UP IN A DIRIGIBLE
"Help! Oh, help! I must have some air," whined Stubby. "I am getting
seasick!" But neither Billy nor Button heard him as the noise of the
engine and propellers drowned all other sounds in the balloon.
"If there was only a deck I could get out on! I wish I had not come! I
just hate this way of traveling! It is worse than being in an elevator
in a high building and having the car shoot from the bottom floor to
the top in one bound. This thing is worse for it decides to stop,
dropping and then shooting up again without warning, and it runs
upside down and every other way but straight ahead. Oh, oh, oh! I
can't stand it another minute. I must have air!"
So Stubby crawled out from under his chair and climbed up on a long,
narrow window seat directly under an open window and hung out his
head. He could only just reach the window by standing on his hind legs
as he was so short and the window ledge was so far above the seat. As
he looked out he could see the earth fast receding from him. He felt
as if it were the dirigible that was standing still and the earth that
was dropping from them. By this time they were so high in the air
that the fields and forests looked like squares on a checkerboard and
the broad rivers were mere silver threads across it. As for the
churches and houses, they looked like card houses or toy paper
villages. People he could see none; they were too small to be seen
from this height. He became so interested looking that he forgot his
seasickness, and he was very much surprised when they ran into a
raincloud and he felt the raindrops on his face. But what surprised
him most was to see lightning darting all around him and so near it
seemed to go through the dirigible and come out the opposite side. As
for the thunder, you people who have never been up in the clouds and
heard it close at hand have no idea of the terrific noise and of the
terror it causes one.
[Illustration]
By this time the big dirigible was floundering in the stormclouds as a
ship does in a heavy sea, only ten times more so. A dirigible is
lighter than a ship and the wind at this altitude much stronger. It
would catch the balloon up and carry it for miles out of its course on
one of its fierce currents. Then without warning it would suddenly die
down and the big balloon would drop hundreds of feet only to be caught
up by another blast and twirled around or carried up again as the case
might be, while constantly the lightning flashed and the thunder
rolled and our Chums thought the very next gale would double them up
and dash them to their death.
While Stubby was at the window, Billy was having his own troubles. He
had tried to find a better place to hide than under the table and had
come out to do so when an extra hard lurch of the balloon had sent him
headlong the entire length of the dining saloon. He hit his head
against the partition at one end of the room and then was flung back
to the other end again. As the balloon was changing its course every
minute, he could not regain his bearings. One minute the balloon would
be standing almost perpendicularly, climbing to higher altitudes to
try to get above the stormclouds. The next a heavy gust of wind would
drive it back, or the gale would die down altogether and the dirigible
would drop into a pocket of the atmosphere, or, worse yet, would be
twirled around and around like a ship in a whirlpool of water.
Poor Billy went slipping head foremost from one end of the saloon to
the other, sometimes sitting on his tail, at others rolling over and
over until he felt like a jellyfish. But still the storm continued,
and he could not find a place of safety.
As for Button, he had the best of it for when the balloon rolled or
dove, he simply dug his claws further into the curtain pole and hung
on for dear life. Once the dirigible sailed for hundreds of feet
upside down. Button simply dug in deeper and hung upside down too.
The jerking of the dirigible knocked Stubby off the window seat and
for many minutes he had been rolling from one end of the saloon to the
other on one side of the table while Billy took the same journeys on
the other side of the table, only it was not hurting Stubby so much as
it was Billy. He had curled himself into a tight ball which made him
roll easily. He looked like a ball of scraggly worsted. As for Billy,
try as he would he could not curl up in a tight ball as his legs were
too long and his horns much too sharp.
"Oh, my, will this storm ever be over? Why did we ever let our
curiosity get the better of us and entice us to try a ride in this
dangerous thing? No more dirigibles for me if I live to get out of
this one, which I am very much afraid I won't!"
In less than five minutes from the time Billy thus spoke the
dirigible had weathered the storm and was flying in clear blue sky a
thousand feet above the still raging storm. They could still hear the
thunder and see the vivid flashes of lightning.
"Gee! What a place to see the moon and stars," thought Billy. "Now the
danger seems to be over, I wish we would stay away up here until dark
so I could see what the moon and the stars look like when we are so
near them. If we get near enough the moon, I should like to jump off
and make a visit there."
Poor stupid Billy! He knew nothing of the thousands and thousands of
miles between him and the moon, though it might look so very near.
When the dirigible was sailing quietly along, a waiter came in and
began setting the table. He did not see our friends, and went
whistling about his task. What most aroused the Chums' curiosity were
the funny little fences he fastened on the table. Then when everything
was ready, he sprinkled water on the tablecloth until it was quite
wet.
