ss picture
in the world, in his charge, had been burned. But he felt worse. Whether
it was his fault or not--and it wasn't--it was destroyed.

A truck rolled up and was stopped by a guard. There was talk, and the
guard let it through. A small crane lift came over from the hangars. Its
normal use was the lifting of plane motors in and out of their nacelles.
Now it was to pick up the useless pieces of equipment on which the best
workmen and the best brains of the Kenmore Precision Tool Company had
worked unceasingly for eight calendar months, and which now was junk.

Joe watched, numbed by disaster, while the crane hook went down to
position above the once-precious objects. Men shored up the heavy things
and ran planks under them, and then deftly fitted rope slings for them
to be lifted by. It was late afternoon by now. Long shadows were
slanting as the crane truck's gears whined, and the slack took up, and
the first of the four charred objects lifted and swung, spinning slowly,
to the truck that had come from the Shed.

Joe froze, watching. He watched the second. The third did not spin. It
merely swayed. But the fourth.... The lines up to the crane hook were
twisted. As the largest of the four crates lifted from its bed, it
twisted the lines toward straightness. It spun. It spun more and more
rapidly, and then more and more slowly, and stopped, and began to spin
back.

Then Joe caught his breath. It seemed that he hadn't breathed in
minutes. The big crate wasn't balanced. It was spinning. It wasn't
vibrating. It spun around its own center of gravity, unerringly revealed
by its flexible suspension.

He watched until it was dropped into the truck. Then he went stiffly
over to the driver of the car that had brought him.

"Everything's all right," he said, feeling a queer astonishment at his
own words. "I'm going to ride back to the Shed with the stuff I brought.
It's not hurt too much. I'll be able to fix it with a man or two I can
pick up out here. But I don't want anything else to happen to it!"

So he rode back out to the Shed on the tailboard of the truck that
carried the crates. The sun set as he rode. He was smudged and
disheveled. The reek of charred wood and burnt insulation and scorched
wrappings was strong in his nostrils. But he felt very much inclined to
sing.

It occurred to Joe that he should have sent Sally a message that she
didn't need to cry as a substitute for him. He felt swell! He knew how
to