e smelling gasses blew about all the interstellar
void and vastness. Tornadoes and mighty cyclones and vortices torned and
cycled vorted.

All this frightened Gud, so that he sought for shelter from the storm.
Just then a little world came rolling by, and it wabbled as it rolled.
It did not look very safe, but it was solid underfoot. Gud boarded it
and found himself before a tiny cabin on the wabbling world. The cabin
was built of old cracker boxes and looked frail as a ten-cent toy; but
there was no other cover at hand, so Gud knocked on the cabin door to
ask for shelter.

When no one answered, Gud entered and closed the door behind him. There
before him sat a dear little widow knitting a bellyband for someone
else's baby. She was so deaf she could not hear quinine, and so blind
she could not see a house afire, and had catarrah so badly that she
could not smell a herring; but for all that she was a very good cook.

Gud addressed her in telepathy, saying: "I wonder if you would make me a
cake?"

And the woman replied by thought transference and answered: "Alas, I
cannot make you a cake today, for I have but one hen and she has already
laid her one egg this morning, and I have eaten it for my breakfast."

Then Gud said: "If you will show me the hen, perhaps I can persuade her
to lay another egg."

So the woman called to the hen in the language of beasts and birds, and
the hen came out from under the bed where she had been looking for
insects. Gud saw that the hen had false teeth and was getting old, for
her comb was pale as roses in the night. So he flattered the vanity of
the hen by commenting on the beauty of her scarlet comb. Whereupon she
laid another egg, whilst without the cottage the astronomical storm
raged on.

The widow picked up the egg and found that it was as fresh as home grown
lettuce. She made a curtsy to Gud and said: "I perceive that you are a
wise magician, for who ever heard of a stupid one that could make a hen
lay two fresh eggs in one day? And now I will make a little cake, which
will be big enough for one to eat."

"Make it for two," said Gud, "for I would not like to eat alone."

"But," said the widow, "how can I unless I have another egg, and the hen
has already laid two eggs in one day. How can she lay another?"

"I do not know," said Gud, "but I will find out."

So he called to the little hen again and gave her a homily on the evils
of race suicide. The hen became as moral as a to