Dorothy Imelda Verrill, born 7/25/1893 in New
Haven , Conn. , died 7/1966, and
buried in Evergreen Cemetery , New
Haven , Conn.
An interest in her fiction work made for an opportunity to
research this fairly rare work. It is aimed at young ladies with an interest in
flying dated 1930.
By Dorothy
Verrill
Illustrated by
B. B. Alexander
1930, BY THE CENTURY CO.
Dedicated to
My Real Little Patty and Susan, who love to fly
Chapter One
A WAR ACE’S
DAUGHTER
THE hum of a
powerful motor, far off in the sky, could be heard for a moment, above the
sound of the teacher’s voice.
Susan stole a
glance at the windows, risking a rebuke from Miss Pierce, who was jealous of
any distraction when she was explaining French verbs. A ripple of interest went
over the class-room, but it passed as quickly as the sound of the airplane.
A few minutes
later, Susan was going down the corridor of
"Didn’t
it give you a thrill to hear that airplane?” asked Patty eagerly. “Do you
suppose it could have been your father?”
"I don’t
think so,” said Susan, answering the last question. “That sounded to me like an
army ship, but it did sound nice! This is a perfect day for flying—and wasn’t
that class-room stuffy!”
They had
reached the dressing-room now and found themselves among a dozen other girls,
all trying to look into the same mirror at the same time.
Susan Thompson
was a tall girl for her fifteen years. With her smooth golden hair shingled
close to her head, dancing blue eyes, and clear pink and white skin, she looked
the picture of health. She had played golf and tennis and basketball since her
grammar-school days, rode horseback admirably, and at this very minute was a
member of the Midford
High School
As for her
chum, Patty Carlisle, who was a few months older, her dark brown hair was a
mass of short curls and she had eyes like black pansies, while her olive cheeks
showed color only in very cold weather, or when she was out of breath from
exercise. Patty was shorter than Susan, and had a softer, rounder look about
her, but she was not so energetic and strong. The two girls had been neighbors
and chums since childhood, and it was evidence of their friendship that, in
sisterly fashion, they dressed alike.
The bond
between them was further strengthened by the fact that neither had a sister,
while each had a brother. William Thompson, jr., was six years younger than
Susan, and Patty’s brother Phil was several years older.
On this crisp
fall afternoon Susan was wearing a dark-blue leather coat and a blue beret with
her jersey frock, and Patty had on a similar outfit in scarlet. A laughing,
chattering group of girls surrounded them as they left the dressing-room and
went out onto the street, for they were popular with their classmates.
It was Friday
afternoon, and conversation centered on the football game scheduled for next
day, when Midford was to meet its traditional rival, Newtown High, at the
latter’s field, thirty miles away. The girls of the junior class, of which
Susan was a member, were to sit with the rest of the school body in the
cheering section, flaunting the Midford colors of blue and gold, and singing
the songs especially composed for this occasion.
The annual
gridiron encounter between the rival schools always brought out thousands of
spectators besides the students and alumni of the schools, and as
“We’ve simply got to win this year,” Mary Aiken was
declaring. Mary’s brother Tom was captain and quarterback of the team, and she
was as excited about every game as if she herself had been playing.
“Yes,” said
Polly Smith, who was Mary’s best friend, “when I met Bud Wheelock in the gym
this morning, he told me that he hoped the school would turn out one hundred
per cent, to show the team we’re with them.”
The girls were
impressed. To think that Polly Smith had actually talked to “Bud” Wheelock, who
was noted for his taciturn ways and avoidance of all students except those on
the football squad. In spite of this aloofness, he was the idol of the entire
school when he came to Midford High each autumn as alumni football coach.
Once a Midford
gridiron star himself, he had afterward become a famous Harvard player and was
now said to be a wealthy business man in New
York . But he returned each fall to coach his Alma
Mater’s eleven. Each year the girls of Midford, as well as the boys, looked
forward to his arrival as opening the autumn athletic season, and he was the
object of much unspoken adoration by the entire school body. He was so handsome
and “so sort of mysterious,’’ as Betty Noble, another of Susan’s group,
expressed it, that any allusion to him produced something like awe. He had
become a tradition of Midford and the students were as loyal to him as to all
the traditions of the fine old school.
Nobody seemed
to know just what Bud Wheelock did when he was not coaching football players.
Nobody seemed to know even his first name, since his old school nickname still
prevailed. His family had left the town many years before and his fame, even at
college, had preceded the World War.
Every student
of Midford admired him, and his word was law where football was concerned. With
his bare head, his alert, sunburned face, his old white sweater with the
crimson H—worn on the inside but indicated by red stitching—his shabby white
flannel trousers, and his rubber-soled shoes, Bud Wheelock made a picturesque
figure as he spent hours at the school field, coaching the teams that carried on
the traditions of his own day. He told the players much that they remembered
when playing the game of life in after years, and he showed them that clean
sportsmanship and a gallant fighting spirit would them victory, even if it was
only the moral Victory of smiling in defeat.
There was
special significance attached to the big game with Newtown this year, for it was rumored about
the school that this was to be Bud Wheelock’s last year as coach. He was going
out to the West coast, or to South America ,
“or somewhere,” it was said, and he would not be with Midford another season.
Obviously, it was up to his team to achieve a victory this time. Susan and her
friends discussed this for some minutes.
“And don’t
forget what you’ve got to do tomorrow, Sue,” said Mary Aiken suddenly. “I
called up Fisher's yesterday and they said the flags have to be made up
specially for us and they won’t be ready before to-morrow morning. And you are
going to bring them over to the game, aren’t you, Susan?”
Mary was the
type of girl who enjoyed worrying about details.
“Of course
I’ll bring them,” said Susan, a little impatiently. “Didn’t I promise, when the
committee decided to do it for the game?”
