CHAPTER V
SHE SAVED A CITY
"And so--and so it's all hung up for another twelve years--the ThunderBird's flight! For I don't suppose there's much chance of the moneycoming from another direction."
Pemrose Lorry echoed the cry, repeated it desolately, hours later,standing in her own room--a room that was a sort of sequel to herself,as every Camp Fire Girl's nest should be.
Her father had echoed it, as she sat very close to him, driving home inthe Grosvenor's limousine.
"Well! so far this strung-out will has been for us much cry and littlewool, eh, girlie," he muttered; and for the first time she hearddiscouragement in his voice; perhaps he had "banked" upon that third nutmore than he admitted.
"So the money is hung up for the next dozen years, as far's any benefitto the invention is concerned," he went on presently, just before hisown home was reached. "I'd better be putting my time into somethingelse, I guess," with a raw scrape in the tones. "How--how about amachine for the manufacture of paper clothing, eh, or airdrawn rugs--"sarcastically--"prosperity, _riches_, in that! Ha! Get thee behindme, Satan--but don't push!" added the inventor whimsically, thrustinghis head out of the auto window,--with a sound that was neither laughnor groan.
"Get thee behind me, Satan--and don't push!"
Tears sprang to those blue eyes of Pemrose now, as she recalled thehalf-piteous tone in the voice.
Toandoah was discouraged. Toandoah was tempted--tempted to sacrifice thehighest claim of his intellect, his original dream, or the dream whoseoriginality he had made practical, of reaching the heavenly bodies; ofbeing a pioneer in exploring the Universe outside his own earth and itsenveloping atmosphere; of finding out the secrets of that mysteriousupper air, and where it ended, of getting back a record of it--theThunder Bird's golden egg, the first record from space.
And the girl in her buoyant young heart of hearts felt that hope--nay,certainty--were still there, green, springing, as the first signs ofhappy springtime in the world outside.
How--how was she to make him feel it; she his little Wise Woman, hislaboratory pal?
Her eye went to the emblems upon her wall: a pine tree on a poster,typical of strength, a banner with a sunburst, the sun shedding warmthupon the earth.
And then--then! To the little squat figure of a woman, as the Indiansdepicted her, with a torch in her hand, Wisdom's torch--her own emblemas Wantaam of the Council Fire.
But there was another representation of that Wantaam--that Wise Woman.Pem had designed it herself, painted it herself upon a two-foot poster,gaining thereby a green honor-bead for handicraft.
And before that the girl, wrestling with the heavy disappointment ofthat tantalizing will, brought up--her hands clasped.
It was a curious scene: a lot of little tents with a wall around them,the same symbolic figure of the woman with the torch stood upon thewall, pointing a stiff arm at a man outside, a warrior, who had a knifein hand.
Underneath were printed in flaming characters two Indian words: "Notick!Notick!" signifying: "Hear! Hear!"
"I always did feel fascinated by that Wise Woman who saved--a--city."Pem looked adoringly at her handiwork. "A besieged Jewish city, awayback in King David's time! To be sure, one reads of it in--in what's abloodthirsty chapter of the Old Testament! And she saved the town byordering the death of a rebel, a traitor, proclaiming that she, herself,was loyal and faithful to the king--so were her people--making Joab,David's captain, that man with the knife, outside the wall, listen whenshe cried to him: 'Hear! Hear!' She had more sense than the men abouther--and one isn't told the least thing further about her, not even hername. That's what makes her mysterious--and fascinating.... Yet shesaved a city!"
The girl drew a long breath--a suddenly fired breath.
Was it up to her now to save a city: the citadel of her father'scourage--of that rose-colored conviction which is half the battle onearth or in the air? How was she to do it?
Her eye went wandering around the room. Trained to the eloquence ofsymbols, it lit on something. Just a sheen of pearls and a little loomupon a table--myriads of pearly beads, woven and unwoven, with here andthere a ray of New Jerusalem colors, ruby, emerald, blazing throughthem--the New Jerusalem of hope.
"Ah-h!"
Breathlessly she caught it up, that something, four feet and a half ofthe beaded history of a girl,--pearl-woven prophecy, too!
Hugging it to her breast, that long leather strip, an inch and a half inwidth, on which her glowing young life-story was woven in pearls, withthose rainbow flashes of color--the loom with it--she hurried out of theroom.
