CHAPTER III THE "FLYING CORNTASSEL"
The evening after her arrival in Salt Lake City, Rosemary Sample, theyoung airplane stewardess, overheard a conversation that interested hergreatly and at the same time strengthened her faith in the rathermysterious young man, Danby Force.
She might have thought of herself as an eavesdropper had not theincident occurred in that most public of all public places, the lobby ofa large hotel, the Hotel Temple Square. Not that she was staying at soexpensive a place. Far from that, she occupied a room in a clean,modest-priced rooming house. But Rosemary had a weakness for large downychairs, soft lights, expensive draperies and all that and, since at thistime of year this hotel was not crowded, she could see no reason why shemight not indulge these tastes for an hour or two at least.
She was buried deep in a heavily upholstered chair, thinking dreamily ofher home in Kansas, of her mother, father, and the young people of theold crowd back home. She was smiling at the name they had given her,"The Flying Corntassel of Kansas," when, chancing to look up, she behelda vision of beauty all wrapped in deep purple and white. To herastonishment she realized that this was none other than the flyinggypsy's adopted daughter who called herself Petite Jeanne. She wore along cape of purple cloth trimmed with white fox fur.
At the same moment someone else caught the vision, Danby Force. AndDanby Force had something to say about it.
"What a gorgeous cape, and what marvelous color!" he exclaimed. Therewas in his tone not a trace of flattery. He spoke with the sincerity ofone who really knows beauty of texture when he sees it.
"Yes," the little French girl agreed, "it is very beautiful. It was sentto me only last month by my gypsy friends in France. Since I have had alittle money I have helped them at times. Their life is hard. These daysare very hard.
"The cloth," she went on after a time, "was woven by hand from puresheep's wool taken from the high French Alps."
"And the color?" Danby Force asked eagerly.
"Ah-h--" the little French girl smiled. "That is a deep secret that onlythe gypsies know. There are those who say the kettle of color only boilsat midnight and that then the color is mixed with blood. That isnonsense. These are good gypsies, Christian gypsies, just as the greatpreacher, Gypsy Smith was. But they have their secrets and they keepthem well.
"Perhaps," she added after a moment's thought, "this is the royal purpleone reads of in the Bible. Who can tell?"
"That," said Danby Force, "is a valuable secret." He motioned the littleFrench girl to a seat and took one close beside her.
"I know a man," he said after a moment of silence, "who made somevaluable discoveries regarding colors. He could dye cloth in such amanner that it would not fade, yet the process was not costly.
"This man had spent his boyhood in a town where textile mills hadflourished. After his remarkable secret discoveries he returned to thattown to find the people idle, the mills falling into decay. The weavingindustry had moved south where there was cotton and cheaplabor--pitifully cheap!"
Danby Force paused to stare at the pattern of the thick carpet on thefloor. He appeared to be making a mental comparison between that carpetand the cheap rag rugs on the floors in that forgotten town.
Rosemary stole a look at the little French girl's face. It was allcompassion.
"And this little forgotten town?" suggested Petite Jeanne at last.
"It is forgotten no longer." Danby Force smiled a rare smile. "The manwho possessed those rare secrets of color gave them to his home town.Since they were able to produce cloth that was cheap, and better thanany other of its kind, the mills began to flourish again and the peopleto work and smile.
"But now," he added as a shadow passed over his interesting face, "theirprosperity is threatened once more."
Then, as if he had been about to divulge a forbidden secret, he sprangto his feet. "I must be going. We leave at eight. That right?"
"It is quite right," agreed Petite Jeanne.
Rosemary Sample went to her rest that night with a strange sense offutile longing gnawing at her heart. What was its cause? She could nottell. Had she become truly interested in that strange young man, DanbyForce, who talked so beautifully of God's unseen power, who spoke ofdoing good to thousands, and yet who might have--. She would not say iteven to herself, yet she could not avoid thinking. Could she becomeseriously interested in such a young man? She could not be sure.
"That charming little French girl is carrying him away in the morning,"she assured herself. "I may never see him again.
"He is going back to the hunting lodge. I wonder--"
She tried to picture in her mind the bit of life's drama that would beenacted by Danby Force and the little French girl after they had landedand gone down the narrow trail to the lodge. In the midst of this rathervain imagining she fell asleep.
