From The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
(first published, 1950)

The Martian Chroncles was a collection of short stories about Mars that Ray Bradbury wrote in the 1940’s and then collected into a single “novel” in 1950.
Way in the Middle of the Air was written towards the end of the 40’s and contains a great deal of ca sual racism, even as it is critical of racist Southerners.
Bradbury himself was no reactionary and eventually, like so many other writers of popular fiction, learned to slough off racial stereotypes

June 2003: WAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR *

“Did you hear about it?”
“About what?”
“The niggers, the niggers!”
“What about ‘em?”
“Them leaving, pulling out, going away; did you hear?”
“What you mean, pulling out? How can they do that?”
“They can, they will, they are.”
“Just a couple?”
“Every single one here in the South!”
“No.”
“Yes!”
“I got to see that. I don’t believe it. Where they going — Af-
rica?”
A silence.
“Mars.”
“You mean the planet Mars?”
“That’s right.”
The men stood up in the hot sh ade of the hardware porch.
Someone quit lighting a pipe. So mebody else spat out into the
hot dust of noon.
“They can’t leave, they can’t do that.”
“They’re doing it, anyways.”
“Where ’d you hear this?”
“It’s everywhere, on the radio a minute ago, just come
through.”
Like a series of dusty statues, the men came to life.
Samuel Teece, the hardware proprietor, laughed uneasily.
“I wondered what happened to Silly. I sent him on my bike an
hour ago. He ain’t come back from Mrs. Bordman’s yet. You
think that black fool just pedaled off to Mars?”
The men snorted.
“All I say is, he better bring back my bike. I don’t take steal-
ing from no one, by God.”
“Listen!”
The men collided irritably with each other, turning.
Far up the street the levee seemed to have broken. The
black warm waters descended an d engulfed the town. Between
the blazing white banks of the town stores, among the tree si-
lences, a black tide flowed. Like a kind of summer molasses, it
poured turgidly forth upon the cinnamon-dusty road. It surged
slow, slow, and it was men and women and horses and barking
dogs, and it was little boys and girls. And from the mouths of
the people partaking of this tide came the sound of a river. A
summer-day river going somewher e, murmuring and irrevoca-
ble. And in that slow, steady channel of darkness that cut
across the white glare of day were touches of alert white, the
RAY BRADBURY, WAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR FROM THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES P. 2
eyes, the ivory eyes staring ahead, glancing aside, as the river,
the long and endless river, took itself from old channels into a
new one. From various and uncountable tributaries, in creeks
and brooks of color and motion, the parts of this river had
joined, become one mother curre nt, and flowed on. And brim-
ming the swell were things carri ed by the river: grandfather
clocks chiming, kitchen clocks ti cking, caged hens screaming,
babies wailing; and swimming among the thickened eddies
were mules and cats, and sudden excursions of burst mattress
springs floating by, insane hair stuffing sticking out, and boxes
and crates and pictures of dark grandfathers in oak frames —
the river flowing it on while the men sat like nervous hounds
on the hardware porch, too late to mend the levee, their hands
empty.
Samuel Teece wouldn’t believe it. “Why, hell, where’ d they
get the transportation? How they goin’ to get to Mars?”
“Rockets,” said Grandpa Quartermain.
“All the damn- fool things. Where ’d they get rockets?”
“Saved their money and built them.”
“I never heard about it.”
“Seems these niggers kept it se cret, worked on the rockets
all themselves, don’t know where — in Africa, maybe.”
“Could they do that?” demanded Samuel Teece, pacing
about the porch. “Ain’t there a law?”
“It ain’t as if they’re declarin’ war,” said Grandpa quietly.
“Where do they get off, God damn it, workin’ in secret, plot-
tin’?” shouted Teece.
“Schedule is for all this town’s niggers to gather out by Loon
Lake. Rockets be there at one o’ clock, pick ‘emup, take ‘emto
Mars.”
“Telephone the governor, call o ut the militia,” cried Teece.
“They should’ve given notice!”
“Here comes your woman, Teece.”
The men turned again.
As they watched, down the ho t road in the windless light
first one white woman and then another arrived, all of them
with stunned faces, all of them rustling like ancient papers.
