thus to accept the truncated definition of “Union” that
Confederates hoped to realize. Others argue that the term “Union
army” tends to obscure the reality that US military forces during this
period were not only fighting to restore the nation, but also engaged
in conflicts with Native Americans over land dispossession. The fact
that some Civil War era Americans used the terms “Union army” and
“US army” interchangeably, especially during the latter years of the
war, would seem to support the case for dropping the former in
favor of the latter. After all, “US army” best underscores the
historical connection between the force that defeated the
Confederacy and the present-day army, puncturing any attempt to
portray both sides as somehow equally “American.”
These are worthy points. The problem is that “US army” tends to
suggest a singular and unified force, whereas the army at the war’s
outset was in fact much like the nation itself—highly decentralized,
with power divided between the states and the US government. To
many, “US army” connoted the US government’s professional army—
a small but permanent standing force. Often referred to as “the
regulars,” these forces were thought of very differently from the
mass of volunteers who mobilized to defeat the Confederacy.
Though volunteer units ultimately served under federal control, to
conflate the two forms of service is to confuse categories that
mattered greatly at the time. Indeed, a major goal of this book is to
show how the war tended to erode the dual military system—a shift
that is illuminated by the controversies surrounding underage
soldiers. To best tell this story, we have retained language that
reflects the distinction that Americans continued to draw between
volunteer forces and the professional federal army, even as
differences between the two became increasingly blurred.
 Introduction