She awoke next morning prepared for one more journey through the air,one more group of passengers. "Wonder if there will be any interestingones?" she whispered. "Wonder if that dark-faced woman will return withme?" She shuddered. "She's like a raven, Poe's raven. Wonder if she'sfiled a complaint about her missing bag. And if she has, what will comeof it?"
After oatmeal, coffee and rolls eaten at a counter with the capable andever friendly Mark Morris at her side, she felt well fortified for theday's adventures, come what might.
We advertise our occupation in life by the posture we assume. The barberhas his way of standing that marks him as a barber. The clerk of adepartment store puts on a mask in the morning and takes it off atnight. The posture of an airplane stewardess is one suggesting thejaunty joy of life pictured by a blue bird on the tiptop of a tree,seventy feet in air.
"Safe?" her posture says plainer than words. "Of course it's safe tofly. Look at me, I've flown four hundred thousand miles."
Rosemary Sample was an airplane stewardess to the very tips of herfingers. Her task was a dual one, to inspire confidence and toentertain. She did both extremely well. Yet she too must be entertained.She must receive a thrill now and again. Riding in a plane brought nothrill to her. Only her passengers could bring her the change shecraved.
"There's always one," she had a way of saying to her friends, "onepassenger who is worth five hours of study."
She was not long in finding the "one" on this journey back to Chicago.Strangely enough, he took the seat vacated by the dark-complexionedlady. Yet, how different he was! He was young, not much over twenty,Rosemary thought.
"Hello, little girl!" were his first words. "What's your name?"
"Rosemary Sample." She smiled because she was saying to herself, "He'lldo the talking. That's fine. I'm too tired to talk."
"So you're a sample." He laughed. "I'd like a dollar bottle of thesame."
"A sample's all there is and all there can be," she replied quickly.
"What! You mean to say you couldn't grow?"
"Exactly. Five feet four inches tall, weight a hundred and twentypounds. Those are the regulations for a stewardess. You can be smaller,but no larger. You see," she laughed, "they couldn't make the airplanecabins to fit the stewardesses, tall, short, thin or thick, so thestewardess must be picked to fit the cabin."
"Oh!" The young man's grin was frank, honest and friendly. "Well, thisis my first trip in these big birds. I've got a little ship all my own,only just now she's busted up quite a bit."
"Cracked up? Too bad!" Rosemary was truly sorry. She was going to likethis passenger. Besides, to one who sails the air a crack-up is just astrue an occasion for sorrow as a shipwreck is to a mariner on the highseas. "What happened?" she asked quietly. "Bad storm?"
"No." He laughed lightly. "Couple of struts got loose. I nearly lostcontrol two thousand feet up. Cracked up in a corn field. Shucked a lotof corn." He laughed rather loudly.
Rosemary's face was sober. She had seen his kind before. They went infor flying because it promised thrills. They neglected their planes. Ifthey crashed and were not killed, they turn
ed it into a joke. The wholething made her feel sick inside. She loved flying. She thought of it asone of God's latest and most marvelous gifts to man. She knew too thatnothing very short of perfection in care, equipment and piloting couldput it in the place in every man's life where it belonged.
"So you laugh at a crash that results from carelessness?" Her lips werewhite. "That's the sort of thing that makes life hard for all of us whoare trying to make flying seem a safe and wonderful thing. Nothing butselfishness could make one laugh at a tragedy or a near tragedy that ishis own fault. It--"
But she stopped herself. After all, she was a stewardess, being paid tobe pleasant.
Springing to her feet, she moved up the aisle to see that the airplaneload of traveling salesmen forward had the papers, pencils, magazinesand pillows they needed.
"So you're a sample," said the youth as she returned to her seat. "Don'tknow as I want a full bottle after all."
"In the end you'll take it." She was smiling now. "Or someone will besetting up a marble marker where little Willie lies. And that," sheadded slowly, "would be too bad."
She spoke, not of herself, but her attitude toward aviation. He knewthis. She could read it in his eyes.
"Tha--thanks for these few kind words," he replied rather lamely.
Five minutes later this young man, who went by the name of WilliamVanGeldt and whose family evidently were possessed of considerablewealth, was speaking in glowing tones of his mother. He had, the youngstewardess discovered, beneath his thin coating of indifference to theserious things of life, a warm heart full of appreciation for the oneswho had given of their best that his life might be well worth living.
"He'll take the full bottle," she whispered to herself. "And he'll getto like it." She was to learn the truth of these words in days that wereto come.