What the joint
committee of boys and girls had decided to do was to stage a special and
spectacular demonstration at this game in honor of Bud Wheelock, as well as for
the glory of the school. Little blue and gold flags were to be provided for the
girls of the junior class, who were to be seated in the cheering section so
that they could form letters by waving the flags at certain moments in the
game, the gold flags showing against a background of the blue.
Of course,
there would be a letter M, to be shown when the school song was sung, but the
big surprise was to come between the halves, when a song especially composed in
honor of the coach was to be sung and the letter W would appear, with everybody
standing and cheering Bud Wheelock. At that moment, according to the plans,
members of the committee were to bring him out on the gridiron while the band
serenaded him, and there they were to present to him a beautiful watch, for
which the students had contributed.
“And if that
doesn’t knock the Newtown
crowd right over, I guess nothing will!” Tom Aiken had said in describing the
program.
“Of course, if
Susan brings the flags, that means Patty, too,” explained Mary, who was in
charge of the girls on the committee. “That’s why we didn’t give Patty anything
special to do.”
“There’ll be
enough for both of them to look after,” said Betty Noble, loyally. The group
was now standing outside the school entrance.
“You’ll bring
the boxes right to Newtown
field in your car, won’t you?” Mary continued. “We’re all going in the special
train, but we’ll meet you at the center portal on our side and pass out the flags
there."
“Won’t it be
just perfect!” sighed Betty. “And won't
Bud Wheelock be surprised!”
Betty was a
red-haired, slender girl, who spoke in italics. She and Mary were always busy
and always enthusiastic, but while Mary fretted and worried, Betty merely
enjoyed the excitement and was unconcerned as to possible failure.
“Won’t he be
furious, you mean!” said Patty. “You all know how he just loves being noticed! Why, he has never spoken to any one in the
school except the football team. I suppose he speaks to Dr. Jenkins, if the
doctor insists—and now of course he’s spoken to Polly!”
There was a
ripple of giggles among the girls, since Dr. Jenkins was the principal of the
school and it was amusing to think he might have to beg a word from the
football coach. But Polly spoke up, very earnestly, in defence of her new
acquaintance.
“Maybe he
doesn’t talk to us,” she protested, “but I don't think he’s high-hat about it.
He’s bashful, if you ask me. He was awfully nice this morning.”
Just then
another airplane was heard overhead and the entire group of girls looked up.
Far above in
the clear, crisp autumn air, its wings glinting like gold in the brilliant
sunshine, was a cabin monoplane that suggested a strange and lovely bird. Susan
was not surprised to hear a chorus of girlish voices exclaiming,
“Maybe it’s
your father, Sue!”
Sue laughed
and shook her head.
“Of course you
wouldn’t know it,” she said, “but that’s the mail-ship coming in from the West,
and Dad doesn’t fly the mail. It’s not on schedule, either, so maybe there’s an
extra load. My father’s ship is not like that—it’s bigger.”
In spite of
herself, Susan’s voice showed a little pride as she said this.
To Susan
Thompson it seemed the most natural thing in the world that her father should
be a flier, and yet she was tremendously proud of his work. As the only student
in the school who had an aviator in the family, she attracted, by virtue of the
fact, as much interest there as she had at grammar school, or even at
kindergarten.
So far as
Susan was concerned, her father had always been a flier. Her memory went back
only to the days of the war and almost as a baby she had known that he was
fighting and flying in that vague and distant place called “overseas.”
As she stood
now among her friends at Midford
High School
She had a
clear recollection of the glorious day when he had come back from the war to
stay; and there had been a few memorable weeks, now a blur in her mind, when he
had been home on leave from the British army, to help the United States forces
in recruiting and training after this country had entered the war.
Susan’s father
had been interested in flying long before the war, and he had built and flown
an airplane even when he was a student in college, learning to be a mechanical
engineer. When the World War began in 1914 he was a capable pilot as well as a
prosperous business man, a partner in an engineering firm, married, and the
father of small Susan.
But he had
been born in Canada ,
and when his mother country went to war he was so eager to go that Susan’s
mother did not even try to hold him back. He had left their home in Detroit to join the British Air Force in Canada , and Susan had gone with her mother to
stay with her grandparents in New
York .
By the time
the United States
had entered the war “Bill” Thompson, as he was known to his associates, was a
flight-commander and ace who had served with the Allied armies in five
different countries and had won many decorations. By the time the war was over,
he was an international hero of the great conflict. Susan had been all of five
years old when he came home to stay, and she could remember vividly the tears
and laughter and excitement of that happy day.
How glorious
it had been to see her daddy back from the war, his uniform very smart even
though faded, his service-stripes very bright, his wound-stripes a little sad,
the insignia on his shoulders gleaming bravely! How well she could remember the
bright bits of ribbon and bronze and silver on his chest that were his
decorations, how people had cheered, how thrilling it had all been!
Although she was
looking up at the sky, Susan's eyes grew moist as she remembered it—her mother
trying bravely to smile as she had smiled all the long years of the war, even
though Sue sometimes found her secretly weeping when the news from the front
was bad. Her father’s jolly blue eyes had been wet in spite of his boyish grin
and the cocky tilt of his cap. And he had picked her up and hugged her tight
and kissed her as he said:
“How is
Sergeant Susie? And has she taken good care of Mother?”
There had been
bands and flags and crowds and cheers; and remembering all this, Susan felt a
little sorry for the boys and girls who had no such vivid memories of the war,
just as she felt sorry for them, secretly, because their fathers only walked,
or rode, to tiresome business on the earth, while her father soared through the
sky.
