FLYING
"NEWS, news, news," shouted Roger as he turned a cartwheel before the
porch on which his mother was sitting. It was the day after Old First
Night.
"What is it? Vera Cruz--?" asked Mrs. Morton and Ethel Blue, whose
thoughts always were with the Navy and Army.
"Nothing to do with Vera Cruz," Roger reassured them. "This event is
much nearer home. It isn't any farther away from home than from here to
the steamboat dock."
"What is it, Roger?" demanded Helen. "You're so tantalizing!"
"Oh, for the white wings, sailing, sailing," sang Roger, advancing
gracefully with outstretched arms and retreating abruptly as Dicky made
a rush at him, head down like a young goat.
"Are you going to sail in the _Humbug_ again?"
"Has she won another race?"
"Come, birdie, birdie, perch on this twig," cooed Ethel Brown with a
gesture toward the piazza rail, "and tell us all about it."
Roger responded to this appeal, especially as it was re-enforced by the
bait of a fresh cooky, held out invitingly.
"Ladies," he began impressively, as he roosted on the offered rail and
took a generous bite out of the cooky.
"Just an instant, Roger, until that cooky disappears," begged his mother
with upraised hand.
"I can talk all right," mumbled Roger.
"But we can't hear you all right," retorted Helen.
"Oh, come, you like cookies as well as I do," remonstrated her brother,
taking in the last crumb.
"Certainly I do, and Ethel Brown's are the best ever, but I eat mine in
sections."
"So do I--two sections," grinned Roger. "There, now I'm sufficiently
refreshed to tell you the news. I suppose you poor creatures didn't
realize there was any news, eh?"
"By a strenuous use of our wits we gathered that there was something in
the air when we saw you approach," murmured Helen, who sometimes found
Roger trying.
"List, then, beloved members of my family----"
"Hark to the troubadour," mocked Ethel Blue.
"Now, child, if you interrupt your uncle Roger you won't ever learn this
thrilling piece of information that is about to fall from my ruby lips."
"Chirp on, then, ornithological specimen."
"Ma'am!" exclaimed Roger, burlesquing a fall from the railing.
"Fortunately you don't catch me in the state of ignorance that you
supposed when you hurled that awful language at me. I haven't got a
grandmother who is a member of the Rosemont Bird and Tree Club for
nothing. An 'ornithological specimen' is just slang for 'bird.' Look out
or I'll retaliate with 'chicken.'"
"I'm no chicken," denied Ethel Blue instantly.
"Look at that, Mother!" implored Roger. "All fussed up over a trifle
like that! And the funny part is that if _I_ said she was 'no chicken'
she'd be just as mad! Girls are so queer," and he heaved an exaggerated
sigh of perplexity.
"Do let's have your news if it's worth telling," asked Mrs. Morton.
"She doubts me," commented Roger haughtily. "Ha! You'll see, madam, that
you have no reason to throw asparagus on my announcement. It's real news
that I'm bringing. Chautauqua, the spot that we're honoring by our
presence this summer, Chautauqua--is to have a birdman!"
The result of Roger's announcement was all that he had hoped and more
than he had expected. The Ethels fairly pranced with excitement. Helen
clapped her hands excitedly, and Mrs. Morton laid down her embroidery to
ask, "When is he to come?"
"How perfectly stunning!"
"Where will he fly from?"
"Where's he going to keep his machine?"
"Is he going to take passengers?"
The questions flew fast and Roger covered his ears as if they
overwhelmed him. He answered his mother's question first.
"He's due to-morrow, Mother. They're starting right this minute to put
up the tent he's going to use for his hangar. It's down side of the
steamboat dock. His machine is what they call a hydro-aeroplane--"
"It will go both in the water and in the air?"
"So I understand. I saw a picture of it and it looked to me as if it
could go on land, too, for men were pulling it down to the water's edge
on its own wheels."
"Probably the engine doesn't work the wheels, though."
"Probably not enough for it to travel far on them. He starts off on the
water, anyway, and then he rises from the water and the machine goes
along like any aeroplane. It's a biplane."
"Meaning?" queried Ethel Brown.
"That it has two planes--two sets of wings on each side."
"You didn't tell us whether he's going to carry passengers."
"I don't know. I asked, but nobody seemed ready to answer."
"Let's go down to the dock and see them put up the hangar."
"After dinner, children, after dinner," insisted Mrs. Morton. "How long
will he stay, Roger?"