Never, perhaps, did a professor's laboratory, the stern, hardware "lab."of a mechanical engineer, react to anything so fairy-like as when Pem,scurrying down a flight of stairs to the workshop which her father hadfitted up in his own house--not his University laboratory with the tallspectroscope--sat down to a table and began industriously to weave.
Turning from a bench where he sat fiddling with a steel chamber, part ofthe anatomy of a fledgling Thunder Bird, of one of those small modelrockets which he was fitting up for experiments on a mountain-top, theinventor watched her listlessly.
"Hullo! What's the charm now, the thing of beauty? That--that looks suchstuff as dreams are made of." Toandoah drew a long breath.
"No, it isn't dream-stuff, father; it's history, the history of yourlife and mine, all told in symbols, woven into a chain, a stole--see--towear with my ceremonial dress. It--it's my masterpiece." Pem looked up,all girl, all Rose, now. "I didn't want to show it to you until it wasfinished. But now--now--don't you want to see it?"
Listlessly, still, her father drew near, his tall figure in its long,drab laboratory coat looming like a shadow behind her shoulder.
"See there--there's where it begins with the Flag I was born under, theStars and Stripes," excitedly. "And look," softly, "that gold starstands for Mother who died when I was two. And there you are, Toandoah,with that queer Indian triangle having the teeth of a saw, the emblem ofinvention."
"What! That funny, squat figure, with something like a three-corneredfool's-cap on my head and the moon above it, looking through a tube!"There was a laugh in the inventor's throat now; the grim "Get theebehind me, Satan!" look, with the cloud of that codicil to a will, weremelting away from him. "Well, go on!" he encouraged smilingly."Artistic, anyhow! I believe you Camp Fire Girls would weave magicaround a clock pendulum."
"And here--here am I--Wantaam, a Wise Woman. There's the Thunder Bird,see, the symbol of the great rocket. Here are you and I, Dad, upon amountaintop, watching it tear--oh! tear away."
He laughed again at the two stiff, woodeny figures, the comet-likestreak of fire above them.
"And this--the quill fluttering down attached to a kite! Humph! Thatstands for the Thunder Bird's diary, I suppose, otherwise the goldenegg--the little recording apparatus coming down on the wing of its blackparachute."
The inventor laughed amusedly again, glancing sidelong at _his_masterpiece, the little five-inch openwork steel box, having in it twotiny wheels with paper wound, tapelike, on one and a pencil betweenthem. This carried in the head of the Thunder Bird, big or little, wouldkeep a record of as high as it went by the pencil automatically makingmarks so long as there was any air-pressure, like a guiding hand, tomove it.
"Yes." The weaver nodded. "And here--here is the Will being read!"
The girlish voice was lower now, the girlish feet treading doubtfulground, as she pointed again to those two quaint, stubby figures, with athird one reading from a parchment.
But there was no doubt at all in the young voice which presentlygathered itself for a climax.
"And see--see there--those little yellow dots I'm weaving in now; thoseare gold pieces, father, the money that _is_ coming to us fromsomewhere for you to finish your invention. Yes! and I'm going on toweave in the moon, too, and the little blue powder-flash before herface, to show the Thunder Bird has got there. For it is going to getthere, you know!" Pem's blue-star eyes w
ere dim now, but in them was thewisdom of babes--the wisdom oft hid from the wise and prudent.
"Daddy-man!" She bowed her head over the pearl-woven prophecy, speakingvery low. "I could always tell you my thoughts. Somehow, at that awfultime of the train-wreck, when we were in the icy water, Una and I,before the boy came, the big boy who saved us, through--through all the'horripilation', as he called it, I seemed to see a light; the--theLight of Light Eternal, as we sing--God--and I knew, oh-h! I knew-ew, atthe last, that we weren't going to dr-rown.... I know just as certainlynow that you're going to launch the Thunder Bird, to go-o wherenothing--Earthly--has ever gone before.... Father-r!"
Silence fell upon that passionate little cry in the dim workshop.
Only the beauty of the pearl-woven thing upon the table spoke--therecord to go down to posterity.
Then into the silence tiptoed the voice of a man, whimsical, slightly,yet with a touch of tender awe in it, too:
"And none knew the Wise Woman who saved the city!"