Hard times had
come for Susan and her parents after the war, because the market for fliers was
low, as her father said. But he had kept on flying and believing in flying, and
now he was an executive and part owner of a great flying-organization that had
fields and schools and factories scattered all over the United States. His work
took him to many cities, but his headquarters were at the Midford airport.
Susan spent much time with him there, so that she could tell one ship from
another at a glance, and knew the air-mail when she saw it.
When her
friends, boys and girls and grown-ups too, asked her, as they often did,
“Aren’t you scared to have your father flying?” Susan could only laugh at the
idea. Scared? Her dear, brave, clever, wonderful, flying father giving her and
her mother and little brother anything to be scared about? It was absurd!
They had not
even been scared in war days when he had been flying old-fashioned ships under
shellfire, and fighting all over the sky with enemy airmen. Even in those days
she and her mother had been brave and confident. That was the way for American
women to feel in war-time, her mother had said, and they had smiled at each
other, even when no letters had come from the front for weeks.
Sometimes,
however, in that dreary and far-away time, Susan had climbed out of her little
bed in the night and gone over to pat her mother’s cheek, because she heard her
sobbing in the dark. But in the morning they would smile again, for though
Susan was so tiny, she understood when her mother explained that the people at
home must be brave to “back up” the men who were far away fighting for them.
And there was much talk of “doing your bit,” so she used to hold the skeins of
yarn on her fat little fingers when her mother was knitting sweaters to go
overseas with the Red Cross.
Then, when
there had been letters from the front, or news about Bill Thompson in the
papers, telling of his citations and victories, Susan and her mother had been
glad and proud together. But they had always felt sorry for the enemy fliers
that he had to fight against. Even when they had heard of his greatest
achievement, that of bringing down a Zeppelin, Susan and her mother had been a
little sad, in spite of being proud.
“It is
terrible to think that there are little girls and boys and their mothers
waiting for those German fliers somewhere, too,” said Susan’s mother to her,
very solemnly. “War is a dreadful and foolish thing, my darling—a tragic
waste—but Daddy is doing what he feels to be his duty and so he is doing it
well.”
So when tiny
Susan had mentioned her daddy in her prayers, she always mentioned the children
of the enemy lands, too, and felt sorry for everybody overseas.
It all seemed
very far away as she stood outside Midford
High School
But after that
impression and the knowledge that her father had come through it all safely,
how could any one think she would he scared to have him flying through peaceful
skies in modern ships? How could any one think she would be frightened to fly
with him?
Nowadays he
often called up her mother, whose name was Ann, and told her to bring the
children and a hand-bag and meet him at the airport. Then they would all go
through the door of a silvery cabin ship, or hop into the front cockpit of a
scarlet biplane, and with her father at the controls go soaring off into the
air, the motor roaring. They would pass over miles and miles of country, maybe State
They had a
motor-car and Susan’s mother loved to drive it, but they seldom made long
journeys on the road.
“We take the
skyways instead of the highways,” thought Susan to herself, looking up at the
ship in the autumn sky and wishing she were in it. And once more she felt the
longing to fly a ship herself that she had felt so often before.
The pilots and
mechanics at the airport had often “kidded” her about her ambition and asked when
she was going to start flying, but Susan had always told them to ask her
daddy—and her dad had always smiled and said, “We’ll see!”
“So I really
have never got very far with it,” she thought to herself, a little bitterly.
“It’s lovely to fly with Daddy, of course—but I wish I could fly alone!"
Then she
became conscious that the girls were speaking to her.
“For goodness’
sake!” Mary Aiken was saying, “Do stop sky-gazing and listen for a minute.
Betty has asked you twice already!”
“Asked me
what?” said Susan.
“Asked whether
you knew that Bud Wheelock was a flier, too, just like your father?” said Mary.
In Susan’s
opinion there was no other flier in the world like her father, but she didn’t
want to argue about it, so she simply asked:
“How do you
know?”
“Why, Tom
found out by accident,” explained Mary, “when they were talking in the gym last
night after practice. Somebody told Bud Wheelock how sorry they were that he
was going away and he said he was, too, but the only place to fly the Pacific
was from the Pacific coast. Tom said he seemed sorry he had said it, at first,
but when the boys asked questions, he explained he was going to be one of a
crew flying to Asia , or somewhere, for a new
record.”
“ ‘Asia or somewhere,’ ” repeated Susan disgustedly. “Any
one would think flying was as simple as walking, to hear you!”
“Well, you’re
always telling us that flying is safe and easy and everything,” Mary retorted.
“But anyhow, as I was trying to tell you when you interrupted, Tom said he told
Bud Wheelock about your father, and Bud said he had always admired him and that
it was hearing him talk during the war that got him into the army and made him
a flier, too.”
“That’s rather
involved,” said Patty, breaking in, “but we gather that Bud Wheelock heard
Susan’s dad and consequently joined the army and learned to fly.”
“Exactly,”
agreed Mary. “He had been thinking of going into the navy when this country
went into the war, but he told Tom that Bill Thompson’s record and personality
won him over to the army flying- forces and he had never regretted it.”
“I’ll tell Dad
about it when I get home,” said Susan. “He often meets fliers who say something
like that. I wonder why Bud Wheelock hasn’t met him?”
“Well, I
understand that Wheelock gave up flying for a while because he was a banker, or
broker, or something,” said Mary, “and he’s just going back into it because of
this trip. So I don’t suppose he has paid much attention to other flying people
lately and he probably had no idea your father lives here.”
“After this we
can look up and wonder if it’s Bud Wheelock,” remarked Betty. “That will give
Susan a change from having us ask if it’s her dad every time we see an
airplane.”
“Yes, and I
imagine Sue will cheer louder tomorrow than ever before,” laughed Mary.
“Why should I?”
asked Susan innocently.
“Because the
football coach is an aviator, of course,” said Betty.