Monroe Township, Missouri, was a hotbed of secessionism, but Union

sentiment ran strong in the household of John Gudgell.1 Just four
days after federal troops arrived in the area in mid-June 1861, the
family’s youngest child enlisted in a home guard unit.2 By fall,
fourteen-year-old Julian M. Gudgell was determined to join a proper
regiment. Although his father foiled his first attempt, he ran away
again a few weeks later and managed to enlist in the 18th Missouri
Infantry. He claimed to be seventeen years old.3
Julian was just one of more than two hundred thousand youths
below the age of eighteen who served in the Union army during the
Civil War. Constituting roughly 10 percent of Union troops and most
likely a similar proportion of Confederate forces—though surviving
records allow for less certainty—these young enlistees significantly
enhanced the size and capabilities of the armies on both sides. They
also created a great deal of drama and chaos. They upended
household economies by absconding with their vital labor power.
They caused loved ones to suffer untold anxiety for their welfare.
And they generated myriad encounters between ordinary people and
the institutions of government, at times resulting in dramatic
showdowns between military and civilian authorities. Family
members desperate for their sons’ release showed up at military
camps to confront officers, appealed to judges for writs of habeas
corpus, and petitioned elected representatives and government
officials. When such efforts failed, many embarked on costly and
often futile quests, chasing after regiments on the move, combing
city streets near enlistment offices, or traveling to Washington to
plead their case in person. These conflicts would ultimately have far-
reaching consequences, not only for the individuals and families
involved, but also for the battered nation that emerged from the war.
Yet for all that has been written about the Civil War, we know little
about its youngest soldiers and even less about the parents who so
doggedly pursued their release from service.
Consider John Gudgell’s attempts to recover his son. He first
sought the help of a general stationed in the area, who assured him
that Julian would soon be sent home. But six months later, Julian
had not been released. In a letter to US Representative Francis P.
Blair, Jr., Gudgell explained that he was a stalwart “union man” and
would not have intervened had his son been “older & more
experienced.” But given Julian’s youth, he begged Blair to consider
“a fathers feelings.” He described his special bond with his youngest
child, whose mother had died soon after his birth. He explained that
his son suffered an infirmity that would be aggravated by the
southern climate. And he pointed to the hard times afflicting farmers
in his region, where a terrible drought had parched the fields and
baked the earth “so we can’t plow old Ground attall.”4 Yet no matter
what Gudgell emphasized—his social standing and loyalty to the
Union, his emotional distress and economic woes, Julian’s age and
delicate health—he could not get his boy discharged.
It should not have been so hard. After all, the law was on his
side: when Julian enlisted, minors below age twenty-one legally
needed the consent of a parent or guardian to enlist in the Union
army. Even after February 1862, when Congress lowered the bar to
eighteen, Julian at fourteen still fell well below the age threshold.
What is more, John Gudgell enjoyed political connections that would
soon win him a seat in the Missouri House of Representatives and
might have been expected to work in his favor.5 He had even
managed the rare feat of obtaining the support of Julian’s captain,
who wrote to the US Adjutant General’s Office that a discharge
would be in keeping with army regulations. Besides, the captain
added, “such boys are of little or no use to the army in the field.”6
Julian’s service history, however, tells a different story. He fought
in the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862 and earned a promotion to
corporal in early 1863, just a few months after his sixteenth birthday.
No disciplinary infractions, no charges for lost or damaged
equipment, not so much as an absence due to illness marred his
record. By dismissing the value of young soldiers in general terms,
rather than addressing the specific case at hand, Julian’s captain
managed to skirt the truth: this particular boy was rendering
meaningful service, and his discharge would be a loss to the Union
army.
While Julian may have been unusually capable for one so young,
an enormous number of youths like him helped to sustain the war
effort. A large majority of them served as regular soldiers, and
around 80 percent were sixteen or seventeen years old. Spindly
teens on the cusp of manhood, most did not immediately attract
attention. If one searches for them in photographs taken in army
camps, their still-smooth faces are not hard to detect, but otherwise
they blend in with the men, as they did in real life. It is the youngest
and smallest boys who draw the eye and seize the imagination.
Some of these pint-sized soldiers were celebrated for heroic feats
during the war, the most famous being Johnny Clem, who unofficially
joined a Michigan regiment at age nine and was finally mustered into
service three years later. But even boys who were merely the pets of
their regiments—allowed to ride while others marched, kept behind
the lines while others fought—performed important roles. They
helped carry the wounded from the field, ran messages, filled
canteens, tended to the horses, built campfires, cooked, mended
clothes, and lifted men’s spirits with their buoyancy and childish
antics. They may not have been of age, but they were definitely of
use, which is precisely why the military was loath to release them.
Figure I.1 One of the most photographed subjects of the war, Johnny Clem
(originally Klem) was born in 1851, ran away at age nine, and ended up tagging
along with 22nd Michigan Regiment before officers relented and mustered him into
service. The most commonly known “facts” about Clem are also those most
subject to doubt—that he shot a Confederate colonel, and that he was the real-life
“Drummer Boy of Shiloh.” More verifiable aspects of his life cast a shadow on the
celebratory narrative surrounding him. His mother died in a gruesome train
accident less than a year before he left home; his family searched desperately for
him and mourned him as dead; and General Ulysses S. Grant arranged for him to
attend West Point, but Clem could not pass the entrance exam, having spent so
little time in school. Grant nonetheless commissioned him as an officer after he
graduated from high school in 1871, and Clem remained in service for the rest of
his career. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-
34511.

