title: Living on the Edge of Heaven: The Humorous Exploits of a Boy, His Soul, and His Purpose
author:  G Edward 
description: Over a career spanning more than thirty years, G. Edward has worked as an engineer, a technical salesman, a general manager, a consultant, and a business owner. While technical writing during his earliest years as an aerospace engineer, his creative prose caused both trouble and success. After a full corporate career, he moved on to start a hardware business. A connoisseur for people and experiences, real life is fertilizer for prose, and he returned to his love of a more creative style of writing. Writing feature columns for magazines and at Gedwardpress.com, he writes "The Nuts and Bolts of Things" , " The Edge of Heaven", and "Overheard at the Hardware Store." He, his wife, and children gather at the shores of a lake in Wisconsin, just this side of heaven.
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  Ethan Brand: A Chapter from an Abortive Romance  
    
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com
  
  
  # Ethan Brand: A Chapter from an Abortive Romance
  
  
  ### Nathaniel Hawthorne
  
  
  
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Bartram the lime-burner, a rough, heavy-looking man, begrimed with charcoal,
  sat watching his kiln, at nightfall, while his little son played at building
  houses with the scattered fragments of marble, when, on the hill-side below
  them, they heard a roar of laughter, not mirthful, but slow, and even solemn,
  like a wind shaking the boughs of the forest.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  "Father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play, and pressing
  betwixt his father's knees.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  "O, some drunken man, I suppose," answered the lime-burner; "some merry fellow
  from the bar-room in the village, who dared not laugh loud enough within
  doors, lest he should blow th