"A week or two."
"Then you can surely eat your dinner before rushing off. We're so near
the dock you can easily see every flight if you put your minds on it."
Mrs. Emerson smiled at her daughter's words, for they both recalled a
time when the Morton children were so eager to see a new teacher who had
just come to Rosemont that they almost lived on the sidewalk in front of
her house, in order that no passage in or out might escape them.
Seldom was a meal in the Morton dining-room disposed of with such
slight attention as this dinner which had to be met and conquered before
the reconnaissance could be made. Both Ethels declared that they really
did not feel at all like having dessert to-day, and they seemed grieved
when Mrs. Morton regretted their lack of interest in it, but failed to
take it as a reason for allowing them to leave the table before the rest
of the family had finished.
"If we've got to stay we might as well eat it," said Ethel Brown
sulkily.
"Mary would like to see that you appreciated her thoughtfulness," said
Mrs. Morton gently. "She has taken pains to make caramel custard to-day
because she heard you say a little while ago that you 'adored' it."
"Good for Mary. I'm a Selfish Susy," declared Ethel Brown promptly.
"I'll eat two to make up for it," she added with a cock of her head.
"O-oh," groaned Roger, "and me planning to take advantage of the dear
children's sudden and unusual lack of appetite!"
"Foiled again, villain!" declaimed Helen.
"Now, then, I'll race you to the beach," cried Roger as soon as dinner
was over, and off they went, regardless of Grandmother Emerson's
anxieties about the shock to their digestions.
After all, the hangar proved to be not much to see. There was a large
tent to house the machine and there was a small tent for a dressing-room
for the aviator and another to serve as a sleeping tent for his
machinists who were also to act as watchmen against damage from a
sudden storm or a heavy wind coming up in the night, or the too curious
fingers of the inquisitive during the day.
The tents were entirely unremarkable, but drays were hauling from the
freight station big boxes that contained the parts of the wonderful
machine, and a rapidly increasing crowd stood about while their tops
were unscrewed and the contents examined. A man who was directing the
workers was proven to be the airman when some one called his
name--Graham.
"It won't be assembled before to-morrow afternoon, I suspect," he had
answered. "Then I'll try it out carefully. A man bird can't take any
chances with his wings, you know."
"I'd like to ask him if he's going to take passengers," whispered Ethel
Brown, and Roger was so eager to find out that fact himself that he
worked his way nearer and nearer to Mr. Graham when he heard some one
put the question.
"It depends," answered that young man diplomatically. "If the machine
works well I may do it. Or I may make only exhibition flights. I shan't
know for a day or two."
"What'th it'th name?" asked Dicky, who had heard so much talk about
birds that he thought Mr. Graham was bringing to light some bird pet.
"Its name?" repeated the aviator. "It hasn't a name, kid. It ought to
have one, though," he went on thoughtfully. "You couldn't suggest one,
could you?"
"Ith it a lady bird or a boy bird?" he asked.
"H'm," murmured Mr. Graham, seriously; "I never thought to ask when I
bought it. We'll have to give it a name that will do for either."
"There aren't any," announced Dicky firmly. "There'th only boy nameth
and lady nameth."
"Then we'll have to make up a name. It wouldn't be a bad idea," said
Graham, turning to one of his assistants. "Why not offer a prize to the
person who suggests the most suitable name?"
"It would help keep up the interest."
"It doesn't look as if that would need any outside stimulus," smiled
Graham, glancing at the crowd, held back now by ropes stretched from
posts driven down into the beach.
When darkness fell electric lights were rigged so that the machinists
might go on with their work, and all through the night they matched and
fitted and screwed so that by morning the great bird was on its feet. By
noon the engine was snapping sharply at every trial, and when the waning
light of six o'clock fell on the lake all was in such condition that Mr.
Graham was ready to make his first venture.
The Morton children were in the front rank of the crowd that thronged
the grounds about the tents. An extra guard kept back the people who
pressed too closely upon the preparations still under way, for a
mechanical bird must be as carefully prepared for its flight as a horse
for a race.
When all was well Mr. Graham mounted upon his seat. He wore just such a
blue serge coat and just such white flannel trousers as a thousand men
on the grounds were wearing, and the Mortons did not know whether to
feel disappointed because his get-up was not more spectacular or to
admire the coolness with which he stepped aboard for a flight that
seemed to them fraught with peril in the every day garb of the ordinary
man who never leaves the ground except in imagination.
