didn't happen. She reached out timidly and touched the box. It seemed real enough. A miniature radio of some sort, with a two-inch speaker. She turned the dials. She heard a faint humming. The coarse-voiced blonde came toward the table. "We just heard what happened last night, Miss Kent," she said. "Me and George. About the bear, I mean." Bertha forced a smile. "It made rather a shambles, didn't it?" "Gee, you can't make breakfast out of a mess like this. Why don't you come and eat with us?" The blonde went on talking, apologizing for what she was serving and at the same time listing it with a certain pride. Strangely, Miss Kent heard not one voice, but two. The second came tinnily from the little box on the table, "You poor, dried-up old maid. That guy who's been hanging around would have been over long before this, if you knew the first thing about being nice to a man." Bertha gasped. "Really, if that's the way you feel—" "Why, honey, I just asked you over for breakfast," the blonde answered; at the same time the voice from the machine said, "I suppose George and me ain't good enough for you. O.K. by me, sister. I didn't really want you to come anyway." Trembling, Miss Kent stood up. "I've never been so insulted!" "What's eating you, Miss Kent?" The blonde seemed genuinely puzzled, but again the voice came from the plastic box, "The old maid's off her rocker. You'd think she was reading my mind." Switching her trim little hips, the blonde walked back to her own camp. Bertha Kent dropped numbly on the bench, staring at the ugly box. "Reading my mind," the woman had said. Somehow the machine had done precisely that, translating the blonde's spoken words into the real, emotional meaning behind them. It was a terrifying gadget. Bertha was hypnotized by its potential horror—like the brutal, devastating truth spoken by a child. A camper walked past on the road, waving at Miss Kent and calling out a cheerful good morning. But again the machine read the real meaning behind the pleasant words. "So
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