Air Wonder Stories, July 1929 — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

86 AIR WONDER STORIES It took almost five years for the world to forget her animosity toward Mentor, and during that time flying people were not welcome in-any of the cities of the world. But gradually the antagonism wore off, and it was not an uncommon sight to see the winged people in the cities of Quito, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires as well as in American and European cities. : And Mentor was tow coming out into the sun- light. The giants of the jungle were being torn down, and the cities were rising above ground. Fine buildings were reared and the nation was coming into her own. She had been allotted an area of one hundred miles wide and two hundred long. Her plantations continued to feed her, and her mines were working at full tilt. Tourists were now coming into Mentor’s cities, merchants had brought their wares, and the nation looked forward to a fine future, The Aerial was no longer the only newspaper in Mentor. All of the cities had their own dailies, but the Aerial was considered the leading paper, and people looked to it to give them the real news of the world. Mentor became less and less communistic. The dormitories had been forsaken, and men and women were beginning to establish their own homes, their children attending the city schools conducted by educationalists from America. Ah, could only Howard Mentor see what strides had been made by that little band of refugees who had fled to South American shores! CHAPTER ELEVEN Into A New Land XN years passed and it could be seen that T Mentor was soon to outgrow her boundaries. Brazil was watching jealously for one in- fringement on the treaty that had been made in Geneva. I saw that Patriarch Mentor, who was now nearing his sixtieth year was growing restless under the limitations of his country. I was now very close to him, for our friendship had deepened with the years, and I knew that he was looking for Jimmy Jr. to take his place when he would succumb to old age. Jimmy had grown handsomer with the years. He topped the Patriarch by an inch in height, and his tremendous wings far surpassed those of the ruler. In walking they dragged almost two feet behind him and had a spread of over sixteen feet. He held the present record of Mentor, having flown entirely around the Earth in a little over fifteen days! I now went to the Patriarch with the plan I had had in mind for several years. He agreed with me that in another getieration Mentor would not be able to stay within her boundaries, that eventually she must seek new territories. At first he was not fired with the idea of seeking that territory in North America, but eventually I convinced him that America was the only feasible part of the world where he could hope to find succor, a country that for all its two hundred million or so of population had vast lands scarcely touched. And after hours of deliberation the Patriarch called upon his coun- cellors to discuss the question with them, In the end it was decided to send emissaries to Washing- ton to ask that we be allowed to come into Ameri- can territory, I shall not go into detail as to what this request brought about in the two years that followed, but it took all of that time to convince America that it was for her own good to let us in. The President and the Patriarch had many conferences on the question in Cuba where they both met, and it is needless to say that the President was fired with the thought of what it would one day mean to the United States were she to allow this strange race to become citizens of her country. ‘When the people of the United States were told of the decision that had been made they rose up in arms and declared they would have nothing to do with the measure and demanded that it should be given no consideration. They still recalled the number of women who had been sacrificed in Mentor, and had become angered when Mentor had refused to give them up when she had been accepted in the World Court. However, many of the women and men had been given the right to return to their own people since, and most of them had re- fused although they often visited their home land. ‘oo, many of the women had given their lives in bringing into the world the winged babies, Still the President and Congress still played with the idea of admitting the Mentorites into the coun- try. Doctor Morris had been closeted with several renowned heads of the medical profession and had convinced them that it would be possible to breed wings on all those who expressed a wish to go through with the experiment, and already several such experiments had been made and proved suc- cessful. In Mentor there were hardly any Earth- bound left, for after the birth of Jimmy Jr. they had realized that by carefully breeding, the half-de- veloped wings of the Earthbound could be done away with and children of mixed bloods were now born with frue wings. It was a memorial day when the first band of winged people came into America. There were many skirmishes in which the state militia had to be called forth. It was in one of such demonstra- tions that the President was killed. The murderers were discovered and punished, and henceforth the name of the Martyred President will be known to all future generations as a great fore-sighted Ameri- can. Conclusion yes Oe of South America is still a powerful nation, but she is now undistingitishable from the winged people of the rest of the world. It would be a lone story to tell how gradually the antagonism of the world against us vanished and we were adimitted everywhere. And as the desire to fly spread among the people thousands upon thousands submitted themselves to the operation. So to day the whole world is winged, In the meantime the Patriarch grows aged and weary. He is at present drawing up an outline of a type of government which he hopes his people will accept for the future. He wishes Mentor to become a republic and suggests that James Ken- nedy, Jr. be elected by the people as their presi- dent! Lois, now a comely matron, has not lost any of her youthful charm, for the women of Mentor do not age easily. Their lives spent in the air, in full glare of the warm sun and with the far horizon Commiclooolks.cotin