Some of them were crying, some were stern. All came to find
their husbands. They pushed through barroom swing doors,
vanishing. They entered cool, quie t groceries. They went in at
drug shops and garages. And on e of them, Mrs. Clara Teece,
came to stand in the dust by th e hardware porch, blinking up
at her stiff and angry husband as the black river flowed full be-
hind her.
“It’s Lucinda, Pa; you got to come home!”
“I’m not cornin’ home for no damn darkie!”
“She’s leaving. What’ll I do without her?”
“Fetch for yourself, maybe. I won’t get down on my knees to
stop her.”
“But she’s like a family member,” Mrs. Teece moaned.
“Don’t shout! I won’t have you blubberin’ in public this way
about no goddamn –”
His wife’s small sob stopped him. She dabbed at her eyes. “I
kept telling her, ‘Lucinda,’ I said, ‘you stay on and I raise your
pay, and you get two nights off a week, if you want,’ but she
just looked set! I never seen he r so set, and I said, ‘Don’t you
love me, Lucinda?’ and she said yes, but she had to go because
that’s the way it was, is all. She cleaned the house and dusted it
and put luncheon on the table an d then she went to the parlor
door and — and stood there with two bundles, one by each
foot, and shook my hand and sa id, ‘Good-by, Mrs. Teece.’ And
she went out the door. And there was her luncheon on the ta-
RAY BRADBURY, WAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR FROM THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES P. 3
ble, and all of us too upset to ev en eat it. It’s still there now, I
know; last time I looked it was getting cold.”
Teece almost struck her. “God damn it, Mrs. Teece, you get
the hell home. Standin’ there makin’ a sight of yourself”
“But, Pa ... ”
He strode away into the hot di mness of the store. He came
back out a few seconds later with a silver pistol in his hand.
His wife was gone.
The river flowed black between the buildings, with a rustle
and a creak and a constant whispering shuffle. It was a very
quiet thing, with a great certaint y to it; no laughter, no wild-
ness, just a steady, decided, and ceaseless flow.
Teece sat on the edge of his hardwood chair. “If one of ‘em
so much as laughs, by Christ, I’ll kill ‘em.”
The men waited.
The river passed quietly in the dreamful noon.
“Looks like you goin’ to have to hoe your own turnips,
Sam,” Grandpa chuckled.
“I’m not bad at shootin’ white folks neither.” Teece didn’t
look at Grandpa. Grandpa turne d his head away and shut up
his mouth.
“Hold on there!” Samuel Teece leaped off the porch. He
reached up and seized the reins of a horse ridden by a tall Ne-
gro man. “You, Belter, come down off there!”
“Yes, sir.” Belter slid down.
Teece looked him over. “Now, just what you think you’re
doin’?”
“Well, Mr. Teece ... ”
“I reckon you think you’re goin’, just like that song — what’s
the words? ‘Way up in the middle of the air’; ain’t that it?”
“Yes, sir.” The Negro waited.
“You recollect you owe me fifty dollars, Belter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You tryin’ to sneak out? By God, I’ll horsewhip you!”
“All the excitement, and it slipped my mind, sir.”
“It slipped his mind.” Teece ga ve a vicious wink at his men
on the hardware porch. “God damn, mister, you know what
you’re goin’ to do?”
“No, sir.”
“You’re stayin’ here to work out that fifty bucks, or my
name ain’t Samuel W. Teece.” He turned again to smile confi-
dently at the men in the shade. Belter looked at the river going
along the street, that dark ri ver flowing and flowing between
the shops, the dark river on wheels and horses and in dusty
shoes, the dark river from whic h he had been snatched on his
journey. He began to shiver. “L et me go, Mr. Teece. I’ll send
your money from up there, I promise!”
“Listen, Belter.” Teece graspe d the man’s suspenders like
two harp strings, playing them now and again, contemptu-
ously, snorting at the sky, pointing one bony finger straight at
God. “Belter, you know anything about what’s up there?”
“What they tells me.”
“What they tells him! Christ! Hear that? What they tells
him!” He swung the man’s weight by his suspenders, idly, ever
so casual, flicking a finger in th e black face. “Belter, you fly up
and up like a July Fourth rocket , and bang! There you are, cin-
ders, spread all over space. Th em crackpot scientists, they
don’t know nothin’, they kill you all off!”
“I don’t care.”