This was especially true of the Union forces—a finding that at first
seems counter-intuitive, even confounding. After all, the United
States boasted roughly 3.5 times as many white men of military age
as the Confederacy.7 To address its population disadvantage, the
Confederate Congress resorted to far-reaching measures, achieving
a substantially higher rate of service among eligible men than the
United States could ever claim. It adopted a policy of universal
conscription in April 1862; in February 1864 it lowered the age of
conscription from eighteen to seventeen (while also raising the
upper limit from forty-five to fifty). At the same time, some
Confederate states enrolled boys as young as sixteen for service in
state-controlled units.8 Meanwhile, the United States retained a
minimum age of eighteen for voluntary enlistment and drafted only
those age twenty or above. Given all this, it seems logical to
conclude that the Confederacy mobilized its youth far more willingly
and completely than the United States. Many Unionists at the time
believed as much, accusing Confederates of “robbing both cradle
and grave” to fill the ranks.
But closer scrutiny reveals a more complex reality. Most political
leaders balked at the idea of conscripting youths below eighteen
directly into the Confederate army, insisting that such a measure
would amount to “grinding the seed corn.” They instead enrolled
seventeen-year-olds and older men in state reserve units, which
generally entailed less dangerous service that could be performed
without leaving home for extended periods of time. Even near the
war’s bitter end, when the Confederacy enacted legislation allowing
for the enlistment of slaves, it declined to conscript anyone below
the age of eighteen into the regular army. Of course, many tens of
thousands of underage youths—possibly over a hundred thousand—
nonetheless served in the Confederate army. But all things
considered, it is the Confederacy’s efforts to shield the young from
hard service, more than the attempts to mobilize them, that calls out
for explanation.
If notions of the Confederate army dragooning boys into service
are misleading, so too is the belief that underage enlistment in the
United States was mainly limited to drummer boys and other
musicians.9 Leading historians of the Civil War have long held that
youths below age eighteen made up a minuscule portion of all Union
enlistees. In support of this claim, they point most often to the first
modern history of Union soldiers, Bell Irvin Wiley’s The Life of Billy
Yank, published in 1952. Drawing on a large sample of muster rolls,
Wiley concluded that only around 1.6 percent of Union soldiers were
below the age of enlistment when they joined the army. Although he
recognized that an unknown number of youths lied about their ages,
he did not think such subterfuge pervasive enough to call into
question the basic veracity of the Union army’s military records.10
Since then, a number of historians and diligent amateur researchers
have demonstrated that specific regiments included a much higher
percentage of underage enlistees.11 But because scholars have not
attempted to discredit the 1.6 percent figure for the army as whole,
it continues to be widely cited, not just in scholarship, but also on
popular Civil War websites.12
The most basic argument of this book is that underage youths
constituted at least 10 percent of Union army enlistees.13 When
soldiers’ reported ages can be checked against census records and
other sources, it becomes clear that military records mask an
epidemic of lying. As detailed in the appendices, around half of those
who claimed to be eighteen at the time of their enlistment, and
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Noon
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Noon

Author: Henry Kuttner

Release date: May 29, 2022 [eBook #68202]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Standard Magazines, Inc, 1947

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan, Alex White & the online
Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at
https://www.pgdpcanada.net.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOON ***

NOON
 By Henry Kuttner
Writing under the pseudonym Hudson Hastings

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

John Weston balks death—but not destiny—when

he tries to save Serena, mindless perfect
woman, from the Flame Blossom!
When he looked up from the pool, the garden was—different. In the
water Weston had seen the reflection of blue sky and sunset clouds,
and the shape of a plane going over. The deep buzzing of the
engines had suddenly died. It had been sunset; now it was noon—
and he was no longer in Versailles.
It had taken months. But the miracle was that it had happened at all.
People who search for miracles seldom find them. Yet John Weston,
perhaps because he was idle and footloose and wealthy enough to
indulge his impulses, had come searching for a phantom, and had
found it. Dunne had been right, and the theory of serial time could be
right, and the authenticated tales of temporal apparitions in the
Versailles garden were more than merely tales.
The first day he had come here he had sensed a shifting and a
strangeness, but it had passed quickly. Still, it was enough to anchor
him here, strolling through the old paths, not quite believing that he
would ever again see that face he had glimpsed momentarily
through a shimmer of spray. Time-traveling was nothing you could
weigh and balance. It either happened or it didn’t.
And now it happened.
Weston stood without moving, looking around. The trees had moved
and changed, and not far away were low blue buildings with conical
roofs. Underfoot was a thick, soft moss instead of grass. The pool
was still at his feet.
After the initial shock of incredulous amazement had passed, he
began to walk toward the cone-roofed buildings.
Then the second miracle happened. Three people came out of one
of the structures and began to walk toward him. One of them was the
girl whose face he had already seen. The others were young men,
thin, wearing tunics of shining bronze-green, like the girl’s, and a
curious vitality seemed to shimmer from them as they walked.
As Weston looked at them, he felt certain that this was another world
or a far-distant era in time. They were almost unbelievably slender,
but not awkward or angular, nor were their thin, pointed faces sharp.
Bronze-green eyes looked at him.
Weston opened his mouth. The impossibility of communication
occurred to him. But they were waiting.
“Hello,” Weston stuttered almost at random.
The three smiled at him and repeated his greeting. It might have
been merely a friendly echo. Weston, slightly stunned, tried again.
“Where am I?” he asked. “What place is this?”
“This is Jekir’s,” the girl answered.
“Oh. W-what year is this?”

