"Hold on, there!"
"Don't stop me--out of the way!"
"Why, whatever is the matter with you?"
"The comet has fallen----"
"What?"
"On our barn."
"See here----"
"Run for your life. Let me go, let me go, let me--go!"
The speaker, giving the astonished Andy Nelson a shove, had darted past
him down the hill with a wild shriek, eyes bulging and hair flying in
the breeze.
It was the afternoon of the day Andy had said good-by to Mr. Pierce and
his friends. He was making across country on foot to strike a little
railroad town, having now money enough to afford a ride to Springfield.
Ascending a hilly rise, topped with a great grove of nut trees, Andy got
a glimpse of a farmhouse. He was anticipating a fine cool draught of
well water, when a terrific din sounded out beyond the grove. There were
the violent snortings of cattle, the sound of smashing boards, a mixed
cackle of all kinds of fowls, and thrilling human yells.
Suddenly rounding the road there dashed straight into Andy's arms a
terror-faced, tow-headed youth, the one who had now put down the hill as
if horned demons were after him.
Andy divined that the center of commotion and its cause must focus at
the farmhouse. He ran ahead to come in view of the structure.
"I declare!" gasped Andy.
Wherever there was a cow, a horse, or a chicken, the creature was in
action. They seemed putting for shelter in a mad flight. Rushing along
the path leading to the farmhouse, a gaunt, rawboned farmer was
sprinting as for a prize. He cast fearsome glances over his shoulder,
and bawled out something to his wife, standing spellbound in the open
doorway, bounded past her, sweeping her off her feet, and slammed the
door shut with a yell.
And then Andy's wondering eyes became fixed on an object that quite awed
and startled him for the moment. Resting over the roof of the great barn
at the rear of the house was a fantastic creation of sea-gull aspect,
flapping great wings of snowy whiteness. Spick and span, with graceful
outlines, it suggested some great mechanical bird.
"Why," breathed Andy, lost in wondering yet enchanting amazement, "it's
an airship!"
Andy had never seen a perfect aeroplane before. Small models had been
exhibited at the county fair near Princeville, however, and he had
studied all kinds of pictures of these remarkable sky-riders. The one on
the barn fascinated him. It balanced and fluttered--a dainty creation--so
frail and delicately adjusted that his mechanical admiration was aroused
to a degree that was almost thrilling.
Blind to jeopardy, it seemed, a man was seated about the middle of the
tilting air craft. The barn roof was about twenty-five feet high, but
Andy could plainly make out the venturesome pilot, and his mechanical
eye ran over the strange machine with interest and delight.
A hand lever seemed to propel the flyer, and this the man aloft grasped
while his eyes roved over the scene below.
How the airship had got on the roof of the barn, Andy could only
surmise. Either it had made a whimsical dive, or the motive power had
failed. The trouble now was, Andy plainly saw, that one set of wings had
caught across a tin ornament at the front gable of the barn. This
represented a rooster, and had been bent in two by the tugging airship.
"Hey, you!" sang out the man in charge of the airship. "Can you get up
here any way?"
"There's a cleat ladder at the side."
"All right, come up and bring a rope with you."
Andy was only too glad to be of service in a new field that fascinated
him. The doors of the barn were open. He ran in and looked about busily.
At last he discovered a long rope hanging over a harness hook. He took
possession of it, hurried again to the outside, and nimbly ascended the
cleats.
"Look sharp, now, and follow closely," spoke the aeronaut. "Creep along
the edge, there, and loop the rope under the end of those side wings."
"I can do that," declared Andy. He saw what the man wanted, and it was
not much of a task to balance on the spout running along the edge of the
shingles and then climb to the ridge-pole. Andy looped the end of the
rope over an extending bar running out from the remote end of the last
paddle.
"Now, then," called out the aeronaut in a highly-satisfied tone, "if you
can get to the seat just behind me, fetching the rope with you, we'll
soon be out of this tangle."
"All right," said Andy.
"And I'll give you the ride of your life."
"Will you, mister?" cried Andy, with bated breath and sparkling eyes.
The boy began creeping along the slant of the barn roof. It was slow
progress, for he saw that he must keep the rope from getting tangled.
Another hindrance to rapid progress was the fact that he had to be
careful not to graze or disturb the delicate wings of the machine.
About half the directed progress covered, Andy paused and looked down.
The door of the farmhouse was in his range of vision, and the farmer had
just opened it cautiously.
He stuck out his head, and bobbed it in again. The next minute he
ventured out a little farther. Now he came out on the stoop of the
house.
"Hey, you!" he yelled, waving his hands up at the aeronaut.
"Well, neighbor?" interrogated the latter.
"What kind of a new-fangled thing is that you've stuck on my barn?"
"It's an airship."
"Like we read about in the papers?"
"Yes."
"Sho! and I thought----Who's afraid?" and he darted back again into the
house. Immediately he reappeared. He carried an old-fashioned
fowling-piece, and he ran out directly in front of the barn.
[Illustration: "IT'S AN AIRSHIP!"]
Andy read his purpose. He readily guessed that the farmer was one of
those miserly individuals who make the most out of a mishap--the kind who
think it smart to put a dead calf in the road and make an automobilist
think he had killed it. At all events, the farmer looked bold enough
now, as he posed in the middle of the road, with the ominous
announcement:
"I've got a word for you up there."
"What is it?" inquired the aeronaut.
"Who's going to settle for this damage?"
"What damage?"
"What damage!" howled the farmer, feigning great rage and indignation;
"hosses jumped the fence and smashed down the gate; chickens so scared
they won't lay for a month; wife in a spasm, and that there ornament up
there--why, I brought that clear from the city."
"All right, neighbor; what's your bill?"
"Two hundred dollars."
The aeronaut laughed.
"You're not modest or anything!" he observed. "See here; I'll toss you a
five-dollar bill, and that covers ten times the entire trouble I've made
you."
The farmer lifted his gun. He squinted across the long, awkward barrel,
and he pointed it straight up at the sky-rider and his craft.
"Mister," he said fiercely, "my bill is two hundred dollars, just as I
said. You pay it, right here, right now, or I'll blow that giddy-fangled
contraption of yours into a thousand pieces!"