RAY BRADBURY, WAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR FROM THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES P. 4
“Glad to hear that. Because yo u know what’s up on that
planet Mars? There’s monsters with big raw eyes like mush-
rooms! You seen them pictures on those future magazines you
buy at the drugstore for a di me, ain’t you? Well! Them mon-
sters jump up and suck marrow from your bones!”
“I don’t care, don’t care at a ll, don’t care.” Belter watched
the parade slide by, leaving him. Sweat lay on his dark brow.
He seemed about to collapse.
“And it’s cold up there; no air, you fall down, jerk like a fish,
gaspin’, dyin’, stranglin’, stranglin’ and dyin’. You like that?”
“Lots of things I don’t like, si r. Please, sir, let me go. I’m
late.”
“I’ll let you go when I’m ready to let you go. We’ll just talk
here polite until I say you can leave, and you know it damn
well. You want to travel, do yo u? Well, Mister Way up in the
Middle of the Air, you get the he ll home and work out that fifty
bucks you owe me! Take you two months to do that!”
“But if I work it out, I’ll miss the rocket, sir!”
“Ain’t that a shame now?” Teece tried to look sad.
“I give you my horse, sir.”
“Horse ain’t legal tender. Yo u don’t move until I get my
money.” Teece laughed inside. He felt very warm and good.
A small crowd of dark people ha d gathered to hear all this.
Now as Belter stood, head do wn, trembling, an old man
stepped forward.
“Mister?”
Teece flashed him a quick look. “Well?”
“How much this man owe you, mister?”
“None of your damn business!”
The old man looked at Belter. “How much, son?”
“Fifty dollars.”
The old man put out his black hands at the people around
him, “There’s twenty-five of yo u. Each give two dollars; quick
now, this no time for argument.”
“Here, now!” cried Teece, stiffening up, tall, tall.
The money appeared. The old ma n fingered it into his hat
and gave the hat to Belter. “Son,” he said, “you ain’t missin’ no
rocket.”
Belter smiled into the hat. “No, sir, I guess I ain’t!”
Teece shouted: “You give that money back to them!”
Belter bowed respectfully, handing the money over, and
when Teece would not touch it he set it down in the dust at
Teece’s feet. “There’s your mone y, sir,” he said. “Thank you
kindly.” Smiling, he gained the saddle of his horse and
whipped his horse along, thanking the old man, who rode with
him now until they were out of sight and hearing.
“Son of a bitch,” whispered Teec e, staring blind at the sun.
“Son of a bitch.”
“Pick up the money, Samuel,” said someone from the porch.
It was happening all along the way. Little white boys, bare-
foot, dashed up with the news. “Them that has helps them that
hasn’t! And that way they all get free! Seen a rich man give a
poor man two hundred bucks to pay off some’un! Seen
some’un else give some’un else ten bucks, five bucks, sixteen,
lots of that, all over, everybody!”
The white men sat with sour water in their mouths. Their
eyes were almost puffed shut, as if they had been struck in
their faces by wind and sand and heat.
The rage was in Samuel Teece. He climbed up on the porch
and glared at the passing swarms . He waved his gun. And after
a while when he had to do some thing, he began to shout at
RAY BRADBURY, WAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR FROM THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES P. 5
anyone, any Negro who looked up at him. “Bang! There’s an-
other rocket out in space!” he shouted so all could hear. “Bang!
By God!” The dark heads didn’t flicker or pretend to hear, but
their white eyes slid swiftly ov er and back. “Crash! All them
rockets failin’ ! Screamin’, dyin’ ! Bang! God Almighty, I’m glad
I’m right here on old terra firma. As they says in that old joke,
the more firma, the less terra! Ha, ha!”
Horses clopped along, shuffling up dust. Wagons bumbled
on ruined springs.
“Bang!” His voice was lonely in the heat, trying to terrify the
dust and the blazing sun sky. “W ham! Niggers all over space!
Jerked outa rockets like so ma ny minnows hit by a meteor, by
God! Space fulla meteors. You kn ow that? Sure! Thick as buck-
shot; powie! Shoot down them tin-can rockets like so many
ducks, so many clay pipes! Ole sardine cans full of black cod!
Bangin’ like a stringa ladyfinger s, bang, bang, bang! Ten thou-
sand dead here, ten thousand ther e. Floatin’ in space, around
and around earth, ever and ever, cold and way out, Lord! You
hear that, you there!”