But this time they looked at him, still smiling, but waiting for
something. It was very quiet; leaves rustled somewhere.
One of the men turned and walked softly away.
“He has work to do,” the girl said. “Have you finished yours for a
while? My name is—”
It sounded something like Serena.
Weston had not expected this placid acceptance. He began to
explain and question, but the girl interrupted him.
“I must get back to my work, too.” She turned, and Weston,
hesitating, glanced helplessly at the other man.
There was no help there.
Weston went after Serena, feeling baffled. She had gone into one of
the buildings. It was an amazing place, Weston found. There were
corridors and little irregular rooms and floors like balconies, and all
the partitions were translucent, like the walls. Lights came in green,
deep blue, and ocean-purple.
 The glass globe Serena carried was translucent and glowed with a
strange greenish light

When Weston caught up with the girl, he saw that she was carrying
a globe of glass. Not until they emerged in the daylight did he see
that it was apparently full of smoke, a trickle of it escaping through
an opening in the top and drifting back as Serena walked.
She put the sphere down on the moss and began her work, totally
ignoring Weston. She made fires spring up—Weston was completely
puzzled by the method—and simply sat, and looked at the flames.
That seemed to be all there was to it.
Twice Weston spoke to her, but she did not answer. He finally began
to explore the buildings. In the end, he was no wiser than when he
began, and he had not encountered either of the two men. Whatever
he had expected, it wasn’t this.
He thought: Why aren’t they surprised? Had time-traveling become
common or was there another answer?
The noon passed into afternoon and the beginnings of blue evening,
while Weston moved like a ghost through that strange,
incomprehensible place that was too alien for him to understand.
Finally he saw Serena and the men sitting on the moss before one of
the buildings. He went out to them, and saw that they were eating.
He joined them.
It was the strangest meal Weston had ever had. The earth served
him! A little pool opened in the lawn at his feet, exactly like an
opening mouth. It was full of something like jelly. Weston, watching
the others, scooped up some of the stuff in his palms and tried it. It
was palatable enough.
Then, around the pool, a ring of small green plants pushed
themselves up, budded without blossoming, and put out round fruits
like little balloons which swelled as he watched. Serena plucked one
and ate it. Weston closed his mind temporarily to questions and—
had dinner!
When they finished, the pool closed, and the tiny plants fell to bright
pink dust that sifted into the moss. The three aliens sat back, paying
little attention to Weston, and talked.
“The fires were burning well today,” Serena said. “It was easy to
handle the clay.”
“I had a little trouble,” one of the young men murmured.
“Will you finish soon?” Weston asked, and they looked at him with
odd eagerness.
“I shall. I think I shall,” Serena answered. “How far along are you?”
“That isn’t my job,” Weston found himself saying. “I’m from a different
time. This isn’t my world at all. I—I—”
He stopped, because they were looking at him with polite inattention.
Then they went on with their talk as though he hadn’t spoken.
It grew darker. Time in that world was different. Weston had left
Versailles at sunset and stepped into noon. Finally Serena stood up
and led the way back into a grove of tall trees. Four branches were
hanging low, and at the end of each branch was an enormous folded
flower. The flowers opened slowly.
Serena stepped into the soft trough of the nearest and stretched out.
The petals folded about her, and the branch rose. The two men also
relaxed in similar fantastic hammocks. One flower remained.
Weston hesitated, alone in the gathering darkness. He had not had a
single question answered satisfactorily since he came here. He had
met only acceptance. Even this world accepted him without an
inquiry. There were now four flowers—perhaps last night there had
been only three.
Serena and the men were invisible in their blossom-hammocks
above Weston’s head. He drew a long breath and turned away. He
went to the pool that was that gateway back to his own time, but
something stopped him from making any definite move toward
return. This opportunity might never come again. He had what he
had wanted. He was in another time-world—but such a world! How
could he find out?