“What nonsense!"
said Susan. “I’m going to cheer for Midford, anyway.”
“Well, don’t
forget our flags, or the cheering won’t amount to much,” warned Mary as the
group began to disperse.
“I’ll be
there,” said Susan.
“And that
means she will, too,” added Patty. “You all know that Susan never breaks a
promise!”
Chapter Two
SUSAN AND
PATTY SAVE THE DAY FOR MIDFORD
CROWDS of
pretty girls wearing yellow chrysanthemums tied with blue ribbons, and throngs
of boys wearing heavy ulsters—all talking gaily—filled the sidewalks leading to
the Midford railroad station soon after noon on the Saturday of the big game.
The special train was quickly filled and chugged away, while on every road that
went toward Newtown ,
automobiles flaunting the colors of the opposing schools were speeding toward
the field where the annual gridiron battle was to take place.
In many small
American cities there is a yearly football classic between high-school teams
that awakens wide interest, but this battle of the pigskin between Midford and Newtown represented a
tradition and a rivalry going back for generations. Graduates of other years
returned from college, or from distant cities, to watch the autumn encounter,
and the students of both schools were always tremendously excited about it.
But on this
clear and rather cold November day there were two students of Midford High who
were too busy and too worried to think much about the traditions behind the
game that they were in duty bound to attend, and these two were Susan Thompson
and Patty Carlisle of the junior class. They had met early that Saturday
morning, according to the plan they had made the night before. In fact, Sue was
still at breakfast when she heard Patty’s whistle and ran to the door to greet
her.
“Come on in
and have some strawberry jam,” she said. “Oh, Patty, what a gorgeous
bouquet!"
It was indeed
a gorgeous bouquet that Patty was wearing—yellow roses with a shower of bright
blue ribbons.
“Isn’t it,
just?” said Patty, grinning. “And where do you suppose it came from?”
“I can’t
guess,” said Susan, for neither she nor Patty had any particular friends among
the boys of the school.
“Phil sent
them to me by telegram—all the way from New
Haven !" said Patty, proudly.
Patty’s big
brother had taken a prominent part in athletics at Yale as a member of the
baseball team, and had been a leader of his class all through his course. He
was now in his senior year.
“Phil can’t
come back for the game this year,” continued Patty, “so he sent me this, he
said, to represent him on the Midford side.”
“Well, you’ll
be the most gorgeous girl in the whole crowd,” said Susan, “and they look
marvelous with your new coat. I’ll run up and put on my own coat and then we
can get started, if you really don’t want any breakfast.”
“Oh, well, I
might join you in a muffin,” said Patty, who was famous for a healthy appetite.
“The family left early for Newtown
in the car—and we can come back with them, if you like. Mother wanted to go early
to do some shopping over there this morning, so I’m all alone at home and
Maggie didn’t bother much about my breakfast.” They were in the dining-room
now, and she reached for the jam.
“Shame on your
mother, shopping in our rival town!” said Susan. “And where do you suppose my
family has gone?”
“Somewhere in
a hurry and an airplane, I suppose,” hazarded Patty, her mouth full.
“Good guess!”
said Susan. “They’ve all gone to Hamilton —a
hundred-mile hop, and they went in the new big ship. Dad got a long-distance
call this morning and they simply dashed off. They’ll be back to-night, but I
was just furious that I couldn’t go there without missing the game.”
She buttered
some fresh toast almost savagely, but Patty remained calm and deftly inserted
two more slices of bread into the electric toaster.
“Oh, well,”
she said, “cheer up! You can ride in an airplane any day, but you can only see
this game once a year. And don’t forget that you have a great duty to perform
and I’m here to see that you do it —and help you, too, of course,” she added
hastily, as Susan scowled at her.
“Yes,” said
Susan, bitterly. “Midford expects every girl to do her duty and all that, but
I’ve never flown to Hamilton
and they have a slick new airport there. Furthermore, it’s the first good
flight Father’s had in the new ship—and that big tri- motored cabin job is a
peach. If it had only been some other day!”
“Darling,”
said Patty, “forget the grand trimotors and the airports and come down to
earth, just for to-day. We have to go all the way down to Fisher’s to get those
flags and it’s after ten now. Besides, I want at least two more slices of toast
with this jam on it. I didn’t realize how hungry I was and those great luscious
fat whole strawberries muuumh!”
“It’s real
English jam,” said Susan, without much interest. “Dad got the breakfast-jam
habit when he was in England
and he always insists on that kind.
“Your dad has
good taste,” answered Patty. "One look at your mother proves that.”
“Yes, Mother
is lovely to look at,” said Susan, displaying enthusiasm again. “And she’s a
dear, too, and a good sport. Imagine her going off on that trip at seven
o’clock this morning with about half an hour’s notice. She said she was sorry
she couldn’t be at the game, though.”
With somewhat
revived interest she helped herself to more jam and poured out another glass of
milk. “I’ll tell you a secret,” said Patty, watching her.
“I had a cup
of coffee this morning for breakfast, since I was the lady of the house.”
“You ought to
be ashamed!” said Susan. “Mother says I can have coffee and tea when I’m
eighteen, if I want them, but personally I don’t see where you get such a big
kick out of a cup of coffee. I’m allowed to have tea if I’m on hand at a
tea-party, or if I want it when Mother has it here in the afternoon, but I’d
honestly rather have milk. I suppose I’m used to it.”
“It was such a
cold morning,” said Patty, apologetically. “And I asked Mother and she said all
right.”
“Well, if you
keep it up, you’ll ruin your wind and your good looks,” said Susan, who always
took the motherly part with her chum.
“My wind isn’t
so good right now,” admitted Patty. “You know I’ll never swim or run the way
you do.”
