Time and Again by Jack Finney, Paul Hecht Read Free Book Online Page B

occasionally correcting pronunciation, which the other would repeat a few times before continuing. "Is it French?"
    From the way Rube smiled I knew he'd been waiting for the question. "Yep. But medieval French; no one has talked like that in four hundred years." He pressed the other button, and the loudspeaker went silent, the man's lips continuing to move, and we walked on. At the next window Rube jabbed the speaker button, I heard a stifled grunt and the clash of wood on wood, then I stopped beside him and stood looking into the room.
    It was completely bare, the walls padded and faced with heavy canvas; in it two men were fighting with bayonet-tipped rifles. One wore the shallow helmet, high-necked khaki blouse, and roll-puttees of a First World War American uniform. The other wore the black boots, gray uniform, and deep flared helmet of the Germans. The bayonets were an odd false-looking silver, and I saw that they were painted rubber. The men's faces were shiny with sweat, their uniforms stained at armpits and back, and as we watched they parried and riposted, heaved and shoved, grunting as the rifles clashed. Suddenly the German stepped back fast, feinted, sidestepped a counterthrust, and drove his rifle straight into the other's stomach, the rubber bayonet bending double against the khaki. "You're dead, pig of an American!" he yelled, and the other shouted, "Hell I am, that's just a little stomach wound!" They both started laughing, jabbing away at each other, and Rube stood glaring in at them, muttering, "Wrong, wrong, the bastards! An absolutely wrong attitude!" I glanced at him: He looked mean and dangerous, his lips set, eyes narrowed. For a moment longer he stared in silence, then punched the cutoff button hard with his thumb and swung away from the window.
    A dozen men sat in the next room. Most of them wore white carpenter's overalls; a few were in blue jeans and work shirts. Beside the desk a man in khaki wash pants and shirt stood pointing with a ruler at a cardboard model which completely covered the desk top. It was a model of a room, one wall missing like a stage set, and the man was pointing to the miniature ceiling. Rube pushed the button beside the window."…painted beams. But only at the highest ceiling points, where it's dark." The ruler moved to a wall. "Down here begin real oak beams, and real plaster. Mixed with straw; don't forget that, damn it." Rube poked the cutoff button, and once more we walked on.
    The next room was empty of people, but an immense aerial photograph of a town covered three walls from floor to ceiling, and we stopped and looked at it. It had been labeled with a black marking pen: WIN-FIELD, VERMONT. RESTORATION IN PROGRESS, VIEW 9 OF ELEVEN, SERIES 14. I looked at Rube and he knew I was looking, but he offered no explanation, simply continuing to stare at the big photo, and I silently refused to offer a question.
    The next two rooms were empty. In the following room the chairs had been shoved back to the walls, and a good-looking girl was dancing the Charleston to music from a portable windup phonograph on the desk. A middle-aged woman stood watching her, beating time with a forefinger. The swaying hem of the girl's tan dress came to just above her flying knees, and the waist of her dress wasn't much higher. Her hair was cut in what I knew was once called a shingle bob, and she was chewing gum. The older woman was dressed in pretty much the same way, though her skirt was longer.
    Rube pushed the speaker button, and we heard the fast rhythmical shuffle of the girl's feet, and the thin, ghostly sound of a long-ago orchestra. The music stopped suddenly with an old-fashioned fillip, and the girl stood breathing audibly, smiling at the older woman, who nodded approvingly and said, "Good! That was the ant's ankles," and on that neat exit line Rube pushed the speaker button, trying not to smile, and we walked on, neither of us saying a word.
    There were three more rooms, all empty of