The soft wind stirred the woman's hair as she sat there half dreaming, her blue-gray eyes, a little moist, seeing far more than just what lay before them. On his head a shaft of sunlight fell, and had you looked you might have seen the crisp, black hair none too sparingly lined with gray.
But his gaze was strong and level and his smile the same as in bygone years, as with his left hand he pressed hers and, with a look eloquent of many things, said:
"Now, sweetheart, if you're quite ready—?"
Chapter XXXIV - History and Roses
*
Allan sat writing in his library. Ten years had now slipped past since the last of the Folk had been brought to the surface and the ancient settlement in the bowels of the earth forever abandoned. Heavily sprinkled with gray, the man's hair showed the stress of time and labors incredible.
Lines marked his face with the record of their character-building, even as his rapid pen traced on white paper the all but completing history of the new world whereat he had been laboring so long.
Through the open window, where the midsummer breeze swayed the silken curtains, drifted a hum from the long file of bee-hives in the garden. Farther away sounded the comfortable gossip of hens as they breasted their soft feathers into the dust-baths behind the stables. A dog barked.
Came voices from without. Along the street growled a motor. Laughter of children echoed from the playground. Allan ceased writing a moment, with a smile, and gazed about him as though waking from a dream.
"Can this be true?" he murmured. "After having worked over the records of the earlier time they still seem the reality and this the dream!"
On the garden-path sounded footfalls. Then the voice of Beatrice calling:
"Come out, boy! See my new roses—just opened this morning!"
He got up and went to the window. She—matronly now and of ampler bosom, yet still very beautiful to look upon—was standing there by the rose-tree, scissors in hand.
Allan, Junior, now a rugged, hardy-looking chap of nearly sixteen—tall, well built and with his father's peculiar alertness of bearing—was bending down a high branch for his mother.
Beyond, on the lawn, the ten-year-old daughter, Frances, had young Harold in charge, swinging him high in a stout hammock under the apple-trees.
"Can't you come out a minute, dear?" asked Beatrice imploringly. "Let your work go for once! Surely these new roses are worth more than a hundred pages of dry statistics that nobody'll ever read, anyhow!"
He laughed merrily, threw her a kiss, and answered:
"Still a girl, I see! Ah, well, don't tempt me, Beta. It's hard enough to work on such a day, anyhow, without your trying to entice me out!"
"Won't you come, Allan?"
"Just give me half an hour more and I'll call it off for to-day!"
"All right; but make it a short half-hour, boy!"
He returned to his desk. The library, like the whole house now, was fully and beautifully furnished. The spoils of twenty cities had contributed to the adornment of "The Nest," as they had christened their home.
In time Allan planned even to bring art-works from Europe to grace it still further. As yet he had not attempted to cross the Atlantic, but in his seaport near the ruins of Mobile a powerful one hundred and fifty-foot motor-yacht was building.
In less than six months he counted on making the first voyage of discovery to the Old World.
Contentedly he glanced around the familiar room. Upon the mantel over the capacious fireplace stood rare and beautiful bronzes. Priceless rugs adorned the polished floor.
The broad windows admitted floods of sunlight that fell across the great jars of flowers Beta always kept there for him and lighted up the heavy tiers of books in their mahogany cases. Books everywhere—under the window-seats, up the walls, even lining a deep alcove in the far corner. Books, hundreds upon hundreds, precious and cherished above all else.
"Who ever would have thought, after all," murmured he, "that we'd find books intact as we did? A miracle—nothing less! With our printing-plant already at work under the cliff, all the art, science and literature of the ages—all that's worth preserving—can be still kept for mankind. But if I hadn't happened to find a library of books in a New York bonded warehouse all cased up for transportation, the work of preservation would have been forever impossible!"
