The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blind Man's Lantern, by Allen Kim Lang

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Title: Blind Man's Lantern

Author: Allen Kim Lang

Illustrator: Schelling

Release Date: February 10, 2008 [EBook #24567]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's note.

This etext was produced from Analog December 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

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Blind Man's Lantern

by

Allen Kim Lang

Successful colonies among the stars require interstellar ships--but
they require, also, a very special kind of man. A kind you might
not think to look for....

Illustrated by Schelling

[Illustration]

_Walking home in the dark from an evening spent in mischief, a
young man spied coming toward him down the road a person with
a lamp. When the wayfarers drew abreast, the play-boy saw that
the other traveler was the Blind Man from his village. "Blind
Man," the youngster shouted across the road, "what a fool you
be! Why, old No-Eyes, do you bear a lantern, you whose midnight
is no darker than his noonday?" The Blind Man lifted his lamp.
"It is not as a light for myself that I carry this, Boy," he
said, "it is to warn off you fools with eyes."_

--_Hausa proverb_

The Captain shook hands with the black-hatted Amishman while the woman
stood aside, not concerning herself with men's business. "It's been a
pleasure to have you and _Fraa_ Stoltzfoos aboard, Aaron," the Captain
said. "Ship's stores are yours, my friend; if there's anything you need,
take it and welcome. You're a long way from the corner grocery."

"My Martha and I have all that's needful," Aaron Stoltzfoos said. "We
have our plow, our seed, our land. Captain, please tell your men, who
treated us strangers as honored guests, we thank them from our hearts.
We'll not soon forget th