OUT OF THE AIR
As Florence sat in a shadowy corner of the stage waiting for the company
to gather and start their march to the banquet hall, she was thinking, “I
wonder if he heard. If he did, shall I hear from him? Or will the mystery
of the boy in the crimson sweater remain unsolved?”
She was roused from these wonderings by Jeanne’s voice in her ears,
“Come, _ma cherie_! It is time to go.”
To Florence, who had lived so much of her life in out-of-the-way places,
their banquet hall with its blinking candles, snow-white linen and
glistening silver was a place of great enchantment.
They were all there: Tim O’Hara and his two bright-eyed young
secretaries, the harpist in her red waist, the little Spaniard who played
the guitar, the entire cast and several others.
They were all scanning the bill of fare when there was a commotion at the
door.
“You can’t come in,” a waiter was saying.
“But I must come in,” a youthful voice insisted. “They called me in out
of the air and here I am.”
“Out—out of the air!” Florence exclaimed, springing to her feet.
At that instant the intruder broke from the head waiter’s grasp and there
he stood, the boy in the crimson sweater.
Tim O’Hara sized up the situation at a glance. Next instant he was on his
feet, “Ladies and gentlemen.” There was a thrill in his voice. “I have
always insisted that we bring them in from the air. Now here is visible
proof. Less than an hour ago Miss Huyler broadcast an appeal. It was to
the boy in the crimson sweater. And now here he is.”
Turning to the boy he said, “Whoever you are and whatever your name, you
are a welcome guest at our party.” At that he ushered him to a place at
Florence’s side.
The boy’s story was soon told. He had been sent to the island by the
conservation editor of a New York magazine. His task had been to
determine, as far as possible, how many wild moose were on the island.
Some seventy or more had been taken from the island. Were there still
hundreds or thousands? All those interested in wild life wanted to know.
“When the fires started,” he went on, “I thought of volunteering as a
fire-fighter. But I had to have the count of moose for the next issue of
the magazine. I couldn’t back out on the job I’d been sent to do. So I
continued to count moose.
“At last,” he hesitated, “well, you know how it is. You sometimes feel
things.”
“Yes,” Florence agreed, “and sometimes feel them wrong.”
“But this time I felt them right.” He laughed. “I was suspected of doing
something terrible. I was suspected of setting fires. How horrible! I
setting fires! I who have always worshipped trees as God’s first
temples?”
“But how were we to know?” Florence exclaimed. “We—”
“You couldn’t know,” the boy broke in. “Nor could you help my being
angry.
“Well,” he sighed, “I decided to play the game out to the end. So I
dodged you again and again.
“The end came,” he took a long breath, “when Birch Island was in peril.
That island had been my home. I loved it. And I loved the ‘Phantom
Fisherman’ as you called him. He was my friend and that island was his
home too. So you see,” he laughed low, “I had to come out in the open and
fight beside you. I was sure you’d never know me without my sweater. When
the fight was over I put the sweater on where you could see me. Then I
vanished.”
“And you—” Florence did not finish, just sat staring at him.
“I caught a small boat to the mainland, prepared my report, and came to
New York just in time to find you here. Which is worth all my trouble,”
he added with a touch of gallantry.
“Then you—”
“I meant to give myself up,” he added.
“What I didn’t know was that you’d call for me from the air.
“That,” he went on after a brief silence, “was the finishing touch.
“And now,” his tone changed, “something tells me this is a grand feed and
I’m keeping you from enjoying it. Suppose we proceed. Don’t let me spoil
your celebration.”
Enjoy it they did to the full. When it was over they all went trooping
back to the theater for the final performance.
To her surprise, Florence found herself going through her act the second
time like a seasoned actor. As her voice went out over the air, no one
listening in would have guessed that she was just another girl from the
tall timber of Isle Royale.
When Jeanne had repeated her dance of the flames and the curtain was run
down for the last time, the two girls said goodbye to that jolly,
friendly company and to their new friend in the red sweater. After that
they strolled out to the brightly lit streets of New York at night.
“Look at the people,” Florence exclaimed.
“They act as if they did not mean to go home till morning.”
When they neared their hotel they heard a cracked voice calling, “Extra!
Extra! All about—”
“There!” Florence exclaimed, “There’s our old newsboy. I must buy one
more paper.”
As she took the paper she slipped a silver half dollar into his bony
hand. He stared at her for a moment, then coming close he said in a low
voice, “Don’t stay too long, child. Don’t stay too long.”
“He’s right,” she said to Jeanne, as they entered their room a moment
later. “Look! It is midnight. New York has been whirling us ’round and
’round.”
“Ah, yes,” Jeanne sighed. “But it has been glorious.”
“Yes,” Florence agreed. “For all that, I’m glad we’re starting back to
Isle Royale and the _Wanderer_ tomorrow. I want to hear the wash of the
waves on the rocky shore and the seagull’s scream. I want to waken in the
night and catch the hoarse hoot of the fog horn on Passage Island. I want
to smell the cool damp of balsam and spruce trees and watch the sun go
down over Green Stone Ridge. That’s life for me.”
“Yes, _ma cherie_,” Jeanne agreed. “That _is_ life, but not for your
little Jeanne, not for a long, long time to come.”
“Why? What’s the matter?” Florence was startled.
“A letter from France,” Jeanne explained. “It has followed me days and
days. Now it has caught up with me. I must return to France at once. So
you see, my dear, it is goodbye. I go east and you go west. Is it not
ever so?
“But I shall come back,” her spirits rose. “When the tulips nod gaily and
there is the scent of lilacs in the air I shall return. And then—_Oh,
la—la!_ Who knows what will happen?”
Next morning on the deck of Jeanne’s ship they clasped hands.
“Goodbye, Florence.”
“Goodbye, Jeanne.”
“Shall we meet again?”
“Who knows?”
And so they parted. Shall they meet again? We can but repeat Florence’s
words, “Who knows?” If they do and it is our good fortune to learn of
their further adventures you shall read of them in a book to be called,
_Mystery in Red_.
Transcriber’s Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original printed text—this e-text
is public domain in the country of publication.
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.
--In the text versions, italic text is delimited by _underscores_.