He turned back to his history, and before writing again idly thumbed over a few pages of his voluminous manuscript. He read:
"March 1, A. D. 2930. The astronomical observatory on Round Top Hill, one mile south of Newport Heights, was finished to-day and the last of the apparatus from Cambridge, Lick, and other ruins was installed. I find my data for reckoning time are unreliable, and have therefore assumed this date arbitrarily and readjusted the calendar accordingly.
"Our Daily Messenger, circulating through the entire community and educating the people both in English and in scientific thought, will soon popularize the new date.
"Just as I have substituted the metric system for the old-time chaotic hodge-podge we once used, so I shall substitute English for Merucaan definitely inside of a few years. Already the younger generation hardly understands the native Merucaan speech. It will eventually become a dead, historically interesting language, like all other former tongues. The catastrophe has rendered possible, as nothing else could have done, the realization of universal speech, labor-unit exchange values in place of money, and a political and economic democracy unhampered by ideas of selfish, personal gain."
He turned a few pages, his face glowing with enthusiasm.
"April 15—The first ten-yearly census was completed to-day. Even with the aid of Frumuos and Zangamon, I have been at work on this nearly two months, for now our outlying farms, villages and settlements have pushed away fifteen or twenty miles from the original focus at the Cliffs, or 'Cliffton,' as the capital is becoming generally known.
"Population, 5,072, indicating a high birth-rate and an exceptionally low mortality. Our one greatest need is large families. With the whole world to reconquer, we must have men.
"Area now under cultivation, under grazing and under forests being actively exploited, 42,076 acres. Domestic animals, 26,011. Horses are already being replaced by motors, save for pleasure-riding. Power-plants and manufacturing establishments, 32. Aerial fleet, 17 of the large biplanes, 8 of the swifter monoplanes for scout work. One shipyard at Mobile.
"Total roads, macadamized and other, 832 miles. Air-motors and sun-motors in use or under construction, 41; mines being worked, 13; schools, 27, including the technical school at Intervale, under my personal instruction. Military force, zero—praise be! Likewise jails, saloons, penitentiaries, gallows, hospitals, vagrants, prostitutes, politicians, diseases, beggars, charities—all zero, now and forever!"
Allan turned to the unfinished end of the manuscript, poised his pen a moment, and then began writing once more where he had left off when called by Beatrice:
"The great monument in memory of the patriarch, first of all our people to perish in the upper world, was finished on June 18. Memorial exercises will be held next month.
"On June 22 the new satellite, which passes darkly among the stars every forty-eight hours, was named Discus. Its distance is 3,246 miles; dimensions, 720 miles by 432; weight, six and three-quarter billion tons.
"On July 2, I discovered unmistakable traces either of habitations or of their ruins on the new and till now unobserved face of the moon, hidden in the old days. This problem still remains for further investigation.
"July 4, our national holiday, a viva-voce election and Council of the Elders was held. They still insist on choosing me as Kromno. I weary of the task, and would gladly give it over to some younger man.
"At this Council, held on the great meeting-ground beyond the hangars, I again and for the third time submitted the question of trying to colonize from the races still in the Abyss. If feasible, this would rapidly add to our population. The Folk are now civilized to a point where they cou
ld rapidly assimilate outside stock.
"In addition to the Lanskaarn, a strong and active race known to exist on the Central Island in the Sunken Sea, there remain persistent traditions of a strange, yellow-haired race somewhere on the western coasts of that sea, beyond the Great Vortex. Two parties exist among us.
"The minority is anxious for exploration and conquest. The majority votes for peace and quiet growth. It may well be that the Lanskaarn and the other people never will be rescued. I, for one, cannot attempt it. I grow a little weary. But if the younger generation so decides, that must be their problem and their labor, like the rebuilding of the great cities and the reconquest of the entire continent from sea to sea.
"In the mean time—"
At the window appeared Beatrice. Smiling, she flung a yellow rose. It landed on Allan's desk, spilling its petals all across his manuscript.
He looked up, startled. His frown became a smile.
"My time's up?" he queried. "Why, I didn't know I'd been working five minutes!"
