Show the old settler my dear san Jua ners some dreams dont mean a thing I 1 usually have fortitude to refrain from dill pickles and other tempting delicacies which are rich in the ingredients of death but I 1 was supposed by all means to attend that banquet and being there the only sane thing seemed to be to eat my power of resistance was at a low ebb my appetite at high tide and I 1 ate now every dream which follows a supper vitiated by any dill pickles must be discounted seventy eight and seven eighths per cent that much for the sake of safe evaluation before relating what followed I 1 dreamed of course everybody dreams after indulging in dill pickles in my dream I 1 was going down a sloping corridor straight to hell I 1 was not at all alarmed there was some huge novelty about it for I 1 had no notion at all of going stupidly on and on to where I 1 could see the fires I 1 knew I 1 could turn back whenever and as soon as I 1 wanted to and I 1 would of course want to ta if ever the heat began to be op preside pre sive I 1 had the very best of intentions but somehow well you know how impossible it is to explain the mysterious ways that things can happen in dreams somehow I 1 hung my intentions on the wall whenever they became at all bothersome to carry I 1 intended of course to hang bang onto one of them in a little while and go back up the corridor but turning around seemed to involve a certain amount of exertion and bother and I 1 felt ease and comfort in going slowly on so I 1 saw no need of haste in turning I 1 could turn whenever I 1 really took a notion so I 1 hung another intention on the wall and went on there was a peculiar lure about it everything interesting in no danger at all the walls of that corridor and continued on page four the old settler continued from page 1 the ceiling was hung and dangling with a of strange looking things which I 1 understood were the good intentions of the aie millio k who had been so stupid as to hands rk up their intentions and never come came back to get them I 1 went on just like a man in a dream hanging my intentions on the wall as soon as they bothered me in the least figuring that I 1 would gather them up as I 1 came back in a little while and then I 1 could tell that the corridor was becoming oppressively warm it was really time to turn back I 1 thought I 1 would turn back at once but it seemed to be unusually difficult at that particular moment so I 1 hung this intention also on the wall deciding to go a few steps farther when I 1 had gone ten steps to my astonishment and dismay I 1 hung another intention on the wall and moved on I 1 seemed to have an unbreakable habit I 1 was terrified I 1 was going go ing f straight to hell in spite of all the intentions I 1 had hung up intending to get them as I 1 returned all the intentions I 1 could form now was so washy I 1 even hang it up I 1 just dro dropped aped it I 1 was desperate grasping at anything I 1 could see or imagine where was my will power I 1 have a bit of it left I 1 thought of dr haddocks fine work on will power with which I 1 had been so much impressed and tried to grasp its principles as he had explained them he had boiled it all down to the fact that when you get to the point of sufficient reason for action you act right there if you fail to act right there you are killing will power to act on my very next intention was my only salvation I 1 must do it in spite of hell for I 1 could see the flames mustering every ounce of resolution I 1 still had in my habit enslaved being I 1 got turned around and began bumping into the intentions I 1 had hung on the wall they had dried down as 3 V Q hard as rachi rawhide de and somehow I 1 vy had to make each one flexible before I 1 could pass it I 1 wrestled with one of them till I 1 was exhausted out of breath my fingers raw and bleeding when a kind of light broke dimly into my mind it was really the light of morning but it came to me first as the blessed suggestion that all this was after all only a dream I 1 grasped at the suggestion and finished waking myself up by singing a kind of anthem about good intentions and hell arid and dill pickles ALBERT R |