Air Wonder Stories, July 1929 — page 70: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- learn what it’s all about.” 68 no match-making mamas, no fighting to hold their places before the world, Here they are given what work they wish to do and the hours are easy; they can choose their own mates and live a simple quiet life.” “Veh”, I observed, “that’s all right for a change, but how does a steady diet of it go? And what about their families back home worrying about them?” Wormley shrugged his shoulders. get mad at me, I’m telling you facts.” “Well, then tell me the history of this glorious nation of Mentor. And what’s the Mentor for?” “That’s part of the story, It appears as if the whole thing was started back in the sixteenth century, on the heels of Columbus by a chap by the name of Mentor! Allthis talk about evolution from birds is bunk. Yeh, man-made evolution. That’s what it is.” I had to break into a laugh at this junction. “You certainly do ramble around your story. Now come across with it. You know I am anxious to “No need to “Well, who’s telling the story, anyway, you oaf? Oh ... all right I'll give it to you straight then. Here goes, and please remember that I never took up story writing.” “Aw, go on, goon... CHAPTER FOUR Wormley’s Tale Bees starting the tale, however, Worm- ” ley first plumped up his pillows and settled himself comfortably. Then he took a sip of water from the glass standing on the table between our beds. “Tt is told,” he began, “that there once lived a fellow by the name of Howard Mentor, English and Scotch stock, all scientists ... of sorts, astrologists, alchemists, leeches or whatever they called ‘em back in those days. Also some philosophers and prophets as well as some evolutionists in the bunch, too. And it seems that from father to son had come an ambition to put wings onto man long before they had the idea that machinery could be made to fly, or did they know anything about machinery in those days? I guess I’m a bit hazy about our ancestors at that. : “Well, anyway after generations of experiments it was this Howard Mentor who managed to grow Wings on the back of a rabbit or maybe it was a white rat. Howard was feeling pretty proud about that I guess so what does he decide to do but to try some experiments on his own son! “His idea seemed to be in taking certain glands from the throats of living birds and replanting them in his victims. He also injected some sort of solution into the body. Of course in those days they did not know that the blood circulated so it was a rather hit or miss proposition, and Doctor Morris seems to believe that little Howard was far ahead of his times, AIR WONDER STORIES “It had taken many generations to grow wings on the rabbit, but Grandfather Howard: was not discouraged believing rather in posterity and aimed to do as much as he could in his life time. He began right there to attempt to improve the human species by performing the same operation on his own offspring. He forced his wife to take the in- jections, submit to the operation, and also to swal- low another concoction that he brewed himself made from some part of the bird. “Tn the next ten years he had produced a pretty fair nucleus for his future generations, his wife giv- ing birth to nine children of both sexes. When she, poor woman, died, he managed to take upon him- self another wife and by using the same methods brought a half a dozen more children into the world inoculated with the virus that was eventually to bring about his heart’s desire. “Luckily Mentor had much of the world’s goods to his credit. He had a vast estate somewhere in the back-skirts of Scotland so there were no prying eyes to watch and condemn him. His next task was to obtain wives for his growing sons and husbands for his daughters. His oldest son was fifteen when he found a wife for him. She submitted docilely to the old man’s administrations and within a year their baby was born. Mentor was not dis- appointed because it was born like all other babies, He knew how to bide his time. “Tn the meantime he had been teaching his sons and daughters his science and nurtured in each one of them the desire to see men and women on wing. Perhaps a few went astray from the fold, but there is no record of such in the annals of Mentorian history. Perhaps some of his son’s wives rebelled, but our Lord Mentor knew how to quell that. Per- haps the servants rebelled and grumbled at the strange mixture the master of the house demanded be cooked with all foods so that all dishes tasted very much alike. But that was the day of serfs and feudalism, and servants were not problems then. “The most difficult task that Father Mentor had to do was to marry off his daughters. Young lordlings, counts and the like, did not care for the idea of leaving their own paternal estates to live in the already crowded castle isolated from their kind. One or two whose fortunes were not so secure came attracted by the beauty of Mentor’s daughters. A third son of an Earl who had been destined for the church married another of the beauties, but there the supply ended. So Mentor was forced to go down into the cities and buy up youths who had been incarcerated in the debtor’s prisons in order to marry off his remaining daughters. It must have been a great pleasure to is old boy when he married the last of the brood ) “One can wonder what discords must have arisen in the paternal home with more than a dozen dif- ferent families under the same roof, for now the children were being born so rapidly that it was almost too much to keep count. Mentor was pres- ent at each birth anxiously expectant as to what may be brought forth. He all but wept when his youngest daughter brought into the world a little son that had for arms what looked very much like the wings of a fledgling bird, comnicloooks.com