A STRANGE MEETING IN THE AIR.
“Hiram, it’s only fair that you stay with us for a while this afternoon,”
Rob mentioned as they were leaving the table.
“Oh! I expected to put in say an hour or so with you, Rob; and then later
on I hope you’ll make your way over to the aviation field, where you’ll
just as like as not find me hanging around, still picking up points.”
“That’s a bargain, then, is it?” demanded Rob.
“Just as you say,” Hiram declared. “I guess now I c’n hit on the fust
thing our chum Andy here’ll be wantin’ to do. I’ve been watchin’ him
stare at that old arm every time she rose up with the car; and I see
we’re headin’ that way right fast now.”
“Yes, it’s a good idea to take that trip the first thing,” said Rob,
“because you get a comprehensive idea of the lay of the land that serves
you better than any map you can buy. They don’t stay up very long,
though, because there are more dollars waiting to be picked up from the
crowd that’s always in line to occupy the car.”
“Three hundred and sixty-five feet up is going some,” muttered Hiram. “I
hope now they don’t have any accident to the machinery while we’re taking
our look. I must see how they work this trick; it ought to be
interesting.”
He would have started to carry out this intention then and there only
that Andy held on to his coat and would not let go.
“The machinery part can keep, Hiram,” the impatient one declared. “Some
time when you’re alone poke around all you like; but my tastes run in
another channel. You’re like the geologists, with your nose pointed
toward the ground all the while; I’m built more after the style of the
astronomers who keep looking up and see the glories of the firmament that
beat the fossils all hollow.”
“H’m! you don’t say!” was all the remark Hiram made, but it contained
considerable skepticism concerning Andy’s sweeping assertion.
They fell in line, and were fortunate enough to be able to get aboard
without having to wait, as they might have done later in the afternoon.
“This thing must have cost a raft of money to build; it beats the old
Ferris Wheel to pieces, I should think; and that was a wonder in its
day.”
“Yes,” said Andy, “but think of the money they must take in, running it
all the time from February up to December. Why, I should think they’d
have millions of passengers in that time, and at so much a head it would
be like a regular gold mine.”
About that time the car was closed and locked, so that by no mischance
could any reckless passenger be tempted to jump when it was high in the
air, so as to accomplish a spectacular suicide.
“And they’ve got the windows screened in, too,” remarked Andy.
“They knew you were coming, I kinder guess, and wanted to make sure you
wouldn’t lose your head up there so as to fall overboard,” Hiram told
him.
The car was crowded, so that they could not see who all of their fellow
passengers were. There was also considerable shouting going on, some of
those aboard bidding farewell to friends who had been unable to make that
trip, as though they fully expected to keep right on going up, once they
got started toward the blue heavens overhead, until they landed in Glory.
“Here she goes!” announced Andy, eagerly, as the car was felt to vibrate.
With that they left the ground and commenced to ascend. The motion was
fairly steady, as the weights on the other end of the great seesaw had
been adjusted to correspond to the number of those in the car, so that
after all the engine did not have a great deal of hard work to do in
lifting that load.
“Whee! I only hope none of the balancing weight slips off!” said Hiram,
who appeared to be rather nervous.
“I’m surprised at you, Hiram,” remarked Rob; “it seems queer for a fellow
who aspires to be a bold air pilot some of these fine days, and who has
even been up several times as high as three thousand feet, to be
shivering with fear now, when at the most we’re only going to get three
hundred odd feet from the ground.”
“Oh, well, that’s a horse of a different color,” Hiram explained; “when
you’re up in an aëroplane it depends on your own self whether you come
down safe, or have an accident. In this case you haven’t got a single
thing to do with it, but just trust to a mechanic, who may be as reliable
as they make ’em, but could make a mistake just once. That’s what gets my
goat; my efficiency don’t count for a cent in this game.”
“Well, there is something in that,” Rob admitted; “but let’s try to find
a place and look out as we keep on rising. Already the view seems to be
getting pretty fine.”
There was more or less talking and laughing and all that in the car, for
when there happens to be a spice of danger connected with any of these
amusements many people become half hysterical.
The view was, indeed, becoming grand, as Rob had said, and both boys were
soon copying Andy, who was staring first one way and then another, as sea
and shore began to be spread out before him like a Mercator’s chart.
Although the huge arm of the giant Aëroscope had by no means reached the
upper limit of its sweep, the great buildings lying below had the
appearance of squatty “ant-heaps,” as Andy termed them; and the crowds
that swarmed many of the walks of the Exposition looked so minute that it
was hard to believe they were human beings.
All at once, the working arm of the big seesaw stopped with a rude jerk
that caused a number of girls aboard to give vent to cries of alarm. Even
strong men had a nervous look on their faces, Rob immediately noticed.
“What’s this mean?” demanded Hiram, laying a hand on Rob’s arm.
“We haven’t reached the highest sweep yet, I’m dead sure,” complained
Andy, in a petulant tone, just as though he believed the management meant
to cheat those aboard out of the full benefit of their money. “We want a
better view than this. All the others went to the top, and I don’t see
why we shouldn’t, too.”
