Into the Whirlwind Read Online Free PDF Page B

agreed.
    The workers of the 57th had been coming to the famous outdoor gathering spot ever since Mollie had been a child riding on her father’s shoulders. With dozens of long tables beneath the spreading branches of chestnut trees, throngs of working-class people gathered to listen to music, play chess, and savor the freshly made German sauerkraut and bratwurst. From the neighboring tables, Mollie heard people speaking German, Polish, and Italian, with plenty of Irish accents in the mix. Chicago was a melting pot with fresh waves of immigrants flooding in daily, and none more plentiful than the Germans who had brought the tradition of the outdoor Bavarian biergarten to America.
    “The four hundredth birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus is coming up,” Ulysses said. “What do you say we design a commemorative watch celebrating the solar system, with a ruby in the middle of the watch cover to represent the sun, and gemstones surrounding it to represent the planets?”
    Mollie’s brow wrinkled. For the most part, their commemorative watches sold well, but if gemstones were involved, the price soared, and they needed to be careful. “It sounds odd to me, but what do you think?” she asked Alice.

    “I can make it beautiful,” she said, “although do you really think people care about Nicolaus Copernicus?”
    Frank leaned forward. “Shh!” he said with a grin. “I hear a bunch of Poles at the table behind us. They are liable to go on a rampage if you insult their patron saint.”
    Ulysses glanced over his shoulder at the group of Polish immigrants who were paying them no mind as they moved checkers across a game board, but Ulysses was never one to miss an opportunity. “Nicolaus Copernicus was a lion of a man,” he proclaimed in a full voice. “A Polish warrior who conquered the night sky armed with nothing but a telescope and the awesome power of his mind.” Bracing his crutch beneath his shoulder, Ulysses raised himself up on his one leg and raised his voice to echo over the crowd. “Like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, Copernicus captured knowledge of the heavenly bodies and brought it down to mankind. The Copernican revolution will echo through the ages. He deserves to be commemorated in ruby, sapphire, and diamond.”
    By now he had attracted the attention of the Polish men at the neighboring table, who raised their glasses and stamped their feet in praise. One of the Poles summoned a serving woman and whispered a few words. Moments later, the waitress wended her way through the tables to deliver pints of cider.
    “From the gentlemen playing checkers,” the woman said as she set a mug before Ulysses, who grinned as he raised the pint to the group of Poles before taking a deep draught.
    Mollie looked at Alice. “Draw up some designs, and I’ll do the cost estimates,” she said. “I’ll need a 30 percent return on investment to even consider it. I dread a repetition of my father’s disaster with the Queen Victoria watch.” No one needed a reminder of Silas Knox’s reckless venture to make a watch surrounded with twenty-five diamonds to celebrate the Queen’stwenty-fifth jubilee. Mollie tried to stop him, saying no one in America would buy such an extravagant watch for a foreign monarch, and she had been correct. They had had to disassemble those watches and sell the diamonds back to the jeweler at a loss.
    Her father was an atrocious businessman, but Mollie could usually rein in his more extravagant impulses. While other girls her age were being courted and finding husbands, Mollie trained wounded veterans in the art of watchmaking and devised ways to keep the company afloat. Not that she resented the work—she loved making watches and felt called to help these brave men find a new purpose in life. The entire company now rested on her shoulders. It was a precarious balancing act, and she dreaded any change or surprise that would jolt her out of the well-worn path she had created.
    A gust of wind