In the end, he returned to the fourth flower and lay down. The petals
folded around him. There was a sweet, cool scent in his nostrils, a
warm rocking—and that was the last thing he remembered. The next
day—
The next day the two men tried to kill him.
The flowers opened at dawn, and the four bathed in a pool of
glowing water that felt like silk. And another tiny crater opened in the
moss to feed them all. Afterwards, ignoring Weston’s futile questions,
Serena went away to her work. The two men watched Weston follow
her, their eyes coldly interested.
By now Weston knew he must leave very soon. If he did not get his
questions answered quickly, they would never be answered. So he
kept interrupting Serena at her work, asking what it was she did,
what this world was like, a thousand other queries that apparently
meant nothing at all to her. Sometimes she spoke, but only once did
she give Weston any real help. Once she said:
“You must ask The Knowledge about that.” And she gave Weston
directions.
Perhaps it was merely to get rid of his annoying presence.
At any rate, he followed Serena’s instructions, feeling like an
ignorant child in a place of inconceivable maturity. Yet The
Knowledge sounded very helpful. A library of talking books or
pictures, or a radio-atomic brain. Weston began to feel rising
excitement as he searched in the building Serena had indicated.
At first he couldn’t find it. The room looked ordinary, insofar as any of
those rooms of deep, cool light and color could ever seem ordinary.
But after a while one of the men brushed past Weston in the
doorway and crossed the floor to stand before the far wall.
In the wall an oval of shining light dawned. The man seemed to
listen. Then he turned and went softly out by another door. The
bright oval faded.
When Weston stepped in front of it, the panel came to life again. It
was The Knowledge, all right. And it was the equivalent of a super-
library. A machine—yes, a radio-atomic brain, a mechanical colloid
that was the culmination of the thinking machines of Weston’s own
time. It could answer questions. Serena’s race had come to need a
radio-atomic brain, because they had lost a certain human factor,
over the long, long ages.
They had lost intelligence.
They had initiative. So has a plant. So has a flower. And their’s was
the force that activates unreasoning things. The Knowledge
explained that, in answer to Weston’s silent questioning.
But it was only a machine—it didn’t know all Weston wanted to learn.
He found himself looking for some human understanding to go with
the more than human wisdom it seemed to have—some friendliness!
—behind that shining panel, and of course there was nothing like
that at all. A radio-atomic brain, keyed to perform certain functions,
but without initiative, to give the humans knowledge as they needed
it.
Weston got his answers at last.
After a time he stepped outside to get some fresh air. He felt stifled.
He could see Serena and the others working away at their unearthly
fires, and overhead was the burning sunlight of mankind’s long noon.
Yes, it was noon. It had been noontide for a millennium!
What Weston had expected to find in the future was problematical.
But he had not expected this—what The Knowledge had told him.
He stood there, sweating and curiously unwilling to move. Around
him were tiny rustlings in the moss. He could hear the flames roar
up, and twice he heard a very deep sighing, like a giant drawing the
first breaths of life.
It was noon. That was the answer. A noon that might have lasted for
a million years. Weston tried to comprehend it. But he was used to
flux. He found it hard to realize that when you reach perfection, by
the definition of that term you can’t go up or down.
Serena’s race had achieved perfection. It had stopped at mankind’s
midday. There would never be afternoon or twilight but, Weston
thought coldly, in the end, there would be night!
It had happened before, he knew. Ants and bees were found in fossil
form a million years old, exactly like ants and bees today. And the
ordinary cockroach is a hundred million years old in its form. When it
achieved perfection, absolute adaptation to its environment—it
stopped. As the human race had stopped, too.
Noon....

