The Project Gutenberg EBook of Star Mother, by Robert F. Young

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Title: Star Mother

Author: Robert F. Young

Release Date: October 18, 2008 [EBook #26957]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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STAR MOTHER

By ROBERT F. YOUNG

_A touching story of the most
enduring love in all eternity._

That night her son was the first star.

She stood motionless in the garden, one hand pressed against her heart,
watching him rise above the fields where he had played as a boy, where
he had worked as a young man; and she wondered whether he was thinking
of those fields now, whether he was thinking of her standing alone in
the April night with her memories; whether he was thinking of the
verandahed house behind her, with its empty rooms and silent halls, that
once upon a time had been his birthplace.

Higher still and higher he rose in the southern sky, and then, when he
had reached his zenith, he dropped swiftly down past the dark edge of
the Earth and disappeared from sight. A boy grown up too soon, riding
round and round the world on a celestial carousel, encased in an
airtight metal capsule in an airtight metal chariot ...

_Why don't they leave the stars alone?_ she thought. _Why don't they
leave the stars to God?_

* * * * *

The general's second telegram came early the next morning: Explorer XII
_doing splendidly. Expect to bring your son down sometime tomorrow_.

She went about her work as usual, collecting the eggs and allocating
them in their cardboard boxes, then setting off in the station wagon on
her Tuesday morning run. She had expected a deluge of questions from her
customers. She was not disappointed. "Is Terry really way up there all
alone, Martha?" "Aren't you _scared_, Martha?" "I do hope they can get
him back down all right, Martha." She supposed it must have given them
quite a turn to have their egg woman change into a star mother
overnight.

She hadn't expected the TV interview, though, and she would have av