"Up? Long ago! Now, Allan, you just simply must leave that history and come out and see my roses, or—or—"
"No threats!" he implored with mock earnestness. "I'm coming, dearest. Just give me time—"
"Not another minute, do you hear?"
"—to put my work away, and I'm with you!"
He carefully arranged the pages of his manuscript in order, while she stood waiting at the window, daring not leave lest he plunge back again into his absorbing toil.
Into his desk-drawer he slid the precious record of the community's labor, growth, achievement, triumph. Then, with a boyish twinkle in his eyes, he left the library.
She turned, expecting him to meet her by the broad piazza; but all at once he stole quietly round the other corner of the bungalow, his footsteps noiseless in the thick grass.
Suddenly he seized her, unsuspecting, in his arms.
"My prisoner!" he laughed. "Roses? Here's the most beautiful one in our whole garden!"
"Where?" she asked, not understanding.
"This red one, here!"
And full upon the mouth he kissed her in the leaf-shaded sunshine of that wondrous summer day.
Chapter XXXV - The Afterglow
*
Evening!
Far in the west, beyond the canyon of the New Hope River—now a beautifully terraced park and pleasure-ground—the rolling hills, fertile and farm-covered, lay resting as the sun died in a glory of crimson, gold and green.
The reflections of the passing day spread a purple haze through the palm and fern-tree aisles of the woodland. Only a slight breeze swayed the branches. Infinite in its serenity brooded a vast peace from the glowing sky.
A few questing swallows shot here and there like arrows, blackly outlined with swift and crooked wing against the vermilion of the west.
Over the countryside, the distant farms and hills, a thin and rosy vapor hovered, fading slowly as the sun sank lower still.
Scarcely moved by the summer breeze, a few slow clouds drifted away—away to westward—gently and calmly as the first promises of night stole up the world.
An arbor, bowered with wistarias and the waxen spikes of the new fleur de vie, stood near the woodbine-covered wall edging the cliff. Among its leaves the soft air rustled very lovingly. A scent of many blossoms hung over the perfumed evening.
Upon the lawn one last, belated robin still lingered. Its mate called from a sycamore beyond the hedge, and with an answering note it rose and winged away; it vanished from the sight.
Allan and Beatrice, watching it from the arbor, smiled; and through the smile it seemed there might be still a trace of deeper thought.
"How quickly it obeyed the call of love!" said Allan musingly. "When that comes what matters else?"
She nodded.
"Yes," she answered presently. "That call is still supreme. Our Frances—"
She paused, but her eyes sought the half-glimpsed outlines of another cottage there beyond the hedge.
"We never realized, did we?" said Allan, voicing her thought. "It came so suddenly. But we haven't lost her, after all. And there are still the others, too. And when grandchildren come—"
"That means a kind of youth all over again, doesn't it? Well—"
Her hand stole into his, and for a while they sat in silence, thinking the thoughts that "do sometime lie too deep for tears."
The flaming red in the west had faded now to orange and dull umber. Higher in the sky yellows and greens gave place to blue as deep as that in the Aegean grottos. The zenith, a dark purple, began to show a silver twinkle here and there of stars.
A whirring, roaring sound grew audible to eastward. It strengthened quickly. And all at once, far above the river, a long, swift train, its windows already lighted, sped with a smooth, rapid flight.
Allan watched the monorail vanish beyond the huge north tower of the cable bridge, sink through the trees, and finally fade into the gathering gloom.
"The Great Lakes Express," said he. "In the old days we thought seventy miles an hour something stupendous. Now two hundred is mere ordinary schedule-time. Yes—something has been accomplished even now. The greater time still to be—we can't hope to see it.
"But we can catch a glimpse of what it shall be, here and there. We must be content to have built foundations. On them those who shall come in the future shall raise a fairer and a mightier world than any we have ever dreamed."
Again he relapsed into silence; but his arm drew round Beatrice, and together they sat watching the age-old yet ever-new drama of the birth of night.