"I like him this way," announced Ethel Blue. "It makes you feel as if he
was so far from being afraid that he didn't even take the trouble to
make any special preparations."
"I hoped he'd wear goggles and a leather suit and cap," said Roger, who
was decidedly disappointed. "Those fellers look like some sports."
But if Mr. Graham's appearance was disappointing, his flight was all
that their fancy had painted it and more. He mounted with apparent
carelessness to his seat, and then the machine was pushed from the
hangar to the beach. Leaving its beak in the water the helpers ran back
and whirled its tail violently. A whir of remonstrance answered at once
and the engine took up the complaint.
"There she goes! There she goes!" cried Roger and a hum of delight and
wonder rose from the crowd.
Out into the water she swept, chugging noisily over the surface, her
wings tipping gently from side to side as she sped. The people on the
gallery of the Pier House cheered. Men waved their hats and women their
hands.
"She's going up! See her rise?" they cried once more as the big bird's
beak turned upward and the body followed with a swiftness that took the
whole machine into the air while the spectators were guessing how long
she would drag before she felt the wind under her wings.
And then, southward, straight southward, she flew, rising, ever rising
until she was high in air and but a spot in the distance. Not until the
spot had disappeared did the crowd breathe naturally.
"That's the most marvellous sight I ever saw!"
"I wonder how it feels."
"Wouldn't you like to try it?"
Then came a cry of "Here she comes back!" and in an incredibly short
time, the engine's buzz once more struck their waiting ears. As he
approached Chautauqua the airman sank lower and lower, until he looked
like a mammoth bird darting toward one shore and then the other,
swooping down to catch an insect, and rising again until the rays of the
sinking sun glistened on his wings.
The Mortons were not the only Chautauquans who were eager to know if Mr.
Graham was going to take up passengers. Never did he make a flight that
he was not beset by would-be fliers urging their company upon him. Roger
hung about with desire in his heart, but he never spoke to the aviator
about it because he had seen so many grown men refused that he knew
there was no chance for a boy.
One day, however, he overheard a conversation between Mr. Graham and one
of his mechanics which put hope into his heart.
"I'm perfectly sure of her now," the airman said. "She flies like a real
bird and I've got her tuned up just the way I want her. I believe I'll
let the passengers come on."
Roger went home delighted. The next day he was at the hangar long before
any one else, and spoke diffidently to Mr. Graham's helper.
"I heard Mr. Graham say yesterday that he was going to take passengers
to-day," he said hesitatingly. "Of course I'm only a boy, but I do want
to go up."
"Want to just as much as if you were a man, eh?" smiled the mechanician.
"I shouldn't wonder if you did. Have you got the price?"
That there should be a "price" had not occurred to Roger. He flushed as
he said, "I don't know. How much is it?"
"Twenty-five dollars."
Roger drew a long whistle and turned away.
"No flying for me, until flying's free," he chanted drearily. "Forget
that I spoke," he added, nodding to the young man.
"Too bad, old chap. Perhaps your ship will come in some day and then you
for the clouds," he called cheerily after Roger's retreating form.
"Uh, huh," grunted Roger skeptically, for never had he had the sum of
twenty-five dollars to do what he chose with, and he set about banishing
the thought of flying from his mind for many years to come.
There was no lack of passengers at any sum the aviator chose to ask, it
seemed. All the Morton children were on the beach regularly at every
flight and they saw man after man and woman after woman ascend. The
novices always wore a nervously doubtful smile as they left the familiar
ties of earth and water behind them and a laugh of delight as they came
back unafraid and joyous.
"It looks as if it must be the most perfect feeling that you could
have," sighed Ethel Blue as they watched a beaming woman approach over
the water and then come down from her seat beside the air chauffeur.
"I'm like Roger--I could almost die happy if I could have just one fly."
"The airman has offered a prize for the best name for his machine,"
Ethel Brown read from the _Daily_ at breakfast one morning.
"Don't I wish I could get it!" ejaculated Roger.
"Or I!" "Or I!" "Or I!" came from Helen and Ethel Brown and Ethel Blue.
"It was Dicky's notion. He suggested it to Mr. Graham by asking him what
the name of his bird was. He ought to give a prize to Dicky for putting
the idea into his head," said Roger.
"Or to some member of Dicky's family who would enjoy the ride more,"
added Mr. Emerson slyly.
