by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER VIII TRAILING AN OLD PAL
That same evening Jeanne's giant dragon fly came drifting sweetly downfrom the clouds to land at the Chicago airport. After a few words withDanby Force and a promise to meet him before the airport depot on thefollowing day, she taxied her little plane into a hangar, gave themechanics some very definite instructions regarding its care and generalinspection, then went away with her gypsy companions to spend the nightin a cozy Chicago haunt of those dark brown wanderers, the gypsies.
It was past mid-afternoon of the following day when a large,rosy-cheeked girl came striding along the path that leads to aviationheadquarters. Had you noted her jaunty stride, the suggestion ofstrength that was in her every movement, the joyous gleam of youth thatwas in her eyes, you would have said: "This is our old friend FlorenceHuyler, her very own self." And you would not have been wrong.
Had Petite Jeanne been there at that moment she must surely have leaptstraight into her good pal's strong arms. They had been separated formonths, Jeanne had journeyed to France. Florence had been adventuring inher own land. Letters had gone astray, addresses lost, so now here theywere in the same great city, but each ignorant of the other's nearness.Would they meet? In a city of three million, one seldom meets casuallyanyone one knows.
But here was Florence. She had come to the airport with a definitepurpose. She was, as you will recall, a playground director. She hadtried her ability at many things, but this was her true vocation. Timeswere hard. Playgrounds had been closed. For the moment Florence wasunemployed. But was she downhearted? Watch that smile, that jauntytread. Florence was young. Tomorrow was around the corner and with itsome opportunity for work. Just at this moment an unusual occupation hadcaught her fancy; she wished to become an airplane stewardess. HowJeanne would have laughed at this.
"Oh, but my dear Florence!" she would have cried, "You and your onehundred and sixty pounds! You an airplane stewardess!"
Jeanne was not there, so Florence, marching blissfully on, arrived indue time at the door of aviation headquarters.
"I wonder if I might see Miss Marjory Monague?" she said to the girl bythe wicker window. There was a suggestion of timidness in her voice.
"Miss Monague, the chief stewardess?" The girl at the small windowarched her brow. "She's frightfully busy. But I--" She hesitated, tookone more look at Florence's face, found it clean, frank and fair as adew-drenched hillside on a summer morning, wondered in a vague sort ofway how anyone could keep herself looking like that, then said, "I--I'llcall her."
She turned to a telephone. A moment later she said to Florence, "MissMonague will talk to you. Go right up those stairs. It's the last officeto the right."
To the girl beside her this one whispered, "Bet she's going to apply asa stewardess of the air! Can you e-ee-magine!
"All the same," she added after a moment's silence, "I'm sorry theywon't let her. She--she's a swell one I bet! Regular pal like you dreamabout sometimes."
In the meantime Florence had made her way blithely up the stairs. "Chiefstewardess," she was thinking, "probably forty, wears horn-rim glasses,sits up straight, stares at you and says, 'Age please?'"
She was due for a shock. The chief stewardess was not forty, nor yettwenty-five. A slim slip of a girl, she looked in her large mahoganychair not more than twenty.
"I--I want to see Miss Monague," said Florence.
"I am Miss Monague."
"You? Why I--" Florence broke off, staring.
The other girl smiled. "There have been stewardesses of the air for onlyabout five years," Miss Monague explained quietly. "We were all youngwhen we started. Naturally you can't grow gray hair and get your spinestiff with old age in five years. So--" she smiled a very friendlysmile. "So--o here I am. What can I do for you?"
"I--why you see--" Florence began, "I--I'd like to be a stewardess.I--I've been a playground director." She went on eagerly, "That reallycalls for pretty much the same thing. You try to make people comfortableand happy--show them a good time. That's what a stewardess does, isn'tit?"
"Yes, I suppose so. But--"
"That," Florence broke in, "that's just about what I've done. SometimesI taught them to do things, when they didn't know how--trapeze, swingingrings and all that. But mostly I just stayed around and saw thateveryone was busy and happy. Truly, I did love it. But I've been away.And now there are no openings. I just thought--"
"Yes." The little chief of the stewardesses favored the big girl withone of her rarest smiles. She too liked this girl. She wished to help,but--
"I'm truly sorry!" A little up-and-down line appeared between her eyes."The trouble is, I don't think you could ever reduce that much. Besides,you're too tall."
"Reduce!" Florence exclaimed. "Of course I couldn't. I'm hard as a rock.I put in four hours in the tank or the gym every day when I can. Whyshould I want to reduce?"
"Because--" a strange little smile played around the chief stewardess'mouth. "Because our airplane cabins are just so big and we have to getgirls that fit the cabins,--five feet four inches, a hundred and twentypounds; those are the limits. Can be smaller, but never larger."
"Oh!" Florence stared for a moment, then burst out in good-naturedlaughter. "I--I guess I won't do."
She was gone before the truly kind-hearted stewardess could tell her howsorry she was.
Florence was still smiling when she left the building. But the smile didnot last. It is always hard, for even the strongest hearted to be in agreat city alone and with no one near who will say, "You may help me dothis."
She walked slowly and quite soberly over the cinder path that led to theairport depot. Arrived there, she walked in and looked about her. Therewas something about the place that stirred her strangely. "Suchmovement! Such a wonderful feeling of abundant life!"
She walked through the door that led to the landing field. Once outside,she stood spellbound. A giant silver plane, looking more like a huge seabird than any man-made thing, came gliding down the runway to wheelgracefully about and into position. From somewhere came the barkingnotes of an announcer: "Plane No. 43 eastbound for Toledo, Buffalo andNew York, now loading." She saw the smiling passengers following redcapsto the plane as they might have to a train, caught the signal, watchedthe plane roll away, heard the thunder of its motors, then saw it riseslowly in air and speed away.
"That--" her voice caught. Experienced as she was in the ways of theworld, a tear glistened in her eye as she murmured hoarsely, "That iswhat I wanted to become a part of. And they won't let me be--because I'mtoo big."
She turned about to hide that tear. Next instant she was staringfascinated at three tiny objects lying close to the wall, three tinysticks, two parallel and one crossing them at a sharp angle. "Jeanne!Petite Jeanne!" she all but cried aloud. "Jeanne has been here, not longago either. That is her gypsy _patteran_!"
"Listen!" In her excitement she grasped the arm of an attendant. "Wasthere a slim blonde-haired girl here a little while ago?"
"Plenty of them," the attendant grinned good-naturedly, "mebby twenty."
"No, but one you would not forget. One who dresses in bright clotheslike a gypsy. Perhaps there was a gypsy woman with her."
"Oh, you mean that gypsy pilot!" The attendant began to show a realinterest. "Yes, she was here. She went away with Rosemary Sample and acouple of men."
"Who--who's Rosemary Sample?" Florence could scarcely speak forexcitement. Jeanne! She had found her good pal Jeanne--that is, almost.
"Rosemary Sample is a stewardess," the attendant explained.
"Wh--where did they go?"
"I don't--yes, come to think of it, I heard Rosemary say they was goin'to Little Sweden."
"Little Sweden? Where's that?"
"How should I know?" the man drawled. "You might ask in Norway. That'sclose to Sweden, ain't it?
"Yes!" His voice rose suddenly. "Coming!" He hurried away, leavingFlorence hanging between the heights of heaven and the depths o
fdespair.