Half heard, mingled with the eternal turmoil of the rapids, rose the far purring of the giant dynamos in the power-houses below the cliff. Here, there, lights began to gleam in the city; and on the rolling farmlands to northward, too, little winking eyes of light opened one by one, each one a home.
Suddenly the man spoke again.
"More than a hundred thousand of us already!" he exulted. "Over a tenth of a million—and every year the growth is faster, ever faster, in swift progressions. A hundred thousand English-speaking people, Beta; a civilization already, even in a material sense, superior to the old one that was swept away; in a spiritual, moral sense, how vastly far ahead!
"A hundred thousand! Some time, before long, it will be a million; then two, five, twenty, a hundred, with no racial discords, no mutual antipathies, no barriers of name or blood; but for the first time a universal race, all sound and pure, starting right, living right, striving toward a goal which even we cannot foresee!
"Not only shall this land be filled, but Europe, Asia, Africa and all the islands of the Seven Seas shall know the hand of man again, and own his sovereignty, from pole to pole!"
His clasp about Beatrice tightened; she felt his heart beat strong with deep emotion as he spoke again:
"Already the cities are beginning to arise from their ashes of a thousand oblivious years. Already a score of thriving colonies have scattered from the capital, all yet bound to it with monorail cables, with electric wires and with the ether-borne magic of the wireless.
"Already our boy, our son—can you imagine him really a man of thirty, darling?—elected President on our last Council Day, guides a free people—a people self-reliant and strong, energetic, capable, dominant.
"Already the inconceivable fertility of the earth is yielding its bounties a hundred fold; and trade-routes circle the ends of the great Abyss; and all the vast territory once the United States has begun to open again before the magic touch of man!
"Of man—now free at last! No more slavery! No more the lash of hunger driving men to their tasks. No more greed and grasping; no lust of gold, no bitter cry of crushed and hopeless serfdom! No buying and selling for the lure of profit; no speculating in the people's means of life; no squeezing of their blood for wealth! But free, strong labor, gladly done. The making of useful and beautiful things, Beatrice, and their exchange for human need and service—this, and the old dream of joy in ri
ghteous toil, this is the blessing of our world to-day!"
He paused. A little, swift-moving light upon the far horizon drew his eye. It seemed a star, traveling among its sister stars that now already had begun to twinkle palely in the darkening sky. But Allan knew its meaning.
"Look!" cried he and pointed. "Look, Beatrice! The West Coast Mail—the plane from southern California. The wireless told us it had started only three hours ago—and here it is already!"
"And but for you," she murmured, "none of all this could ever possibly have been. Oh, Allan, remember that song—our song? In the days of our first love, there on the Hudson, remember how I sang to you:
"Stark wie der Fels,
Tief wie das Meer,
Muss deine Liebe,
Muss deine Liebe sein?"
"I remember! And it has been so?"
Her answer was to draw his hand up to her lips and print a kiss there, and as she laid her cheek upon it he felt it wet with tears.
And night came; and now the wind lay dead; and upon the brooding earth, spangled with home-lights over hill and vale, the stars gazed calmly down.
The steady, powerful droning of the power-plant rose, blent with the soothing murmur of the rapids and the river.
"Seems like a lullaby—doesn't it, dearest?" murmured Allan. "You know—it won't be long now before it's good-by and—good night."
"I know," she answered. "We've lived, haven't we? Oh, Allan, no one ever lived, ever in all this world—lived as much as you and I have lived! Think of it all from the beginning till now. No one ever so much, so richly, so happily, so well!"
"No one, darling!"
"But, after toil, rest—rest is sweet, too. I shall be ready for it when it summons me. I shall go to it, content and brave and smiling. Only—"
"Yes?"
"Only this I pray, just this and nothing more—that I mayn't have to stay awake, alone, after—after you're sleeping, Allan!"
A long time they sat together, silent, in the sweet-scented gloom within the flower-girt arbor.
At last he spoke.
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