Weston looked for Serena. He still couldn’t quite believe that she
was—what she was. He saw her working with the two men, and
amid the fires a giant figure stood motionless. Weston called to the
girl.
Noon!
He knew now the kind of work they did, and why it absorbed them so
utterly. He knew that they were creating—life. Creating it endlessly,
hopelessly, in unstable forms that flickered out or were destroyed as
they sprang flawed from the fires. He knew a little of the myriad
experiments they had tried and found useless. And perhaps, in a
way, he guessed why they worked, and why they failed.
It was clear to him too, by analogy, what had happened to the human
race in the interval between his own time and this. He went looking
for Serena presently. He wanted to gaze on her strange, vibrant,
otherworldly brightness and try to convince himself that she was—
what she was.
For already he was finding something almost hypnotic about the girl.
Such brilliance, such dazzling perfection, such incredible sureness in
all she did, without a wasted motion or a moment of indecision. Of
course that was possible to her—as it is impossible in ordinary
humans—because she was what she was. Still, he had to look at
her.
He found her working with the two men and among the fires he saw
a giant figure stand motionless, looming above them.
“Serena!” he called.
He thought: If I could tell her, make her believe what has happened,
perhaps she’ll really notice me.
She came forward, wiping the flames from her hands like water.
There was a look even brighter than usual on her glowing face.
“We will succeed this time,” she said, and Weston went cold. “Now
that you’ve come, a new factor is made available for us. You! We
need you. The Knowledge has just told us that if we use your mind-
factor, we have a better chance to succeed.”
He looked into her eyes and read the emptiness there. Her hand was
suddenly on his arm, tightening. And she was strong—terribly strong.
The two men had left their fires and the giant figure, and were
moving toward Weston.
He tore free and went running across the moss, running as hard as
he could toward the time-door by the pool, under the bright, timeless
noonday sky.
Then out of the moss a subtle rustling stirred again, and suddenly
Weston felt his feet caught and held. He pitched forward and slid
along the ground.
When he sat up, he was looking around at a ring of incredible tiny
beings—not human or insect or animal. Brightly tinted little beings
that shimmered around their edges with an unreal glimmer. As he
looked, two of them seemed to dissolve and vanish upon the air. The
others, low down in the moss, stood watching with hard, jewel-bright
eyes.
Experiments. The failures ... He closed his mind to the thought.
Serena and the two men stood above him, looking down with polite,
waiting eagerness—waiting, he thought, to feed him into the flames
and remould his flesh into—
Serena smiled and held out her hand.
If he could make her understand! Deep panic chilled him. He must
play for time!
It could be done. They were not really intelligent. He knew that now.
He stood up. “Wait,” he said. “I’ll go with you, but let’s make quite
sure first. There’ve been mistakes enough already. Come back with
me to The Knowledge, and listen to what it says when I question it.”
They came quite willingly. The flock of tiny bright things rolled after
them, unreal, shimmering. Weston thought of Eden.
The oval window opened in the wall. Weston asked a question, and
in his mind and in the minds of the others an unexpected answer
took shape.
“Yes,” said The Knowledge, “You have a factor of the mind that could
mean success. A factor I have sensed in the Golden Light itself,
which is the essence of perfection. But the woman here has more. It
is recessive in her brain, but far stronger than the dominant factor in
yours.”
Weston spoke to gain time.
“The Golden Light? What is that?”
“I am not capable of answering. That is unknown.”
Serena had not listened.
“Will we succeed if I use myself as material in the work?” she said
tranquilly.
“Serena, you can’t do that,” Weston said.

