Ernest’s plane had never made a prettier flight. Everything looked
clear as crystal in the light of morning, and the occasional clouds
through which they sailed were fleecy and thin.
Eddie enjoyed the trip in a subdued way. He had been through so many
shocks since awaking and had had so many hairbreadth escapes that he
put Fatty and his fate out of his mind. It would do no good to
worry. His one deep hope was that Fatty, who had taken a late train,
was not yet up.
On the other hand, Eddie knew that if Fatty was up, he was certainly
tinkering with his cousin’s tools, and if he was, why, by _this_ time
there was no Fatty. And worrying could not help it. It could not
drive the splendid little plane a breath faster. When at the end of
the second hour of smooth flight Eddie saw the city of Cincinnati
lying far ahead, his thoughts returned to Fatty. If Fatty had sold
that to anyone else, Eddie knew that by the time they found it out,
the last owner would be well on his way to Europe or South America.
And Eddie, who was tired out, vowed that after that it was up to
Fatty to reclaim the dangerous tube. But all seemed to hinge on
Fatty being still in bed.
Reaching the city, they descended at the Landing Field, and grabbed
the first taxi. After a long ride they reached the house they were
seeking. And it was all there!
“Gosh, I hate to go in!” said Ernest. “Fatty may drop that thing any
second.”
“Where are the boys?” Eddie asked the maid who answered the doorbell.
“We want to see Henry Bascom.”
“I don’t believe he is up,” said the girl. “He came very late last
night and Mrs. Harding said the boys were to sleep as long as they
wished. I think you might go right up if you are friends of theirs,”
she added.
“Thank you!” said Ernest.
Quietly they went up the stairs, quietly they opened the door
indicated by the maid. And there, safe and sound, looking like a
young human balloon in pink pajamas, was Fatty, sound asleep.
“My, my! Gaze on that!” said Ernest. “Looks like a baby dirigible,
doesn’t he?”
The other boy heard, and sat up.
“Morning, Harvey!”
“Hello, you fellows,” said Harvey Harding joyfully. “I wish you
could tell me some way of making this chap wake up.”
“Tickle his feet,” suggested Eddie cruelly.
“I did,” said Harvey. “Tickled him everywhere. He’s so fat he don’t
feel it.”
“I will fix him,” said Eddie. He went to Fatty’s side and in a deep,
gruff voice exploded, “Class in algebra, stand!”
Fatty sat up so quickly that he nearly bowled Eddie over. Everyone
laughed, and Eddie retreated to the window seat where he rolled
around in glee.
Then he said soberly, “Say, Fat, you know that pencil case sort of
thing you sold me in Sunday School?”
“Sure!” said Fatty. “I bought it back all square and fair from your
brother Jack. Paid him money for it! Why?”
“I want it and want it quick!” said Eddie.
“It’s mine, all right,” said Fatty, sniffling and reaching over to
get a handkerchief. The suit case was beside his bed.
“That’s all right! I want it!”
“All right,” said Fatty, still fumbling. “I want it myself. I was
going to fix it for a pencil case, but if you want it so bad as all
that, why, take it!”
Without warning, he sat up, the cylinder in his hand, and threw it
across the room toward Eddie.
Eddie says he didn’t know how he managed to do it, but he reached out
his left hand, and caught the cylinder.
“Sweet heavenly day!” said Ernest weakly, and flopped back in his
chair. Eddie found himself near tears.
“You do that again and I will knock the stuffin’ out of you!” he said
to Fatty. The hand that held the infernal machine shook.
“What ails everybody?” cried Fatty.
“I will tell you what ails us,” said Eddie savagely, “but I want to
know where you got this. Where did you find it, or who gave it to
you? Come on! Ern and I have come all the way in his plane to get
this. Now you get busy and explain!”
Fatty looked sheepish.
“Well, I didn’t tell where I got it because I didn’t want to be
guyed. Remember that day we went out to Camp Knox? Well, when you
were all rushing down the hill road after seeing the caves, I thought
it would be a good joke on you to sneak back and eat my own lunch.”
“Sneak is the word all right,” said Eddie.
“Well, I had a right to, didn’t I?”
“Of course you had! Go on!” said Ernest.
“Course! Well, I came to a narrow split in the rock, and I squeezed
in and had my lunch, and there was a little box there, a flat box,
and that thing you are so dippy about was lying in the dirt beside
it. So I took it. And what of it, hey?”