"What would be a good name for it?" wondered Mrs. Emerson.
"Hummer," said Roger. "It makes such a humming noise."
"Buzz-saw," suggested Grandfather Emerson.
"Bumble-bee," offered Mrs. Morton.
"Humming bird," suggested Helen.
"Swallow," "_Hirondelle_," cried both Ethels at once.
"_Hirondelle?_ That means 'swallow,'" translated Grandfather Emerson.
"You two had the same idea at the same moment."
"It's prettier than a noisy name," defended Ethel Brown.
"The swallow is prettier than the bumble bee or the humming bird,"
defended Ethel Blue at the same moment. "I'd rather give the machine a
name that made you think of its graceful motion rather than one that
makes you think of its horrid noise."
"I withdraw 'Buzz-saw.' You've convinced me," said Mr. Emerson.
"Mr. Graham says here," Ethel Brown picked up the newspaper again, "that
he'd like to have the suggestions sent him by mail and that he'll decide
to-morrow, and that the prize will be a ride in his hydroplane."
"Me for pen and ink," shouted Roger as he rose promptly from the table.
"Let's send ours in together," said both Ethels at once.
They often spoke together in this way. It seemed as if their being
constantly together made them think the same thoughts at the same time.
"We'll tell him that we called out Swallow and _Hirondelle_ at the same
instant and so we're applying for the prize together, and we hope it
will please him because it's the name of one of the most graceful birds
there is and we think his airship is the most graceful one we ever saw."
"Perfectly true, considering it's the only one you ever saw," giggled
Helen.
"Never mind," said Mrs. Morton soothingly. "Write him just that note and
it will please him that you like his machine even if he doesn't care for
the name you suggest."
Mrs. Morton had thought seriously about the possibility of one of the
children's going up with Mr. Graham ever since the airman had come to
the grounds. At first she had dismissed the thought as of something too
dangerous for her to think of permitting. Then, as she watched Mr.
Graham day by day and saw his extreme care and learned from his
mechanician that he never failed personally to test every wire and nut
before he started out, she grew to have such confidence in him that she
was almost as disappointed as Roger when she learned the fee for a
fifteen minute trip in the air. Now there was at least a chance that
some member of the family might have the opportunity, so she made no
objection to the sending in of the suggestions.
There was a great writing of letters, a mighty flurry of envelopes, a
loud calling for postage stamps, and a march in procession of the
younger members of the household up the hill to the Post Office.
"Mr. Graham flies to Mayville every morning to carry a special bag of
Chautauqua postcards to the mail there," said Roger. "Let's go to the
hangar when he starts. He always brings the bag down the hill himself
and perhaps he'll have his own mail at the same time and we can sit off
on the dock somewhere and watch him open it."
"Oh, I don't think we'd better do that," said Ethel Blue shrinkingly.
"It would seem like intruding on him."
"Perhaps it might," agreed Roger. "The truth is, I'm so perfectly crazy
to go up I'm losing my manners."
"Let's write postcards to Father and Uncle Richard, any way," suggested
Ethel Brown. "You know they're stamped 'Aerial Delivery' or some such
words and it will interest them awfully at Vera Cruz to know their mail
started on its way to Mexico by airship."
They went into the writing room at the Post Office and prepared the
special postcards, and had the pleasure of nodding to Mr. Graham when he
came for the bag. They had slipped their own letters into the regular
letter drop and they watched him receive a handful of personal letters,
among which were their own, with a vivid interest because they felt that
in a few hours their fate would be decided.
"I'm going to feel sorry if I don't get the prize," confessed Helen,
"but not more than one of us can get it--unless he should take up the
Ethels together because they're little--and I'll be glad if one of us
has the chance to go."
"Me, too," said Roger stoutly. "But I wish he had an ark and could take
the whole family."
"We needn't be so sure that a member of our family will take the prize,"
suggested Mrs. Morton when they came home. "There are one or two other
families on the grounds and I've no doubt the poor man will regret his
offer when he has to open his mail."
"He had some crop this morning," said Roger. "I dare say it will grow
all day long."
It was the next day but one before the exciting question was decided.
Then Mr. Graham inserted a card in the _Daily_. Ethel Brown read it
again at the breakfast table.
"'Mr. Graham desires to announce,'" she read, "'that two young ladies
have suggested the name he has been most pleased with--Swallow and
_Hirondelle_. He prefers the French form but he will be glad to
discharge his obligations to both the persons who suggested practically
the same name.'"