She didn’t hear. She turned and went out, the men after her. One of
the men looked back briefly at Weston, and the cool deadliness was
gone from his eyes. For Weston didn’t matter any more. Not to them.
He could tell that the personal danger to him had passed. And now
that he could have made his way to the time-door without hindrance,
he did not. He had to see what was happening to Serena. So he
followed the three.
This time he had a better look at the figure being moulded in the
flames. It was a man, a giant, more than eight feet high, beautiful as
a god and quivering with half-sentient life. But its eyes were blank.
The three humans were busy around a new fire they had kindled.
Weston stood watching. They completed their preparations. Serena
steadied herself on one of the men’s arms and prepared to step into
the fire. Weston found himself lunging forward—in time.
He got her by the shoulders and pulled her back. The men glanced
at him calmly, incuriously. The fires seethed up.
“Serena, you can’t!” Weston said. “I won’t let you!”
She didn’t answer. His words meant nothing. He could feel the
continuous steady pressure of her body as she leaned toward the
fire, ready to enter it the moment he let her go.
One of the men seized his wrist and tried to free her. Weston was
glad for an excuse for explosion; he was on surer ground there. He
swung around and struck once at the man, very hard, hitting him on
the corner of the jaw. The man was lightly built. He went down in a
heap and lay there looking at Weston without surprise or anger, but
with a clear intent in his eyes.
Weston swung Serena off her feet and started away at a heavy run,
carrying her. When he reached the corner of the buildings he paused
to look back. The men had returned to the other fire where the giant
figure stood, and they were working on that, deftly and fast, wasting
no motions. Twice they pointed after Weston.
He put Serena down, keeping hold of her wrist. She didn’t resist,
though once when his grip slipped she turned instantly and began
walking back toward the fires. Weston caught her again and hurried
her away toward the time-door that led to Versailles and the
Twentieth Century.
He couldn’t find it. And, quite soon, around one of the domed
buildings the giant came walking, unsteadily, tentatively, his eyes
fixed on Serena. He was tremendous. He was unsteady, because he
had just been created, Weston knew, but he came on relentlessly.
The enormous hands gripped Serena gently, pulled her free and
started to carry her back to the waiting men.
Weston jumped on the giant’s back and got a judo hold. Serena fell
free, but Weston found he couldn’t hurt his opponent. The giant
didn’t try to fight; he merely strove to escape, and he was
tremendously strong. It was even possible to feel, under that satiny,
pallid skin, that the muscles weren’t normal human tissue; they were
tougher, like heart-muscle. The only reason Weston could cope with
him at all was that the monster was so new. He hadn’t learned to
coordinate yet. He had only that single drive, Weston thought—to get
Serena. Nothing in the world could turn him from that.
And Serena was walking back toward the fires. It was a nightmare.
Weston let go of the giant and ran after her, lifting her in his arms.
She lay there lax. There was no use trying to find the time-door now;
he simply ran. And the giant came slowly after them.
Weston knew that he had to increase his lead fast, so that he could
circle back and hunt for the time-door before the giant learned to
coordinate. It was burning noon. Time seemed to be playing queer
tricks. He let Serena down after a while, but he kept tight hold of her
wrist. She had a sort of homing instinct, though the fires were out of
sight by now.
After a few hours Weston lost his bearings completely. The world of
that time was a park. Nothing changed. The whole world, indeed,
seemed to be a highly developed machine for the support of the
human race....
When he was hungry, the moss fed Weston. When he was thirsty,
pools opened. And in all that desperate flight, with the giant looming
sometimes on the horizon and sometimes out of sight beyond it,
there was nothing except the undulating mossy hills, and one other
thing.
The Golden Light. Weston hadn’t understood when he saw it. That
happened later, when he was exhausted. Serena was untiring. He
tried to talk to her. She answered when he touched the right chord
and she had a response to give, but it didn’t mean anything. But
Weston couldn’t put away the thought that if he could only make her
understand, force her to comprehend the fantastic motivations
behind her life, she might awaken.

