But as she discarded the lawn for a dark gingham in her little chamber, Orissa’s face was more serious than her words and she wondered – as she had wondered hundreds of times – whether her brother’s great venture would bring them ruin or fortune.
CHAPTER II
A DISCIPLE OF AVIATION
The Kanes had come to California some three years previous because of Mr. Kane’s impaired health. He had been the manager of an important manufacturing company in the East, on a large salary for many years, and his family had lived royally and his children been given the best education that money could procure. Orissa attended a famous girls’ school and Stephen went to college. But suddenly the father’s health broke and his physicians offered no hope for his life unless he at once migrated to a sunny clime where he might be always in the open air. He came to California and invested all his savings – not a great deal – in the orange ranch. Three months later he died, leaving his blind wife and two children without any financial resources except what might be gleaned from the ranch. Fortunately the boy, Stephen, had just finished his engineering course at Cornell and was equipped – theoretically, at least – to begin a career with one of the best paying professions known to modern times. Mechanical to his finger tips, Stephen Kane had eagerly absorbed every bit of information placed before him and had been graduated so well that a fine position was offered him in New York, with opportunity for rapid advancement.
Mr. Kane’s death prevented the young man from accepting this desirable offer. He was obliged to go to Los Angeles to care for his mother and sister. It was a difficult situation for an inexperienced boy to face, but he attacked the problem with the same manly courage that had enabled him to conquer Euclid and Calculus at school, and in the end arranged his father’s affairs fairly well.
The oranges from the ranch would give them a net income of about two thousand dollars a year, which was far from meaning poverty, although much less than the family expenditures had previously been. There were other fruits on the place, an ample vegetable garden and a flock of chickens, so the Kanes believed they would live very comfortably on their income. In addition to this, Steve could earn a salary as a mechanical engineer, or at least he believed he could.
He found, however, after many unsuccessful attempts, that his professional field was amply covered by experienced men, and as a temporary makeshift he was finally driven to accept a position in an automobile repair shop.
“It’s an awful comedown, Ris,” he said to Orissa, his confidant, “but I can’t afford to loaf any longer, you know, and the pay is almost as much as a young engineer gets to start with. So I’ll tackle it and keep my eye open for something better.”
While Stephen was employed in this repair shop a famous aviator named Willard came to town with his aëroplane and met with an accident that badly disabled his machine. Although aviators have marked Southern California as their chosen field from the beginning, because one may fly there all winter, there was not a place in the city where a specialty was made of repairing airships. Naturally Mr. Willard sought an automobile repair shop as the one place most liable to supply his needs.
The manager shook his head.
“We know nothing about biplanes,” he confessed.
“Pardon me, sir,” said Stephen Kane, who was present, “I know something about airships, and I am sure I can repair Mr. Willard’s, if you will take the job.”
The aviator turned to him gratefully.
“Thank you,” he said; “I’ll put my machine in your hands. What experience have you had with biplanes of this type?”
“None at all,” was the answer; “but I am sure you will not find an experienced airship man in this city. I’ve studied the devices, though, ever since Montgomery made his first flights, and as we have all the requisite tools and machinery here I am sure, with your assistance and direction, I can readily put your machine into perfect condition.”
He did, performing the work excellently. Before long another biplane needed repairs, and Stephen was recommended by Mr. Willard. Later a Curtiss machine came under Steve’s hands, and then an Antoinette monoplane. The manager raised the young fellow’s salary, proud that he had a man competent to repair these new-fangled inventions which were creating such a stir throughout the country.
Stephen Kane might have continued to follow the calling of an expert aëroplane doctor with marked success, had he been an ordinary young mechanic. But the air castles he had built at college were not all dissipated, as yet, and aside from possessing decided talent as a workman Steve had an inventive genius that promised great things for his future. By the time he had taken a half dozen different aëroplanes apart and repaired them he had a thorough knowledge of their construction and requirements, and the best of them seemed to him wholly inadequate for the purpose for which they were planned.
“The fact is, Ris,” he said to Orissa one evening, after he had been poring over a book on air currents, “the airships of to-day are all experimental, and chock full of mistakes. No two are anywhere near alike, and each man thinks he has the only correct mechanism.”
“But they fly,” answered the girl, who was keenly interested in the subject of aviation and had twice been down to the shop to examine the aëroplanes Steve was repairing.
“So they do; they fly, after a fashion,” admitted the young man, “which fully proves the thing can be accomplished. But present machines are all too complicated, and the planes seem to have been shaped by guesswork, rather than common sense. They fuss with motors and propellers and ignore the sustaining mechanism, which is the most vital principle of all. Some day we shall see the sky full of successful aviators, and flying will be as common as automobiling now is; but when that time comes we shall laugh at the crude devices they brag of to-day.”
“That may be true,” returned the girl, thoughtfully; “but isn’t it true of every great invention, that the first models are imperfect?”
“Quite true,” said he. “I can make a better biplane than any I have seen, but I admit that had I not had the advantage of seeing any I might have blundered as all the rest seem to have done.”
“Why don’t you make one, Steve?” asked Orissa impulsively. “If aviation is going to become general the man who builds the best aëroplane will make his fortune.”
Steve flushed and rose to tramp up and down the room before he answered. Then he stopped before his sister and said in low, intense accents:
“I long to make one, Orissa! The idea has taken possession of my thoughts until it has almost driven me crazy. I can make a machine that will fly better and be more safe and practical than either the Wright or Curtiss machines. But the thing is impossible. I – I haven’t the money.”
Orissa sat staring at the rug for a long time. Finally she asked:
“How much money would it take, Steve?”
He hesitated.
“I don’t know. I’ve never figured it out. What’s the use?”
“There is use in everything,” declared his sister, calmly. “Get to work and figure. Find out how much you need, and then we’ll see if we can manage it.”
He gazed at her as if bewildered. Then he turned and left the room without a word.
A few evenings later he handed her an estimate.
“I think it could be done for three thousand dollars,” he remarked. “Which means, of course, it can’t be done at all.”
Orissa took the paper without replying and pondered over it for several days. She was only seventeen, but had inherited her father’s clear, business-grasping mind, and would have been an essentially practical girl had not her youth and inexperience lent her some illusions that time would dissipate.
Stephen posed as the “head of the family;” but Orissa really directed its finances, poor Mrs. Kane being so helpless that her children never depended upon her for counsel but on the contrary kept all business matters from her, lest she worry over them.