Stranger in a Strange Land

and an equally perfect host mother just as soon as a battery of experts completed calculating the exact instant for conception to insure that the wonder child would be equally a genius in music, art, and statesmanship-and that she would (with the aid of hormonal treatments) nurse her child herself. She gave out a statement to the press on the psychological benefits of natural feeding and permitted, or insisted, that the press take pictures of her to prove that she was physically endowed for this happy duty-a fact that her usual publicity pictures had never really left undecided-
                Supreme Bishop Digby denounced her as the Harlot of Babylon and forbade any Fosterite to accept the commission, either as donor or hostmother. Alice Douglas was quoted as saying: "While I do not know Miss Duchess personally, one cannot help but admire her. Her brave example should be an inspiration to mothers everywhere."
                By accident, Jubal Harshaw saw one of the pictures and the accompanying story in a magazine some visitor had left in his house- He chuckled over it and posted it on the bulletin board in the kitchen ... then noted (as he had expected) that it did not stay up long, which made him chuckle again.
                He did not have too many chuckles that week; the world had been too much with him. The working press soon ceased bothering Mike and the Harshaw household when it was clear that the story was over and that Harshaw did not intend to let any fresh news happen-but a great many thousands of other people, not in the news business, did not forget Mike. Douglas honestly tried to insure Mike's privacy; S. S. troopers now patrolled Harshaw's fence and an S.S. car circled over the grounds and challenged any car that tried to land. But Harshaw resented the necessity of having guards.
                Guards kept people out; the mail and the telephone came through. The telephone Jubal coped with by changing his call number and having all calls routed through an answering service to which was given a very limited list of persons from whom Harshaw would accept calls-and, at that, he kept the instrument in the house set on "refuse & record" most of the time.
                But the mail always comes through.
                At first, Harshaw told Jill that the problem was Mike's. The boy had to grow up someday; he could start by handling his own mail and she could help and advise him. "But don't bother me with it; I have enough trouble with screwball mail of my own!"
                Jubal could not make his decision stick; there was too much of it and Jill simply did not know how.
                Just sorting the mail into categories was a headache. Jubal solved that by first making a phone call to the local postmaster (which got no results), then by a phone call to Bradley, which did get results after a "suggestion" from on high trickled back down to local level; thereafter mail for Mike arrived sacked as first class, second class, third class, and fourth class, with mail for everyone else in the household in still another sack.
                Second and third class mail was used to insulate a new root cellar north of the house, the old root cellar having been dug by the former owner as a fallout shelter and never having been satisfactory as root cellar. Once the new root cellar was heavily over-insulated and could use no more, Jubal told Duke to dump such mail as fill to check erosion in gullies; combined with a small amount of brush such mail compacted very nicely.
                Fourth class mail was a problem, especially as one package exploded prematurely in the village post office, blowing several years of "Wanted" announcements off the notice board and ruining one "Use Next Window" sign-by great good luck the postmaster was out for coffee and his assistant, an elderly lady with weak kidneys, was safe in the washroom. Jubal considered having all fourth class mail addressed to Mike processed by the bomb-disposal specialists of the S.S, who performed the same service for the Secretary General.
                This turned out not to be necessary; Mike could spot a "wrongness" about a package without opening it. Thereafter all fourth class mail was unsacked in a heap just inside the gate; then, after the postman had left, Mike would pry through the pile from a distance, cause to disappear any harmful parcel; then