"It's _us_," murmured Ethel Blue, too surprised to speak aloud.
"'If Miss Ethel Brown Morton and Miss Ethel Blue Morton will be at the
hangar at six o'clock this evening Mr. Graham will redeem his offer.'"
"Isn't it too wonderful!" gasped Helen.
"I'm glad of it," declared Roger bravely and he tweaked each Ethel's
hair as he left the room.
"I'm almost sorry," whispered Ethel Blue; "Roger wants it so much."
Mrs. Morton smiled at her.
"You've won it fairly," she said. "We'll all be at the dock to see you
go this afternoon."
There could not have been a better evening for a first flight. There was
not a breath of air to cause any anxiety either to passengers or to
observers. The sun had sunk far enough for its rays not to be disturbing
unless the aviator flew much higher than he was in the habit of doing.
The crowd on the shore was the only upsetting feature to rather timid
girls.
"We mustn't mind them," whispered Ethel Blue.
"There's always something disagreeable about everything nice; this time
it's the people," agreed Ethel Brown.
"They're kind and interested. Forget all about them," advised Mrs.
Morton.
Mr. Emerson escorted the two girls to the hangar.
"Here are the two young women who suggested the Swallow as the most
appropriate name for your big bird," he said, smiling.
Mr. Graham shook hands with them both.
"I know your faces very well," he said. "You've been here every day."
"Yes," they nodded.
"We're so much obliged to you," said Ethel Blue.
"We've been perfectly crazy to go up," said Ethel Brown.
"Which of you suggested _Hirondelle_?" asked the aviator.
"Ethel Blue did"; and
"I did," answered both girls in unison.
"Then I'll ask Miss Ethel Blue to go up first, since it is her choice
that I've had painted on my machine's wings."
Sure enough, as the aircraft came trundling out of the tent there were
letters to be seen indistinctly on the under side of the lower planes.
Ethel Blue clasped her hands nervously; but Mr. Emerson was speaking
calmly to her, and Mr. Graham was taking a last look over the machine so
that she felt sure that everything would be secure, and Aunt Marion and
the children were smiling just the other side of the ropes, and Ethel
Brown was waiting for her to come back so that she could have her turn,
and above all, the words of the good Bishop rang through her mind.
"Don't let your imagination run away with you."
Of a sudden she became perfectly cool, and when Mr. Graham helped her
into the little seat and fastened a strap around her waist she laughed
heartily at his joke about the number of holes difference between the
size of her waist and that of the last passenger.
Then he climbed beside her, and the machine began to move clumsily
forward as the men ran it down to the water.
"Hold tight," came a voice that was strong and kind.
The water splashed in her face and she knew that the hydroplane was
pretending it was a duck.
Then came the kind voice again.
"We're going to rise now. Open your eyes."
She obeyed and of a sudden there thrilled through her the same
delightful sensation she had felt in her dreams when she had been a bird
and had soared higher and higher toward the sky. Then she had wept when
she wakened to realize that it had not happened at all. Now it was truly
happening. She was up, up, up in the air; the water was shining beneath
her; the hilly land was growing flatter and flatter as she looked down
upon it. Trees seemed like shrubs, boats like water beetles. A motor
boat that had tried to race them was left hopelessly behind.
"It's Bemus Point," she screamed into Graham's ear, and he smiled and
nodded.
"We're going to turn," he shouted back.
Then they dipped and soared, the aviator always telling her what he was
going to do so that she might not be taken by surprise. As they
approached Chautauqua again they saw the people on the shore and the
dock applauding but the noise of the engine was so great that the sounds
did not reach them.
"Down we go," warned Mr. Graham, and in landing they reversed the
starting process.
There were smiles and shouts of welcome for both of them as they
beached.
"_Hirondelle_ looks bully painted on the wings," called Roger.
Mr. Graham helped Ethel from her seat.
"You're the youngest passenger I've ever taken up," he said, "but I've
never had a pluckier."
"Never a pluckier." Ethel Blue said the words over and over while Ethel
Brown took her turn and sailed away toward Mayville and then down the
lake for a five mile stretch.
"Never a pluckier."
She knew exactly why she had not been afraid. She had not felt that she
was a girl trying to be a swallow; while the flight lasted she really
had been the _Hirondelle_ of her dreams.