Silence. The river was broad and continuous. Having en-
tered all cotton shacks during the hour, having flooded all the
valuables out, it was now carrying the clocks and the
washboards, the silk bolts and curtain rods on down to some
distant black sea.
High tide passed. It was two o’clock. Low tide came. Soon
the river was dried up, the town silent, the dust settling in a
film on the stores, the seated men, the tall hot trees.
Silence.
The men on the porch listened.
Hearing nothing, they extend ed their thoughts and their
imaginations out and into the surrounding meadows. In the
early morning the land had been filled with its usual concoc-
tions of sound. Here and there, with stubborn persistence to
custom, there had been voices singing, the honey laughter un-
der the mimosa branches, the pi ckaninnies rushing in clear
water laughter at the creek, movements and bendings in the
fields, jokes and shouts of amus ement from the shingle shacks
covered with fresh green vine.
Now it was as if a great wind had washed the land clean of
sounds. There was nothing. Skeleton doors hung open on
leather hinges. Rubber-tire swings hung in the silent air, unin-
hibited. The washing rocks at the river were empty, and the
watermelon patches, if any, were left alone to heat their hidden
liquors in the sun. Spiders started building new webs in aban-
doned huts; dust started to sift in from unpatched roofs in
golden spicules. Here and there a fire, forgotten in the last
rush, lingered and in a sudden a ccess of strength fed upon the
dry bones of some littered shack. The sound of a gentle feeding
burn went up through the silenced air.
The men sat on the hardware porch, not blinking or swal-
lowing.
“I can’t figure why they left now. With things lookin’ up. I
mean, every day they got more rights. What they want, any-
way? Here’s the poll tax gone , and more and more states
passin’ anti-lynchin’ bills, and all kinds of equal rights. What
more they want? They make almost as good money as a white
man, but there they go.”
Far down the empty street a bicycle came.
“I’ll be goddamned. Teece, here comes your Silly now.”
The bicycle pulled up before the porch, a seventeen-year-
old colored boy on it, all arms and feet and long legs and round
watermelon head. He looked up at Samuel Teece and smiled.
“So you got a guilty conscience and came back,” said Teece.
“No, sir, I just brought the bicycle.”
“What’s wrong, couldn’t get it on the rocket?”
RAY BRADBURY, WAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR FROM THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES P. 6
“That wasn’t it, sir.”
“Don’t tell me what it was! Get off, you’re not goin’ to steal
my property!” He gave the boy a push. The bicycle fell. “Get in-
side and start cleaning the brass.”
“Beg pardon?” The boy’s eyes widened.
“You heard what I said. There’s guns need unpacking there,
and a crate of nails just come from Natchez — “
“Mr. Teece.”
“And a box of hammers need fixin’ — “
“Mr. Teece, sir?”
“You still standin’ there!” Teece glared.
“Mr. Teece, you don’t mind I take the day off,” he said
apologetically.
“And tomorrow and day after tomorrow and the day after
the day after that,” said Teece.
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
“You should be afraid, boy. Come here.” He marched the
boy across the porch and drew a paper out of a desk. “Remem-
ber this?”
“Sir?”
“It’s your workin’ paper. You si gned it, there’s your X right
there, ain’t it? Answer me.”
“I didn’t sign that, Mr. Teece.” The boy trembled. “Anyone
can make an X.”
“Listen to this, Silly. Contract: ‘I will work for Mr. Samuel
Teece two years, starting July 15, 2001, and if intending to
leave will give four weeks’ notice and continue working until
my position is filled.’ There.” T eece slapped the paper, his eyes
glittering. “You cause trouble, we’ll take it to court.”
“I can’t do that,” wailed the bo y, tears starting to roll down
his face, “If I don’t go today, I don’t go.”
“I know just how you feel, Silly ; yes, sir, I sympathize with
you, boy. But we’ll treat you good and give you good food, boy.
Now you just get inside and star t working and forget all about
that nonsense, eh, Silly? Sure.” Teece grinned and patted the
boy’s shoulder.
The boy turned and looked at the old men sitting on the
porch. He could hardly see now for his tears. “Maybe — maybe
one of these gentlemen here ... ” The men looked up in the hot,
uneasy shadows, looking first at the boy and then at Teece.
“You meanin’ to say you think a white man should take
your place, boy?” asked Teece coldly.
Grandpa Quartermain took his red hands off his knees. He
looked out at the horizon thou ghtfully and said, “Teece, what
about me?”