“Getting too
fat, that’s all,” said Susan, again her cheery self. “Come on upstairs if you
can tear yourself away from the jam, and see how insignificant I’ll look beside
you.”
“How about
clearing off the table?” asked Patty.
“Oh, Mrs.
Clancey will be back later,” said Susan. “She’s gone marketing because Mother
left too suddenly to order—left too early, too, for that matter.”
“Well, for
goodness’ sake come upstairs and get on your new coat before you get all sad
over that air-trip again,” begged Patty. “Isn’t that coat a cheerful thought?
You couldn’t have worn it flying.”
“Oh, yes, I
could,” said Susan. “That big ship is like a lovely yacht. No, it’s like a
drawing-room, with wicker chairs and refreshments and everything. Why there’s
even a steward on board to serve food, and it has silk curtains and inlaid
paneling. I tell you, Patty, it’s a dream! And you can wear anything in it that
you’d wear in a limousine, only you can move around more in the ship than you
can in any car. And guess what we’re going to name it?”
“Gosh, I don’t
know,” said Patty. “ ‘The Eagle,’ I suppose, or maybe ‘The Canary’?”
Susan did not
deign to reply to this thrust, and sniffed as she plunged into her room. But
she could never be annoyed at Patty for any length of time, not even when her
friend was purposely being as teasing as she could. However, she was very
dignified as she said:
“Just for that
you can wait until we have the christening and find out the name, when a
certain person smashes the bottle on the ship’s nose.”
“Yes, and I
bet I know who that certain person is,” said Patty. “It’s going to be my own
dear darling Susan, who isn’t cross any more, is she?” And Patty hugged her
friend.
“Of course I’m
not cross,” said Sue, dimpling. “Help me on with the coat, that’s a good girl!”
They stood arm in arm and regarded themselves in the long mirror between the
windows.
Susan’s
father’s hobby was painting, and he had enjoyed himself greatly decorating his
daughter’s room himself. He had planned the built-in pieces and had chosen the
color scheme of yellow and green that suggested daffodils and spring, and he
had achieved some interesting effects in ornamenting the jade-green furniture
with orange and black motifs. The room had pale yellow walls and deeper yellow
woodwork, and book-shelves and cupboards were lined with green. There were
green rugs on the black floor and curtains of chintz flaunted gay tropical
birds and palm-leaves, which carried out the color scheme.
As reminders
of Susan’s not-very-far-away childhood there was a cupboard in one corner
filled with all the dolls she had ever owned, while in another was a secretary
holding some of the silver prizes she had won in riding and swimming
competitions. There were books scattered about, and evidences of Susan’s
collecting fads—theatrical programs, albums of pressed flowers, stamps, and
boxes of buttons, which she had gathered when very young. There were also
pictures of favorite screen and stage actresses, as well as her Girl Scout
paraphernalia.
Susan’s
present hobby was indicated by several books on aviation and aircraft, not very
prominently displayed. Her dressing-table held a photograph of her father in
his war uniform, as well as several of her mother and a very pretty one of
Patty, while autographed pictures of other schoolmates hung on the wall. On her
desk stood a mariner’s compass in miniature size, as well as the more usual
fixtures of a girl’s writing-table.
The room
formed an excellent background for the new autumn costumes of the girls, who
were wearing coats of heavy tweed in a russet shade with big collars of beaver
fur, and close little felt hats of golden brown. Both of them had tan calf
brogues with tan wool stockings and tan wool frocks, because the chill of the
grand stands at Newtown
was proverbial.
“We look
fine!” said Patty with emphasis, after they had studied their reflection.
“Gather up the odds and ends and come along.”
“Wish I had
some flowers!" Sue rummaged for gloves and purse in a bureau drawer.
“Never mind,
Santa Claus may come yet!” said Patty, pulling her toward the door.
They ran
downstairs and out of the front door, where Susan almost fell over a white box.
“Why, it’s
addressed to me!” she cried.
“Santa Claus
has arrived!” said Patty. “Well, why not open it, just to be original?”
She was
smiling mysteriously, but Susan did not notice it, as she returned to the hall
and unfastened the wrappings. There was a lot of tissue-paper and then a mass
of yellow blossoms and a little white envelope.
“For goodness’
sake!” squealed Susan. “Why, it’s a bouquet like yours!”
“Well, well,”
mocked Patty, “I can’t be original no matter how hard I try, can I? Now you’ve
just ruined my day!”
Susan took the
card from the envelope.
“It’s from
Phil, too,” she said. “Isn’t he a darling to remember me like this!”
“Yes, he’s
pretty good as brothers go,” said Patty. “Now that he’s grown up and tired of
pulling my hair, he’s beginning to be almost human.”
“I think he’s
a darling,” Susan rejoined warmly. “Look at what the card says—‘To the other
one of the nicest pair of girls I know!’ Why, I didn’t think he knew I was
through playing with dolls!"
“Don’t be
silly,” said Patty. “He knows perfectly well that I’m pretty near grown up, so
you must be through wearing rompers yourself. Put the flowers on and come
along. My stars! It’s eleven o’clock!”
“Goodness!”
exclaimed Susan. “We’ll have to rush. That train goes at one o’clock and it
will take us almost as long in the car.”
“This is what
we get for lingering over jam and talking about the air-trip you missed,”
scolded Patty, as they dashed down the driveway. “And where is the car, by the
way?”
“Dad had to
leave ours at the airport,” said Susan, breathlessly, “but one of the mechanics
from the field is going to bring it to meet us at Fisher’s, and we’ll go right
from there.”
“Oh, well,”
said Patty with an air of relief, as they paused for the trolley-car, “if
Fisher’s have the flags ready, we’ll have plenty of time. It only takes a
half-hour to get there; and if the car is waiting, that will give us two
hours.”
