CHAPTER XXXIV
HISTORY AND ROSES
Allan sat writing in his library. Ten years had now slippedpast since the last of the Folk had been brought to the surface andthe ancient settlement in the bowels of the earth forever abandoned.Heavily sprinkled with gray, the man's hair showed the stress of timeand 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 completinghistory of the new world whereat he had been laboring so long.
Through the open window, where the midsummer breeze swayed the silkencurtains, drifted a hum from the long file of bee-hives in the garden.Farther away sounded the comfortable gossip of hens as they breastedtheir soft feathers into the dust-baths behind the stables. A dogbarked.
Came voices from without. Along the street growled a motor. Laughterof 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 recordsof the earlier time _they_ still seem the reality and this the dream!"
On the garden-path sounded footfalls. Then the voice of Beatricecalling:
"Come out, boy! See my new roses--just opened this morning!"
He got up and went to the window. She--matronly now and of amplerbosom, yet still very beautiful to look upon--was standing there bythe rose-tree, scissors in hand.
Allan, Junior, now a rugged, hardy-looking chap of nearlysixteen--tall, well built and with his father's peculiar alertness ofbearing--was bending down a high branch for his mother.
Beyond, on the lawn, the ten-year-old daughter, Frances, had youngHarold in charge, swinging him high in a stout hammock under theapple-trees.
"Can't you come out a minute, dear?" asked Beatrice imploringly. "Letyour work go for once! Surely these new roses are worth more than ahundred 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 enoughto 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, wasfully and beautifully furnished. The spoils of twenty cities hadcontributed to the adornment of "The Nest," as they had christenedtheir home.
In time Allan planned even to bring art-works from Europe to grace itstill further. As yet he had not attempted to cross the Atlantic, butin his seaport near the ruins of Mobile a powerful one hundred andfifty-foot motor-yacht was building.
In less than six months he counted on making the first voyage ofdiscovery to the Old World.
Contentedly he glanced around the familiar room. Upon the mantel overthe capacious fireplace stood rare and beautiful bronzes. Pricelessrugs adorned the polished floor.
The broad windows admitted floods of sunlight that fell across thegreat jars of flowers Beta always kept there for him and lighted upthe heavy tiers of books in their mahogany cases. Bookseverywhere--under the window-seats, up the walls, even lining a deepalcove in the far corner. Books, hundreds upon hundreds, precious andcherished above all else.
"Who ever would have thought, after all," murmured he, "that we'd findbooks intact as we did? A miracle--nothing less! With ourprinting-plant already at work under the cliff, all the art, scienceand literature of the ages--all that's worth preserving--can be stillkept for mankind. But if I hadn't happened to find a library of booksin a New York bonded warehouse all cased up for transportation, thework of preservation would have been forever impossible!"
He turned back to his history, and before writing again idly thumbedover 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 ofthe apparatus from Cambridge, Lick, and other ruins was installed. Ifind my data for reckoning time are unreliable, and have thereforeassumed this date arbitrarily and readjusted the calendar accordingly.
"Our Daily Messenger, circulating through the entire community andeducating the people both in English and in scientific thought, willsoon popularize the new date.
"Just as I have substituted the metric system for the old-time chaotichodge-podge we once used, so I shall substitute English for Merucaandefinitely inside of a few years. Already the younger generationhardly understands the native Merucaan speech. It will eventuallybecome a dead, historically interesting language, like all otherformer tongues. The catastrophe has rendered possible, as nothing elsecould have done, the realization of universal speech, labor-unitexchange values in place of money, and a political and economicdemocracy 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 withthe aid of Frumuos and Zangamon, I have been at work on this nearlytwo months, for now our outlying farms, villages and settlements havepushed away fifteen or twenty miles from the original focus at theCliffs, or 'Cliffton,' as the capital is becoming generally known.
"Population, 5,072, indicating a high birth-rate and an exceptionallylow mortality. Our one greatest need is large families. With the wholeworld to reconquer, we must have men.
"Area now under cultivation, under grazing and under forests beingactively exploited, 42,076 acres. Domestic animals, 26,011. Horses arealready being replaced by motors, save for pleasure-riding.Power-plants and manufacturing establishments, 32. Aerial fleet, 17 ofthe large biplanes, 8 of the swifter monoplanes for scout work. Oneshipyard at Mobile.
"Total roads, macadamized and other, 832 miles. Air-motors andsun-motors in use or under construction, 41; mines being worked, 13;schools, 27, including the technical school at Intervale, under mypersonal 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 amoment, and then began writing once more where he had left off whencalled by Beatrice:
"The great monument in memory of the patriarch, first of all ourpeople to perish in the upper world, was finished on June 18. Memorialexercises will be held next month.
"On June 22 the new satellite, which passes darkly among the starsevery forty-eight hours, was named Discus. Its distance is 3,246miles; dimensions, 720 miles by 432; weight, six and three-quarterbillion tons.
"On July 2, I discovered unmistakable traces either of habitations orof their ruins on the new and till now unobserved face of the moon,hidden in the old days. This problem still remains for furtherinvestigation.
"July 4, our national holiday, a viva-voce election and Council ofthe Elders was held. They still insist on choosing me as Kromno. Iweary 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 tocolonize from the races still in the Abyss. If feasible, this wouldrapidly add to our population. The Folk are now civilized to a pointwhere they could rapidly assimilate outside stock.
"In addition to the Lanskaarn, a strong and active race known to existon the Central Island in the Sunken Sea, there remain persistenttraditions of a strange, yellow-haired race somewhere on the westerncoasts of that sea, beyond the Great Vortex. Two parties exist amongus.
"The minority is anxious for exploration and conquest. The majorityvotes for peace and quiet growth. It may well be that the Lanskaarnand the other people never will be rescued. I, for one, cannot attemptit. I grow a little weary. But if the younger generation so decides,that must be their problem and their
labor, like the rebuilding of thegreat cities and the reconquest of the entire continent from sea tosea.
"In the mean time--"
At the window appeared Beatrice. Smiling, she flung a yellow rose. Itlanded 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 fiveminutes!"
"Up? Long ago! Now, Allan, you just simply _must_ leave that historyand 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 shestood waiting at the window, daring not leave lest he plunge backagain into his absorbing toil.
Into his desk-drawer he slid the precious record of the community'slabor, growth, achievement, triumph. Then, with a boyish twinkle inhis eyes, he left the library.
She turned, expecting him to meet her by the broad piazza; but all atonce he stole quietly round the other corner of the bungalow, hisfootsteps noiseless in the thick grass.
Suddenly he seized her, unsuspecting, in his arms.
"My prisoner!" he laughed. "Roses? Here's the most beautiful one inour whole garden!"
"Where?" she asked, not understanding.
"This red one, here!"
And full upon the mouth he kissed her in the leaf-shaded sunshine ofthat wondrous summer day.
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