When Leona arrived home from school on the day she learned of Halley’s Comet, she could hardly wait to tell her mother about it and about her dream of becoming an astronomer.
“Mama! I learned all about the Universe today. And I learned about a comet that has the same name as ours. It’s called Haley’s Comet. And, guess what, it can only be seen every 76 years. And the last time it was seen was in 1910, when I was born.”
“Well, isn’t that a wonderful coincidence, Leona,” Margaret said.
Of course, her mother already knew about the comet of 1910, but it had slipped her mind until her excited little girl mentioned it and jogged her memory out of its long nap. Regardless, to keep from spoiling Leona’s news and obvious enthusiasm, Margaret didn’t let on that she knew. And it worked, because hearing the interest in her mother’s voice only enhanced the 8-year-old’s excitement and heightened her need to share her newfound knowledge of Halley’s amazing comet, encouraging Leona to continue her part of the conversation with fervor.
“I think that the man who discovered the comet was one of my ancestors. He was an astronomer in England, and I’m gonna be just like him.”
“What do you mean, dear?” Margaret asked.
“I’m gonna study hard in school so I can go to college and learn all about astronomy. Then I can be a professional astronomer, like Edmund Haley.”
“That’s nice, sweetheart,” Margaret said, almost condescendingly, thinking her daughter’s latest dream was just a passing fancy. “Would you like some milk and cookies to eat?”
“No thanks, Mama. I’m gonna wait on the porch for Papa, so I can tell him about Haley’s Comet.”
Margaret had trouble believing her ears. None of her kids had ever turned down milk and cookies before.
“Gee, Leona! I knew you enjoyed your new school, and that you were thrilled to be learning new things, but I’ve never seen you quite this excited before. Are you sure you don’t want me to bring some milk and cookies out to the porch, so you’ll have something to munch on while you’re waiting for your father to come home?”
“Okay, Mama. Can I have molasses cookies?” Leona yelled as she ran for the door.
Margaret shook her head in amazement and began to laugh. After bringing a glass of milk and two molasses cookies to Leona, she said:
“Your father is hardly gonna believe me when I tell him you almost turned this down.”
Leona waited impatiently for almost forty minutes on the porch; and when she finally heard the familiar sound of her father whistling an even more familiar tune as he walked briskly up Ohio Street, she immediately jumped off the porch swing and ran to meet him.
“Papa! Papa! Where were you?” she yelled. “I have something to tell you.”
—1—
The rest of the day Leona told everyone she met about Halley’s Comet, even if they showed no interest whatsoever in the things she was telling them. While sitting on the porch swing late that afternoon she made detailed entries about the comet in her diary, one Margaret gave to her the previous Christmas. If Leona had not been so enthralled with writing the day’s happenings into it, she might have overheard her parents through the open window near the porch swing. They were relaxing in the living room while discussing Leona’s newfound enthusiasm.
“This is the first time I’ve heard any of our daughters mention college,” Margaret said. “And, to think, it’s little Leona.”
“That’s not too surprising is it, Maggie? She’s always been the most studious and inquisitive of the bunch, not to mention her having the most vivid imagination God has seen fit to grant to anyone.”
“I know, but still, she’s so young.”
“Age doesn’t matter when you’ve discovered something that catches your fancy, the way this comet does Leona’s. I remember when I was a little boy in Basswood Ridge, I wanted so badly to be a fireman. But as I grew older I lost interest in that and decided I wanted to be a carpenter instead. The same thing will probably happen to Leona.”
“I doubt it. I can’t see Leona wanting to become a carpenter,” Margaret laughed.
“You know what I mean,” Murdock said, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head in mock disgust. “She’s probably just going through one of her phases. You know Leona. First she wanted to be a dancer, now an astronomer, and next week it’ll be somethin’ else.”
“Maybe your right, Murdy, but I’ve never seen her this excited about anything. But I suppose if any of our kids has the chance, or maybe I should say the determination to reach their goals, it’s Leona. She may daydream a lot, but one of these days one of them will come true; mark my word.”