They felt
calmer when they had boarded the trolley and chatted gaily as it made its
leisurely progress down-town.
At Fisher’s
store they found a double disappointment. The flags were not packed, not even
completed. And there was no sign of the big blue car that belonged to Susan’s
father.
The owner of
the store was apologetic, but he could not deny that it would be after twelve
before the flags were ready, and then they had to be sorted according to color,
and packed. Using many gestures, he expressed his sympathy, but declared he
could do nothing about it—in fact, the employees might drop the whole job at
noon, if they insisted on keeping their regular hours. And then what could be
done? Susan and Patty looked at each other in despair. “What will the girls
say?” asked Patty.
Susan had set
her lips in the firm line that her opponents on the basketball floor, in the
swimming- pool, or on the tan-bark, knew so well. That look meant that Susan
and her side were going to do their very best to win, and they usually
succeeded.
“I promised to
get the flags there, didn’t I?” she said. “Very well, the flags will be there,
and they’ll be there on time.”
“But where is
the car?” wailed Patty. “Even if the flags should be ready sooner than Mr.
Fisher expects, we couldn’t get started without the car.”
“That’s true,”
admitted Susan. “But Dave is a very dependable mechanic and he’ll be right
along. I told him we would leave after twelve, but to be here by noon to allow
time for packing the boxes in.”
The two girls
sat down in Mr. Fisher’s office and alternately discussed school affairs and
studied the catalogues of flags, bunting, awnings, and other articles sold by
the firm. They became mildly interested in the flags of various colleges, some
of which had been unknown to them previously, and it was with a shock that
Susan again noticed the time.
“Quarter-past
twelve!” she said. “And no sign of Dave! I think I’d better call up the
airport.”
She went to
the telephone and got her father’s office on the wire. The pilot who answered
told her that Dave had left with the car a short time before, delayed by some
necessary work on one of the ships.
“He couldn’t
possibly get here for ten or fifteen minutes,” said Patty when she heard this.
“And the flags won’t be ready, either. Let’s get something to eat.”
“All right,”
agreed Susan, “I suppose we might as well have a sandwich, at least.”
So, explaining
to Mr. Fisher that they would be back in a few minutes, and that Dave was to
wait if he arrived in their absence, the two girls crossed the street to a
tea-room and had lunch. Patty ate heartily and ordered two portions of dessert,
but Susan was so perturbed by the fact that the car had not appeared, that she
had little appetite. It was a quarter to one when they got back to the Fisher
store. The flags were almost ready, but there was no sign of the Thompson car
and no word from Dave.
Again Susan
called up the field, but there was no news of the mechanic, beyond what she had
already learned. He had not returned, nor sent word to the field. And at that
moment Mr. Fisher entered the office, beaming.
“Everything is
ready, Miss Thompson,” he said. “Two big cartons, see! One has the gold flags,
one has the blue, five hundred of each as ordered.” Susan was so troubled that
she could not enjoy hearing herself addressed as “Miss Thompson,” as she would
ordinarily have done, and she said nothing, but Patty rose and inspected the
boxes with a businesslike air.
“You are sure
everything is correct?” she asked Mr. Fisher. “It would be terrible if we got
there and found they were all blue, or all gold, or there weren’t enough, or
something.”
“In that case,
we charge you nothing!” declared Mr. Fisher, rubbing his hands together and
smiling as if he enjoyed the thought.
“In that case
you’d get nothing,” answered Patty. “These are charged as the committee
arranged, aren’t they?”
“Oh, yes
indeed!” said Mr. Fisher. “They are so heavy I will have my men take them out
to the car. Is it ready?”
Patty looked
at Susan and Susan looked at Patty, and Mr. Fisher looked from one to the
other. The old-fashioned clock over the desk struck one at this moment.
“There is only
one thing to do,” said Susan suddenly. “If Dave arrived this minute we could
not get to Newtown
on time in the Saturday traffic. We will simply have to go by airplane!"
“Oh, Susan,
how perfectly thrilling!" Patty exclaimed. “But how will we manage it?”
“We’ll have to
get a taxi to take us down to the field.”
Susan was
suddenly cool and decided.
“Then I’ll
have to get one of the pilots to fly us over with the boxes. Only I hope
there’s a plane ready that can carry the load. There’s only one that I know of
and it will be awful if it’s in the air somewhere right now.”
She caught up
the telephone and called for a taxi, then put in a call for the airport. Mr.
Fisher and Patty both regarded her with admiration and some amazement, as she
made the arrangements.
“Hello,” they
heard her say, “is this Mr. Thompson’s office? Is the chief pilot there? Is
that you, Harry? This is Sue Thompson. Oh, Harry, can you help me get over to Newtown before two-thirty?
You’ll have to take another girl, too, and a couple of big cardboard boxes.
Yes, we’ll have to use the five-place New Standard—no other ship there big
enough, is there? Father is away, you know—and I counted on Dave’s getting here
with the car, but he didn’t show up. Yes, we’ll be right down. Thank you so
much, Harry. Good-bye.”
When she
turned to Patty, she was radiant.
“Everything
will be all right now,” she said. “But it will be cold in the air, because
that’s an open ship.”
“You’ll get
your ride after all, then, won’t you?” reminded Patty.
“Oh, this
isn’t much of a ride,” said Sue. “But what is most important, we’ll be there in
about half an hour after we leave here.”
“The taxi is
waiting,” announced one of the clerks, appearing at the door of the office.
“Put the boxes
in,” directed Mr. Fisher, “and be quick about it, too. Got no time to lose
now.”
Patty looked
at him scathingly, as she attributed most of their troubles to his delay in
delivering the flags, but just then the telephone rang. It was Harry Copley,
the chief pilot, calling from the airport. Susan listened to him, spoke a few
words and turned to Patty.