“That’s what we are going to tell you right now,” said Eddie. “This
is an infernal machine. One of the worst ever! And we have been
chasing it all over the map. It ’most fell off the preacher’s desk
in Sunday School, and mom darned dad’s glove over it, and Jack had
it, and now you go skyshooting all over with it. What do you say to
that?”
“I say it isn’t even funny,” said Fatty. “That’s as much an infernal
machine as _I_ am.”
“But it _is_!” Eddie declared stubbornly. “I saw a big case of them
just like this, just this morning. You might have blown up the whole
block!”
“But it’s not an infernal machine,” repeated Fatty.
“Oh, give up; it is, all right!” said Ernest.
“Well, then so am I!” sighed Fatty, leaning back on his pillows.
“There is a rubber eraser and two pencils in it, and I don’t believe
they will explode. Now I will tell you about how I got it back, and
then you can look in and see for yourself.
“I went over by the pond, and Jack was lying on his face and he had
this in his hand. He was snivelling, and I asked him what ailed him.
He said he had a ‘funny sing’ he had found in mother’s basket, and he
thought he would wash it off. Well, it slipped out of his hand, and
out of sight in the water. His arm was too short to reach it, and
by-and-by, Jack said, a fellow came along and felt down for him and
got it, but the cover had come off, and that was what ailed him when
I arrived. So I felt around in the water, and found the end cap
thing, and gave Jack a penny, and brought it home. And that’s all
there is to your old infernal machine!”
Eddie went limp, and Ernest shook his head.
“Say, Ern, wouldn’t that take the spots off a cat? Such luck! Did
you ever hear anything like it? Well, Fat, I would trust you
anywhere to get out with a whole skin. But just think of Sunday
School, and mother, and Jack. Wow!”
“And me,” said Fatty, “carrying it around all that day at Camp! What
if I fell? I might have!”
“Sure you might!” Ernest agreed. “‘And great would be the fall
thereof,’ as some eminent author has said.”
“And it might have exploded!” said Fatty in a hushed voice.
“_Would_ have exploded; not _might_ have,” corrected Ernest.
“And Jack did the only, the one thing that could make it
harmless--dropped it in the water,” said Eddie. “Well, I never was
so thankful in my life!”
“I want my eraser and pencils back,” declared Fatty. “Give ’em over!”
“Let me see it, Ed,” said Ernest, taking it with a good deal of
respect. He examined the top, gave it a slight twist, and the end
came off in his hand.
Sure enough, there were two pencils and Fatty’s cherished eraser.
“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Ernest.
“I want to get somewhere there is a telephone,” said Eddie, “and put
dad out of his misery. He will worry for fear we are all blown up.”
“What’s the use?” said Ernest. “We can start back soon, and it will
only take two hours, you know.”
“I want to telephone now,” said Eddie. “You don’t know dad!”
“All right,” said Ernest. He got up. “So long, my merry, merry
little friends!”
“Where you goin’ then?” demanded Fatty, hoisting his striped pinkness
out of bed.
“Back to Louisville,” replied Ernest. “I want to see what is going
on over there. This life-saving trip made us lose a lot of fun and
excitement.”
“Why can’t I go too?” said Fatty. “I never had a ride in a plane.
There is room for three, isn’t there?”
Eddie groaned. “Have a heart, boy!” said he. “You and I will have
to sit in one seat.”
“I won’t mind,” said Fatty generously. “_I_ don’t mind being a
little crowded.”
“Of course not!” said Eddie ruefully. “You never get crowded! It is
the other fellow who comes out looking like a cancelled stamp. But
you can tag along if Ern don’t mind.”
“Of course he can go as far as I care,” said Ernest.
“That’s good,” said Fatty. “That will save my carfare.”
“Were you ever up before?” asked Ernest.
“Never!” said Fatty, “but I won’t be afraid. I have seen a lot of
close-ups of airplanes in the movies, and they are just as steady as
rocks. I always thought I would like to be an aviator.”
“Well, you will love it more than ever after you have flown back to
Louisville,” promised Ernest. There was something so longing and
wistful in his voice that Eddie looked sharply up, but Ernest’s face
was calm and guileless.
They arranged to have Fatty meet them in an hour at the Landing
Field, and said good-bye.