“What?”
“I’ll take Silly’s job.”
The porch was silent.
Teece balanced himself in the ai r. “Grandpa,” he said warn-
ingly.
“Let the boy go. I’ll clean the brass.”
“Would you, would you, really?” Silly ran over to Grandpa,
laughing, tears on his cheeks, unbelieving.
“Sure.”
“Grandpa,” said Teece, “keep your damn trap outa this.”
“Give the kid a break, Teece.”
Teece walked over and seized the boy’s arm. “He’s mine.
I’m lockin’ him in the back room until tonight.”
RAY BRADBURY, WAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR FROM THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES P. 7
“Don’t, Mr. Teece!”
The boy began to sob now. His crying filled the air of the
porch. His eyes were tight. Far down the street an old tin Ford
was choking along, approaching, a last load of colored people
in it. “Here comes my family, Mr . Teece, oh please, please, oh
God, please!”
“Teece,” said one of the other men on the porch, getting up,
“let him go.”
Another man rose also. “That goes for me too.”
“And me,” said another.
“What’s the use?” The men all talked now. “Cut it out,
Teece.”
“Let him go.”
Teece felt for his gun in his p ocket. He saw the men’s faces.
He took his hand away and left the gun in his pocket and said,
“So that’s how it is?”
“That’s how it is,” someone said.
Teece let the boy go. “All right. Get out.” He jerked his hand
back in the store. “But I hope you don’t think you’re gonna
leave any trash behind to clutter my store.”
“No, sir!”
“You clean everything outa your shed in back; burn it.”
Silly shook his head. “I’ll take it with.”
“They won’t let you put it on that damn rocket.”
“I’ll take it with,” insisted the boy softly.
He rushed back through the hardware store. There were
sounds of sweeping and cleaning out, and a moment later he
appeared, his hands lull of tops and marbles and old dusty
kites and junk collected through the years. Just then the old tin
Ford drove up and Silly climbed in and the door slammed.
Teece stood on the porch with a bitter smile. “What you
goin’ to do up there?”
“Startin’ new,” said Silly. “Gonna have my own hardware.”
“God damn it, you been learnin’ my trade so you could run
off and use it!”
“No, sir, I never thought one day this ’d happen, sir, but it
did. I can’t help it if I learned, Mr. Teece.”
“I suppose you got names for your rockets?”
They looked at their one clock on the dashboard of the car.
“Yes, sir.”
“Like Elijah and the Chariot, The Big Wheel and The Little
Wheel, Faith, Hope, and Charity, eh?”
“We got names for the ships, Mr. Teece.”
“God the Son and the Holy Ghost, I wouldn’t wonder? Say,
boy, you got one named the First Baptist Church?”
“We got to leave now, Mr. Teece.”
Teece laughed. “You got one named Swing Low, and an-
other named Sweet Chariot?”
The car started up. “Good-by, Mr. Teece.”
“You got one named Roll Dem Bones?”
“Good-by, mister!”
“And another called Over Jo rdan! Ha! Well, tote that
rocket, boy, lift that rocket, boy, go on, get blown up, see if I
care!”
The car churned off into the dust. The boy rose and cupped
his hands to his mouth and sho uted one last time at Teece:
RAY BRADBURY, WAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR FROM THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES P. 8
“Mr. Teece, Mr. Teece, what you goin’ to do nights from now
on? What you goin’ to do nights, Mr. Teece?”
Silence. The car faded down the road. It was gone. “What in
hell did he mean?” mused Teec e. “What am I goin’ to do
nights?”
He watched the dust settle, an d it suddenly came to him.
He remembered nights when me n drove to his house, their
knees sticking up sharp and their shotguns sticking up sharper,
like a earful of cranes under the night trees of summer, their
eyes mean. Honking the horn and him slamming his door, a
gun in his hand, laughing to himself, his heart racing like a ten-
year-old’s, driving off down th e summer-night road, a ring of
hemp rope coiled on the car fl oor, fresh shell boxes making
every man’s coat look bunchy How many nights over the years,
how many nights of the wind rush ing in the car, flopping their
hair over their mean eyes, roaring, as they picked a tree, a good
strong tree, and rapped on a shanty door!
“So that’s what the son of a bitch meant?” Teece leaped out
into the sunlight. “Come back, yo u bastard! What am I goin’ to
do nights? Why, that lousy, insolent son of a ... ”
It was a good question. He sickened and was empty. Yes.