—2—
After jotting down the day’s most important happenings in her diary, which to Leona were the things she learned about the comet, she reached for a book lying beside her on the swing. It was one of the books that Miss Hutchinson had used to prepare her lesson on the Universe. As soon as the teacher saw how interested Leona had become in astronomy, an idea came to mind; and that day after school she said, “Wait up, Leona,” before hurrying back inside to retrieve the book for her curious 3rd-grader.
As Leona began leafing through the book, she fondly pictured the smiling teacher in her mind’s eye, and couldn’t help but smile herself, recalling the cheerful expression on Miss Hutchinson’s face when she walked up to her with the book in hand. Leona also recalled her and the teacher’s words, as if they were being spoken right then and there.
“Here, Leona. You can borrow my book for a while, if you want to,” the young teacher said.
“Thanks, Miss Hutchinson! I promise to take good care of it, and bring it back next Monday.”
“No hurry, dear. You take you’re own sweet time,” the delighted teacher said as she waved goodbye to her excited pupil. “And say hello to your mother for me. Be sure to enjoy your mother’s Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. I’m sure it will be just as tasty as all her other meals, likely more so.”
While lying on the porch swing that afternoon with her head resting on a small, fluffy pillow, and the astronomy book positioned on her chest, 8-year-old Leona struggled to read its many challenging words while staring in amazement at its fascinating illustrations. For some reason she suddenly became tired and fell asleep with the book opened to a drawing depicting Halley’s Comet passing the Earth on its way toward the Sun. And during her nap Leona had an experience that would be the first of many such experiences in her life: a dream so vivid that she would remember its details long after it ended; indeed, for as long as she existed.
—3—
In her dream that afternoon the little girl was on the back porch, sitting by herself on the swing watching the stars pass overhead, just as she had done hundreds of times before. Only, this time the stars seemed so much bigger and so much brighter than she had ever seen before. Not only that, they were not floating motionless in the sky the way they always appeared to be. Instead, Leona realized that the stars were moving across the sky faster than the fastest clouds she had watched go floating by. Then it hit her: There were no clouds in the beautiful eerie-blue sky, as there should be on this late November day, only speeding stars; and it wasn’t nighttime, it was daytime, when only the Sun should be visible, and most certainly not small stars. Although she thought that peculiar, Leona could not stop watching the stars speeding by.
One star caught her attention. It seemed to be falling to Earth directly toward her. As it became bigger and bigger she wanted to run away from it, but for some reason she sat completely still, almost frozen in time, watching the yellow star slowly turning a yellowish-green color. But to Leona’s amazement it didn’t stop there; the closer it came the more colors it took on. Parts of it were becoming red, and blue, and green, and purple, and orange, but not the ordinary hues she had seen before. Instead, all were fluorescing and giving off the most beautiful light imaginable, even more lovely than the most beautiful rainbow that Leona had observed from the window of her bedroom.
“I bet not even the Aurora Borealis is as beautiful as this star,” she thought.
After a few seconds the beautiful star—now twenty feet in diameter, she reckoned—abruptly slowed down just as it was about to impact on the Earth, and hovered a few feet off the ground right in front of her. It was hovering over her mother’s beautiful flower garden, its multicolored lights making the flowers appear more beautiful than they had ever been. Then it hit her: It was November and there shouldn’t be any flowers budding. Suddenly, right after Leona was finally able to rise to her feet, the colorful star began to move toward her, and its glow began to illuminate both the air and the earth around the wide-eyed little girl, creating a surrealistic multicolored spectacle. As the star slowly approached and was no more than twenty feet away, it stopped and gave off a similarly colorful mist. The cloudy mist extended from the mysterious star toward the 8-year-old, looking much like an expanding comet’s tail. As it engulfed Leona, she felt herself getting weaker and weaker until she drifted into what could only be described as a deep hypnotic sleep.