"What in the world is he wetting that perfectly clean cloth for? I
should like to know that," mused Billy. "I'll just watch and see."
Then before the waiter put down his sprinkling can, he took a plate
and set it on the cloth to see if it was wet enough to keep the plate
from slipping if the dirigible tipped or rolled to one side. Finding
it was wet enough, he left the saloon and came back with a tray of
goblets. These he fitted in holes made for them in the little railing
that ran around the whole table.
"Well, I never!" exclaimed Billy. "Did you ever see anything as slick
as that? Now the people won't have their plates or goblets slip into
their laps as they eat. I wonder who ever thought of that scheme
first. I should like to see how the kitchen looks. It must be as tiny
as those on the Pullman cars. And I bet they have some new fandangled
contraptions to keep the boilers of hot stuff and the frying pans from
slipping off the stove when cooking. I'd go and try to get a peek at
it but I'm afraid of being discovered and thrown overboard."
At this moment the waiter returned with a tray of spoons, knives and
forks. As the swinging door closed behind him, he found himself facing
a rolling ball of string coming straight toward him. As it reached his
feet, he stepped to one side and the ball hit the door with such force
that it flew open and the ball of string rolled through.
The waiter was so astonished that he braced himself against the
partition while trying to catch his breath. As he stood there staring,
he happened to glance up and there clinging to the curtain pole he saw
a big, black cat staring back at him with wide open yellow eyes. This
was too much for that waiter. He dropped the tray of silver and fled
to the kitchen, but as the swinging door flew open to let him through,
he bumped into the cook, who was in turn fleeing from the ball of
string or worsted that was rolling around his kitchen floor, giving
forth yelps like a dog. The two men clung to each other, their hair
standing straight on end, and their knees knocking together.
[Illustration]
As they stood thus, one of the officers of the dirigible having heard
the racket as the silver fell to the floor, came in the saloon from
the other end to discover what the trouble might be. Just then the
craft gave a lurch which sent the folds of the tablecloth swinging out
so that it disclosed Billy hiding underneath. The officer stared,
wiped his eyes, and then stared some more. At this moment Billy
decided to come out and go through the door the officer was holding
open.
When the officer saw a big, white goat rising from under the table he
was so frightened that his legs shook together and he pulled the door
shut. By this time Billy had up too much speed to slow down, so when
his head hit the door he simply went through it as if it had been made
of paper.
The noise of the splintering door brought the officer to his senses,
and he called for help, but no one heard him. He was about to go to
see where everybody was when the swinging door to the kitchen flew
open and in rolled a yelping ball of string. At the same moment he
spied Button staring down at him. He simply turned and fled to his
berth, where he covered up his head so he could not see things, for he
was fully convinced he was seeing things not of flesh and blood.
When Stubby in his mad rolling came to the door Billy had butted
through, he bounded through the hole as a rubber ball might, and went
bounding down the long narrow passage until he came up against a wall
in a dark closet, as he supposed. But in reality he had rolled through
an open door into the stateroom of the officer who had fled from
Button and Billy, and had Stubby only known it at that very moment he
was under his berth.
While all this had been taking place, the dirigible was fast
descending toward its home hangar and in a few minutes they would be
down to the earth again. And it was a good thing for the Chums that
they were for when Billy was discovered by the Captain he ordered him
thrown overboard with the dog and the cat. But if you think it an easy
matter to catch as big and strong a goat as Billy with the fighting
propensities he had and two lively animals like Stubby and Button, you
are badly mistaken.
Two or three aviators tried to corner him and tie him up so they
could pitch him overboard, but he butted and kicked so they could not
lay hands on him. No more hands could be spared from the crew to help,
as it required all the rest to manage the ship. Stubby and Button also
put up a stiff fight as the men chased them all over the dirigible
from under chairs and tables in this stateroom and that, where they
upset things generally as the aviators tried to hit them with brooms,
mops and whatever came handy.
[Illustration]
While this was going on, the dirigible had quietly glided into its
hangar and was quickly being tied up. An aviator was chasing Stubby
with a long-handled brush when a man on the outside opened a door in
the side of the dirigible just as Stubby was passing and quick as a
wink he took advantage of it and jumped out, much to the surprise of
the man who had opened it. After him came Button and Billy, and when
the Chums' feet touched terra firma again they lost no time in leaving
that aviation field. When they had found a nice, quiet, safe place to
rest and were reviewing this last adventure, Billy said, "No more
dirigibles for me! I never want even to see one again!"
"Nor I!" said Stubby. "I am one mass of black and blue bruises from
hitting the furniture and door jambs as I rolled from one end of that
long saloon to the other."
"And I still feel sick from hanging with my head down so long when
that old dirigible traveled upside down," declared Button.