“I’m so sorry
we were cross about Dave,” she said. “They’ve just heard at the field—some big
car forced him into a ditch before he got half-way to town and he’s hurt—broke
his collar-bone.”
Patty and Mr.
Fisher were making sympathetic remarks when the clerk appeared again.
“Taxi—” he
began to say, but the girls sprang to their feet.
“We must go
anyway,” said Susan. “We can’t help Dave now—he’s at the hospital—and he’d want
us to get there on time, because he was trying to do his part. Let’s go!”
They ran out
to the taxi and asked the driver to hurry to the field, which was several miles
from town. Patty and Susan compared their watches often on the way out, and
were only briefly distracted from their worry by the sight of Susan’s father’s
car, lying on its side in a ditch, but apparently not badly injured. A garage
towing-car was near by and there was a little group of spectators.
“That’s what
some feller got for being in a hurry,” remarked the taxi-driver, slowing down,
but the girls did not bother to tell him how much more it concerned them than
it did him. Although it had seemed hours, it was only about twenty minutes from
the time they had left Fisher’s when they drew up beside the office of Bill
Thompson’s firm.
As soon as
they had come within sight of the airport Susan had grown visibly more
cheerful, and when they alighted from the taxi and she saw the graceful orange
and green New Standard waiting on the dead-line, while mechanics held its wings
and a pilot sat in the cockpit, she seemed actually happy.
“They’re
revving up the engine,” she explained to Patty, as she paid the taxi-driver.
“It takes some time in cold weather to warm up the oil and everything and
that’s why it’s lucky I ’phoned.”
The chief
pilot had been watching for them and came out, with a couple of other fliers,
to help carry the boxes of flags to the dead-line. He was wearing a winter
flying-suit, very heavy and clumsy in appearance, and had on his helmet and
great leather mittens. Susan explained all the circumstances, as they walked
with him toward the hangar.
“Are you going
to take us?” she asked. “Oh, that is good luck. You know,” she said to Patty,
“Mr. Copley is the best pilot at the field, next to my daddy,” and they all
laughed.
“Of course I’m
going to fly you over,” said the pilot, “but you’ll have to take me to the
game, too —will you?”
“Why, of
course, you’ll sit right in the center of the cheering section, won’t he?” said
Susan, turning to Patty.
Patty had been
at the airport with Susan before, and she had always noticed how gay and happy
her friend seemed to be as soon as she got within sight and hearing of
airplanes, but she was surprised to see how Susan seemed to forget all her
troubles now.
The pilot was
speaking again.
“You’ll have
to wear winter suits,” he said. “This trip won’t take long, but it will be a
lot colder going a hundred miles an hour up two thousand feet than it is down
here—and it’s pretty snappy here. There’s a couple of outfits ready for you.”
“Can you land
near the football field at Newtown ?”
asked Susan as they reached the hangar.
“Yes, plenty
of good level ground right around the stadium,” said the pilot. “They’ve got
the land for a baseball field and track and all that sort of thing, so there’s
plenty of room if we can keep away from the crowds. But if necessary we’ll land
right on the gridiron—the stands aren’t solid around it.”
“Oh, Harry,
you are wonderful to help us like this!” exclaimed Susan. “You know Father
wouldn’t mind, don’t you?”
The pilot
grinned.
“Shucks!” he
said. “Run along and get into your flying-clothes, both of you. I talked to
your dad by long-distance, after I heard from you, and he said you were the
boss of the place for the afternoon— and all I had to do was follow your orders
and get you there and back safely. He felt pretty bad about Dave—that was what
I called to tell him. But he said it was lucky we could get the stuff over. The
sky’s the limit, Susan—but we’ve got to get started. It’s getting on toward two
o’clock.”
“All right!”
cried Susan and Patty in chorus. And they went into the locker-room, where the
great canvas flying-suits were waiting for them.
Both of the
girls had been up in airplanes often before, but it was Patty’s first
experience in getting on a heavy flying-outfit, since her previous trips had
been with Susan’s father in a cabin ship. She needed considerable help from
Susan and from the office staff before the cumbersome costume, suggesting that
worn by a deep-sea diver, was donned and fastened up. The suits were of brown
canvas, lined with wool; they had sheepskin collars, and each bulky garment was
made in one piece from throat to trouser-hems, and fastened with zipper
fasteners and many buckles.
Then they
donned leather helmets and goggles and were given pilot’s mittens, much too big
for them but warm. They thought they were ready to go, but when they arrived
beside the plane, Harry Copley, standing there waiting, frowned a little.
“Your feet
will be cold, and you ought to have something extra around your necks,” he
said. There seemed to be nothing available for their feet, but an obliging
mechanic fetched some parachute silk from the office, and with this about their
throats, they climbed into the front cockpit of the ship, where the cartons of
flags were already in place.
The New
Standard, being designed to hold four passengers in the front cockpit, as well
as the pilot in the rear, carried the girls comfortably. Susan remarked to
Patty, as they took their seats, that it was a sesqui-plane, one designed by
the man who made training-ships for the army during the war.
“What’s a,
sesqui-plane—something like the Philadelphia
exposition?” asked Patty, shouting above the roar of the motor.
“No, it means
that funny little lower wing,” explained Susan, also shouting.
Harry Copley
was in his seat behind them now, and the roar of the motor was deafening. Susan
pulled down her goggles and looked at him over her shoulder.
“All set?” he
shouted over the cockpit between them.
Susan looked
at Patty, who was crouched down as if she did not greatly relish the trip, and signaled
to her to fasten her safety-belt, then she nodded to the pilot.
He waved his
hand to the mechanics, who jumped away from the front of the plane, carrying
the blocks that had been under the wheels. Susan beamed as she heard the rise
in volume of the sound of the motor, which indicated that they were taxiing to
the starting-point. The ship seemed to lumber across the field until it was
headed into the wind.