What will we do nights? he thought. Now they ’re gone, what?
He was absolutely empty and nu mb. He pulled the pistol from
his pocket, checked its load.
“What you goin’ to do, Sam?” someone asked.
“Kill that son of a bitch.”
Grandpa said, “Don’t get yourself heated.”
But Samuel Teece was gone around behind the store. A
moment later he drove out the dr ive in his open-top car. “Any-
one cornin’ with me?”
“I’d like a drive,” said Grandpa, and got up.
“Anyone else?”
Nobody replied.
Grandpa got in and slammed the door. Samuel Teece gut-
ted the car out in a great whorl of dust. They didn’t speak as
they rushed down the road under the bright sky. The heat from
the dry meadows was shimmering.
They stopped at a crossroa d. “Which way’d they go,
Grandpa?”
Grandpa squinted. “Straight on ahead, I figure.”
They went on. Under the summer trees their car made a
lonely sound. The road was em pty, and as they drove along
they began to notice something. Teece slowed the car and bent
out, his yellow eyes fierce.
“God damn it, Grandpa, you see what them bastards did?”
“What?” asked Grandpa, and looked.
Where they had been carefully set down and left, in neat
bundles every few feet along th e empty country road, were old
roller skates, a bandanna full of knicknacks, some old shoes, a
cartwheel, stacks of pants and coa ts and ancient hats, bits of
oriental crystal that had once tinkled in the wind, tin cans of
pink geraniums, dishes of waxe d fruit, cartons of Confederate
money, washtubs, scrubboards, wa sh lines, soap, somebody’s
tricycle, someone else’s hedge shears, a toy wagon, a jack-in-
the-box, a stained-glass wind ow from the Negro Baptist
Church, a whole set of brake rims, inner tubes, mattresses,
couches, rocking chairs, jars of cold cream, hand mirrors. None
of it flung down, no, but deposited gently and with feeling, with
decorum, upon the dusty edges of the road, as if a whole city
had walked here with hands full, at which time a great bronze
trumpet had sounded, the articles had been relinquished to the
quiet dust, and one and all, th e inhabitants of the earth had
fled straight up into the blue heavens.
RAY BRADBURY, WAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AIR FROM THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES P. 9
“Wouldn’t burn them, they said ,” cried Teece angrily. “No,
wouldn’t burn them like I said, but had to take them along and
leave them where they could see them for the last time, on the
road, all together and whole. Them niggers think they’re
smart.”
He veered the car wildly, mile after mile, down the road,
tumbling, smashing, breaking, sc attering bundles of paper,
jewel boxes, mirrors, chairs. “There, by damn, and there.”
The front tire gave a whistling cry. The car spilled crazily off
the road into a ditch, flinging Teece against the glass.
“Son of a bitch!” He dusted himself off and stood out of the
car, almost crying with rage.
He looked at the silent, empty road. “We’ll never catch
them now, never, never.” As far as he could see there was noth-
ing but bundles and stacks and more bundles neatly placed like
little abandoned shrines in the la te day, in the warm-blowing
wind.
Teece and Grandpa came walkin g tiredly back to the hard-
ware store an hour later. The me n were still sitting there, lis-
tening, and watching the sky. Just as Teece sat down and eased
his tight shoes off someone cried, “Look!”
“I’ll be damned if I will,” said Teece.
But the others looked. And they saw the golden bobbins ris-
ing in the sky, far away. Leaving flame behind, they vanished.
In the cotton fields the wind blew idly among the snow
dusters. In still farther mead ows the watermelons lay, unfin-
gerprinted, striped like tortoise cats lying in the sun.
The men on the porch sat down, looked at each other,
looked at the yellow rope pile d neat on the store shelves,
glanced at the gun shells glinting shiny brass in their cartons,
saw the silver pistols and long black metal shotguns hung high
and quiet in the shadows. Some body put a straw in his mouth,
Someone else drew a figure in the dust.
Finally Samuel Teece held his empty shoe up in triumph,
turned it over, stared at it, and said, “Did you notice? Right up
to the very last, by God, he said ‘Mister’ !”
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Source:
https://archive.org/stream/Ray_Bradbury_Collection/Ray%20Bradbury%20-%20The%20Martian%20Chronicles#mode/1up