A dazzling transformation scene it was: in the glow they could see, summed up, each transition of light and heat that went before: dawn’s tender flame, the fierce blaze of high noon, ruby rays of evening streaming now across the Bowl–hill-girt lake without–gathered, all gathered, in a golden age behind them to feed the sap of a noble tree, here poured forth, amid a radiant ballet of flame and spark, to furnish life, light–inspiration–to a Council Fire.
| “I watched a log in the fireplace burning, Oh! if I, too, could only be Sure to give back the love and laughter, That Life so freely gave to me!” |
Tanpa, the Guardian, softly breathed it. And in the eye of more than one girl the wish was transmuted into a tear,–into something more tender, more transported, than a laugh, as the log, in a final spurt, gave all, and fell, like a tired dancer, upon the broad hearth, its rosy chiffons crumpled and fading into the pale gray of wood-ashes.
“There it goes!” The eyes of Pemrose were a patchwork now, flame embroidered upon their shining blue; oh! if she were to give forth what Life gave to her, which of her Camp Fire Sisters would have such riches to reflect?
It had been hers–hers–to share the dream of a great inventor, to look forward with him to the pioneering moment–the beginning of that which would surely, in time, draw the Universe visibly together–the moment when the Thunder Bird should fly.
She never qualified that dream by an if, wherever the funds to equip it might come from–or even if it had to wait a dozen years, Toandoah’s triumph, like that fortune “hung up–” for the great Bird to make its new migration to the moon, in proof that space was no barrier–when the Thunder Bird, giving all, as the log had done, would drop its skeleton upon the desert of that silent satellite.
But there were steps to be taken in the meantime–exciting steps in the ladder of success. Those patchwork eyes, looking into the flame now, counted them, one by one, and hung in breathless anticipation upon the first: upon the moment, so soon to come off, when old Greylock would really send back a shout of gladness, for on his darkling summit the hand of a Camp Fire Girl of America would press the button and loose the lesser Thunder Bird to fly up the modest distance of a couple of hundred miles, or so, with its diary in its head, and send back the novel record of its flight.
“I–do–believe that my father sleeps with one eye open, thinking of that golden egg, as he calls it–the little recording apparatus,” she said, when the White Birch Group, as one, asked that the special program for this ceremonial meeting should be a talk from an inventor’s daughter upon this most daring enterprise of the age. “He says that if that does not drift back to earth safely with the crow-like parachute–if anything should happen to it, to the two little wheels, with the paper winding from one on to the other, all dashed with pencil marks–the world would call him a fool’s mate.... If it did!” Pem’s teeth were clinched. “But, of course, without the record, there would be nothing to show how high the little rocket had really flown–showing the bigger one the road,” with an excited gasp.
“Yes, I can understand how anxious he must be about the safe return of the egg–or the log–whichever you choose to call it–the first record from space, anyway.” Tanpa’s tone was almost equally excited. “And of course the wind may play pranks with the parachute–drift it away down the mountainside!”
“So that we’d lose it in the darkness–oh-h!” Pem shivered upon the thought. “But we’ll all be on the lookout to prevent that, as many of us as are there–and that won’t be more than a picked few, Dad says, to witness this first experiment.... When–when the real Thunder Bird flies, though–” she turned those patchwork eyes now, sky-blue, flame-red, upon her companions–“you’ll all–all-ll be there. And, oh! won’t it–won’t it be a sight to watch–it–tear?”