Years ago I read a short story about farmer who tells P. T. Barnum that he has trapped an angel in his barn and wants to sell him. It comes out finally that his captive is not an angel at all, but a lighthouse keeper who just naturally has wings.
Or at least this is how I remember it. It was been a very long time since I read this, and I am curious if anybody can tell me the name of the story and who the author is. I had it in mind that it was Stephen Vincent Benet, but I have been unable to find any story like this by him.
I don’t remember the author, but I’m fairly certain that the title was A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. I don’t think that Barnum was involved (although there’s definitely the same sort of sideshow attitude), and it’s never really established what the man was, angle, lighthouse keeper, or otherwise. We read it in one of my college literature classes.
This would be Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Cheers,
(The author, that is; not the very old man with enormous wings.)
Cheers,
Why did he have wings if he wasn’t an angel?
the better to fan you with…
Garcia Marquez wrote a story about a man with wings. Terry Bisson and Ray Bradbury wrote stories too; so have a lot of people. But the story I am looking for definitely has P.T. Barnum in it. I recall that General Tom Thumb figures in it too and, if it is any help, I believe the story is told from the point of view of a man whose father worked for Barnum. As I remember it, he was telling about an incident from his childhood, when he was allowed to tag along with his dad, Barnum and the general as they went to visit the farmer.