Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction June 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. [Illustration] _The Ordeal of_ COLONEL JOHNS By George H. Smith Illustrated by Rudolph Palais _Colonel Johns, that famous Revolutionary War hero, had the unique--and painful--experience of meeting his great-great-great-great granddaughter. Now maybe you can't change history, but what's there to prevent a soldier from changing his mind about the gal he is going to marry?_ * * * * * Clark Decker winced and scrounged still lower in his seat as Mrs. Appleby-Simpkin rested her enormous bosom on the front of the podium and smiled down on the Patriot Daughters of America in convention assembled as she announced: "And now, my dears, I will read you one more short quotation from Major Wicks' fascinating book 'The Minor Tactics of The American Revolution.' When I am finished, I know that you will all agree that Rebecca Johns-Hayes will be a more than fitting successor to myself as your President." Decker looked wildly about for a way of escape from the convention auditorium. If he had only remained in the anteroom with Professor MacCulloch and the Historical Reintegrator! After suffering through four days of speeches by ladies in various stages of mammalian top-heaviness, he hadn't believed it possible that anyone could top Mrs. Appleby-Simpkin for either sheer ability to bore or for the nobility of her bust. Mrs. Rebecca Johns-Hayes had come as something of a shock as she squirmed her way onto the speaker's platform. But there she was as big as life, or rather bigger, smiling at Mrs. Appleby-Simpkin, the Past President, beaming at Mrs. Lynd-Torris, a defeated candidate for the presidency and whose ancestor had been only a captain, and completely ignoring Mrs. Tolman, the other defeated candidate whose ancestor had been so inconsiderate as to have been a Continental sergeant. Only the thought that now that the voting was over and the new president chosen, the ladies might be ready for the demonstration of the Reintegrator had brought Decker onto the convention floor, and now he was trapped and would have to listen.