The giant was gaining. He wasn’t half a mile behind them now. The
sun was dropping. It would be dark soon.
There’s no twilight here, Weston thought. Only burning daylight, and
then the darkness. As it will be for man!
He talked to her.
“Serena. Listen to me. The Knowledge told me—listen! I know you’re
not—not intelligent; you have a different instinct. But if I could make
you realize that—”
They plodded on. He kept glancing at her placid, lovely face.
“Call it tropism, Serena. Tropism that makes plants turn toward light.
Or taxis, that guides insects. Insects have a perfect life, in a way.
Instinct tells them exactly what to do and they can no more resist
doing it than they can help being alive. A stimulus registers, on them,
and they act as their taxis commands. Listen!
“That’s what’s happened to the human race—your race! You haven’t
any powers of reason. You can respond only to certain stimuli, like
automata. Like The Knowledge itself. If I ask you questions you’re
geared to answer, you’ll answer. Ask you anything else, and you
won’t even hear. Do you hear me now?”
It was growing dark. There was no moon. But far away was a golden
glimmer of light on the horizon. Weston turned toward it. He didn’t
know, in the darkness, how close the giant was. But he could still
make speed, for there were no obstacles and the moss was resilient
and level. The golden shining brightened as they neared it. But
Weston was exhausted. His mind went around in circles. After a time
he began to talk to Serena again.
“You’re not human. You lost that a million years ago. Absolute
perfection—yes, your race achieved that, at the cost of humanity.
Now you don’t need machines. A long while ago you learned to
harness natural dynamics, the force of growing things. And
eventually the technique of mastering that power was born in you.
You have it, don’t you, Serena? I’ve seen you use it.
“So you didn’t need reason. You got yourself a paradise and tailored
your very minds to fit. So the answer was stagnation—mindlessness
—tropism. Serena, don’t you see the race wasn’t ready yet for
perfection? It still had a job to do. I don’t know what. But it must have
had. Idleness in paradise must have seemed horrible to your race, or
they wouldn’t have had to sacrifice intelligence to endure it.”
He glanced again at her calm, half-visible profile. No response
stirred there.
“You’ve got to understand. Somebody understood once, a long time
ago. The Knowledge told me that. A great scientist. I suppose
psychological biogenetics would have been his field. He saw that the
race was accepting paradise before it had earned it, and so—well,
he knew the race was doomed, but he hoped that the search might
go on.
“He set them a job to do. He gave them the job of creating life. That’s
your tropism—that’s your taxis. Your own race is lost and damned,
Serena, but you’re trying, by instinct now, to create a new race, a
race that will carry on where your forefathers lost the way. With
natural dynamics, and those life-fires you kindle, trying for a
thousand years to create a greater race than your own—driven by
the impulse born in you, Serena.
“Ants or bees. Alien. I can’t understand you or your race or your
world. I have only—intelligence!
“But that’s the answer, Serena. I can’t let you commit suicide. You’d
go back to the fires and walk right into them, like a moth. The tropism
would make you do that. Serena, Serena!”
He had been walking in a dream. And suddenly he saw that the Light
rose directly before them.
It was a tall flower of cool pale flame, swaying a little. The shower of
gold that came to Danae—it was like that. There were ruins
embedded in the moss, as though once a temple had risen around
the Light. Perhaps it had once been worshipped. It was tall as a
man, and it glimmered, and seemed to wait.
Weston was ineffably tired. But he knew that a last struggle still lay
before him. Or, rather, behind him, for heavy footsteps came out of
the dark, and the resilient ground quivered a little, and out of the
blackness strode the newest life-form the last men had created.