“Are you ever afraid in the air?” asked Ernest as they walked down
the street.
“Never,” said Eddie truthfully. “Why?”
“Because,” said Ernest, scanning the sky, “I am not sure that the
trip home won’t be rather a rough one.”
Eddie looked at him and laughed.
“Oh, _that’s_ it then,” he said.
Fatty arrived nearly on time, evidently delighted. His pockets
bulged as usual.
“I thought we might be hungry,” he said, “so I bought some chocolate.
Here’s a cake for you fellows. On me,” he added.
“I don’t like to take your chocolate,” said Ernest, drawing back.
“That’s all right,” said Fatty, “I have a lot more.”
“It looks a little windy up there,” said Ernest, squinting at the
sky. “I will put extra straps on both you boys.”
“Don’t strap us together,” said Fatty. “I wouldn’t want Rowland to
drag me with him if he should get dizzy and fall out.”
“That’s what I would do, of course,” said Eddie. “But you are so fat
and full of wind that you would be a regular parachute.”
“We won’t take chances,” laughed Ernest. “You will each be strapped
to the car, and you take your chances with her.”
Fatty stepped jauntily in and Ernest adjusted the heavy harness.
Then Eddie wedged himself into the small corner of the seat that was
not full of Fatty. He too was strapped in, and when Ernest settled
down on the pilot’s seat, a couple of attendants raced the plane
along the field until it soared smoothly upward.
Fatty’s face was full of delight. He sat perfectly quiet, watching
buildings drop away and all the land resolve itself into a beautiful
map done in colors.
“This,” thought Fatty to himself, “this is _life_.”
A half hour passed, and without warning the plane commenced to buck.
Hop, hop, hop, it went through the air, and the color faded from
Fatty’s apple cheeks. Then there was a stretch of smooth going, and
Fatty relaxed, but soon the plane was hopping again.
“What makes her do like that?” said Fatty in Eddie’s ear.
“Rough air currents, I suppose,” said Eddie. “Great, isn’t it?”
“I like it better smooth,” said Fatty and added, “You can see the
scenery so much better.”
“Yeh, those mountain ranges over there, and the bridge we just
crossed.”
“You know what I mean,” said Fatty. “All the clouds and things.”
Higher and higher they flew. Then the plane commenced to tip, first
one wing and then the other lifting and dipping, the ailerons
clapping as Ernest changed them. Next, nose pointing straight up,
Ernest climbed and climbed into the very realm of the sun.
“What makes him do that?” asked Fatty anxiously.
“To get out of the air currents,” explained Eddie.
When they had climbed until Fatty thought they would bump into the
Celestial Gates at any moment, the plane gave a strange heave,
changed direction and swept downward in a long incline. Fatty was
sick. He leaned over the side, and was very sick indeed. And
presently he turned his heavy head to Eddie, and said in a hopeless
tone, “I want to get out. Tell him I want to walk the rest of the
way. I feel very bad. Just ask him to let me out.”
“Out _where_?” demanded Eddie. “Do you want to get out up here?
Why, man, we are about a mile up. We can’t land _here_!”
Ernest glanced at the boy, and fortunately the bothersome air
currents seemed to subside. The plane sailed like a feather, smooth
as a swallow. Fatty breathed a sigh of relief.
Just before they were able to make out the distant buildings of
Louisville, Ernest asked, “Want me to loop the loop?”
“Oh do!” cried Eddie.
“No, _no, no_!” yelled Fatty.
“Why, what ails you?” said Eddie.
“It’s dangerous,” said the shaking fat boy. “I don’t want to see him
break his machine. He must have paid a lot for it.”
But with a roar from the engine over they went. Once, twice, three
times, and then sailed on as though nothing had happened.
When they landed at the Field at Camp Taylor, Ernest said:
“Well, boys, I gave you a special treat. I did some pretty dangerous
stunts up there. Once I nearly lost control. But I wanted you to
see what flying is like. I knew you would want to know, Fatty, if
you think seriously of going in for flying.”
“I did, but I don’t now,” said Fatty.
“I hope I didn’t scare you,” Ernest returned anxiously.
“Not a bit!” said Fatty, shuddering as he looked at the plane. “I
don’t think I could ever afford to buy a plane. Besides, I think I
would rather be a clerk in a grocery store.”
“I suppose you would get more thrills out of it,” said Ernest.