“Rob, this stop wasn’t meant, was it?” demanded Hiram, insistent as
usual.
“Don’t talk so loud, Hiram,” he was advised. “You’ll only frighten those
girls all the more if they happen to hear you. No, I don’t believe it was
intended that we stop this far up, and with such a bump, too.”
“But is there any real danger of an accident? I wouldn’t care so much if
I had my new-fangled parachute with me, and could only get outside; for
even if the old car did drop, I’d be able to sail down like a feather.”
“Danger—of course not a bit,” Rob told him sternly. “You don’t suppose
the managers of this big Exposition would allow a mechanical affair like
this Aëroscope to be run day after day unless the owners had made it
absolutely accident proof. Just hold your horses and we’ll soon be moving
again.”
“Yes, and Hiram,” said Andy just then, “don’t put yourself on a par with
those silly screeching girls over there, who are hugging each other so.
Poor things, they don’t know any better! But you’re a scout, Hiram, and
have been taught never to show the white feather. Brace up! You’re
wearing khaki right now, and for the sake of the cloth show yourself a
man!”
That brought Hiram to a realization of the fact that he was indeed hardly
proving himself a worthy scout. He pretended to be indifferent.
“Shucks! who cares?” he exclaimed. “I do wish them girls’d let up on
their racket; it gets on a feller’s nerves to hear ’em shriek that way.”
“Well, I know what ails the old thing!” suddenly announced Andy, with a
grin on his face that told how his love for joking exceeded any faint
feeling of alarm that may have seized upon him.
“Let’s hear it, then!” demanded Rob.
“Oh, if you had only guessed it before we started it would have saved
lots of bother!” called out Hiram.
“They miscalculated the weight, you see!” continued Andy. “Some fellows
are so deceptive in their looks. Now right across from us there’s a fat
boy with his back turned this way, and staring hard out of the window. I
bet you they figured wrong on him, and that’s why we’ve got stuck up here
four-fifths of the way to the top.”
The other two now looked, and owing to some of the passengers in the car
crowding together an opening was made like a little lane. At the end of
this they discovered, just as Andy had said, an exceedingly fat boy
occupying more than his share of space, with his chubby legs braced under
him, and his face pressed against the heavy wire netting that covered the
open windows.
Rob stared, and looked more closely. He half opened his mouth to make
some sort of remark, and then as though seized with a second thought,
refrained.
“Do you really think so, Andy?” asked Hiram, in a half-awed way, as
though he actually took some stock in the ridiculous assertion made by
the other.
“Well, tell me a better explanation if you know one!” demanded Andy,
which was a queer way of clinching an argument.
“Then the quickest way to mend matters would be for you to go over there
and toss the heavy-weight overboard, don’t you think, Andy?” asked Rob,
entering into the spirit of the joke, especially since he really believed
he held the whip-hand over the fun-loving Andy.
“Huh! think so, do you, Rob?” said Andy, making out as though he felt in
a fighting humor. “Well, now, perhaps that would be the easiest way to
fix things. I’ve got a good mind to try it. Watch my smoke, Hiram!”
With that he actually squared himself, rolled up the sleeves of his coat,
and even started across the car. Hiram turned pale. He seemed to forget
that there was no possible way in which any one inside the car could
manage to effect their escape so long as the great arm of the giant
seesaw was elevated in the air.
“Rob, are you going to stand for that?” he burst out.
“No use trying to stop him now, Hiram,” he was told.
“But look at him squaring off, Rob, like he really means it!” cried
Hiram. “It would be just like Andy, he’s so rash, you know, to get us all
arrested. What if he did knock that fat boy off the car! Why, Rob, don’t
you see the sudden jolt when the weight was changed might make us fly up,
and bring about a catastrophe?”
“That’s so, it might, Hiram,” said Rob, trying hard to keep a straight
face.
“Oh! it’s too late to stop him, Rob!”
“Yes, I see it is,” replied the scout leader, and somehow there was not
much of excitement about either his voice or his manner, only an apparent
inane desire to grin, Hiram thought as he looked at his chum.
“There, he’s actually grabbed hold of the fat boy, and is trying to lift
him up so as to get him out of the window.”
“You’re a little off there, Hiram. Seems to me I would say Andy was
trying to hug the poor fat boy, because he’s certainly thrown his arms
around him, and acts as if he might be glad to meet him!”
“Why, Rob, whatever can that mean! He is acting just as you say, and it
seems to me Andy isn’t doing all the hugging, either.”
At that Rob broke into a hearty laugh.
“You know what it stands for, and you won’t tell me a thing, which I
think is a mean job,” complained Hiram.
“Look again,” Rob told him. “Now the fat boy happens to have his face
turned this way. Don’t you think you’ve seen that same moon phiz before,
Hiram? Doesn’t it somehow take you back to dear old Hampton, and the many
jolly times we’ve had on our camping trips? Say, you ought to know that
boy, Hiram.”
As soon as he could catch his breath, Hiram gave a shout.
“Why, consarn my picture if it isn’t our chum, Tubby Hopkins!”