Patty took a
peek at her wrist-watch, which showed a quarter of two. Susan saw her and shook
her head. At that moment the motor was quieter and they could talk.
“Shall we ever
get there in time?” asked Patty. “The game starts at two-thirty.”
“Of course we
shall. Now don’t worry, and let’s enjoy the trip,” said Susan.
As she spoke
the motor roared again and the ship plunged forward, seeming to skim gradually
higher and higher until the field was far below. It was a smooth take-off and
Patty, never especially fond of flying, was surprised at how easily they had
reached the air.
Circling once
above the field, to make sure of his motor, Pilot Copley headed toward Newtown . Below, the city
of Midford was
soon passed. Its houses and buildings seemed a gray and brown checker-board,
its parks little patches of green grass and russet trees, its streets narrow stripes
of black. In pantomime Patty called Susan’s attention to the high school as
they flew above it. Susan nodded, and then shouted:
“We’re over
two thousand feet up!”
This was the
rule in flying over the city. There was no effect of dizziness and no way to
gage height, although Susan knew that experienced pilots, merely by looking
down, could tell accurately how high they were above the ground.
In the
distance the blue hills and sparkling lakes and golden gleaming river of the
country around Midford made a brilliant and lovely picture in the bright autumn
sun. Below, on the highways, they could see many automobiles, seeming puny and
slow from their lofty height—like ants scuttling to cover, Susan thought to
herself amusedly. There were suburbs, scattered farms, a town or two, and off
to one side, the black and silver ladder-like line of the railroad tracks, and
a train with its puffing locomotive rushing in the opposite direction to their
plane in what seemed an absurdly futile way.
Again Susan
leaned over to Patty and shouted, close to her helmet:
“We’re going
at least a hundred miles an hour— maybe more. Watch for the football field!”
Sure enough, Newtown was soon in sight, its buildings and streets much
like those of Midford, but distinguished by tall factory chimneys, for Newtown was a prosperous
center of industry, as well as the principal town in a rich farming-district.
The farms showed only shocks of corn in the fields now, and there was no smoke
rising from the factory chimneys, but plenty of animation was revealed as the
great oval football stadium came into view. It was a field really owned by the State University ,
which was situated close to Newtown , but it was
given to the high school for this classic battle in the year when it was Newtown ’s turn to have the
game. The stands were already filled with black and colored dots, representing
human beings, and long lines of people and cars converged toward it.
Harry Copley
throttled down the motor, putting the nose of the ship into a gliding angle,
and shouted to Susan, who could hear him plainly, now that the engine’s racket
was stilled as the propeller idled over.
“The place is
packed with people,” he said. “I’ll have to set her down in the field—make a
crosswind landing and side-slip in. All right?”
Susan nodded,
relying on his judgment, although she knew he was attempting some tricky
flying. Twice they circled the field, lower each time, gliding down with a
delicious sensation that nothing else in the world can give. Susan watched,
fascinated, as they came nearer to the field. The motor roared as the pilot
“gave it the gun” to make sure he had reserve power. He tipped to one side and
then the other, using the controls to slide the plane first to right and then
to left, a motion calculated to reduce momentum and get a ship down safely in a
short field.
“I think this
is fun,” Patty called to Susan, as they leaned out over their respective sides
of the cockpit and watched the crowds on the grand stands getting closer and
closer.
“I hope nobody
runs out on the field,” Susan called back.
It was evident
that their approach was causing great excitement, but they had arrived so
suddenly —and so quietly, since they had glided—that nobody seemed inclined to
get in their way. In a jiffy they had come down into the field almost directly,
and the New Standard made a perfect landing in its center.
Then a crowd
did gather, and suddenly realizing that it was the field of their rival school,
Susan felt a little scared. But she was relieved to find that in the front rank
of the advancing throng were Bud Wheelock and the manager of the Midford team;
and not far behind them were Mary Aiken and a group of girls from her
committee. There were many questions, exclamations, and general excitement, but
even so, Susan looked at her watch, and she was delighted to note that it was
only a few minutes after two.
“Awfully
sorry,” Harry Copley was explaining to
the manager of the Newtown
High School
“Young
ladies?” said the manager, in surprise. Springing to the ground, the pilot
helped the girls out, and there was a murmur in the crowd. Then Mary Aiken
recognized Susan.
“We thought
you must be somewhere around when we saw an airplane!” she cried. “But we’ve
all been up in the air, wondering where you were!”
“Here she is,
true to her promise,” said Patty. “And here’s your silly old stuff. Where can
we shed these things and get into our own clothes?”
“Oh, keep them
on for the game,” said Betty Noble. “You’ll be warm and distinctive.”
“Nothing of
the sort,” retorted Patty. “We have our coats and decorations in the baggage
compartment, haven’t we, Mr. Copley?”
“Sure enough,”
answered the pilot, and unlocking a door in the fuselage, he produced their
coats, their hats, and, to Susan’s amazement, their bouquets. She had forgotten
all about the flowers, and had not even seen the mechanic gather up their own
outer garments and bring them out to the ship.
So right
there, beside the plane, the girls climbed out of their canvas suits and put on
their coats and hats. Then, as Mary gave orders for the disposal of the flags,
Susan went up to the pilot. He was deep in conversation with Bud Wheelock, but
turned as she approached.
“I was afraid
we might have hurt the field,” he said, “but Mr. Wheelock tells me that they’ll
just put the roller on it after I get out.”
“Yes, and
you’ll find a place to take off afterward outside the field,” added Wheelock,
“because I’ll see that the space is cleared for you.”
“Good enough,”
answered the flier, “but I’m going to see some of the game first, if Miss
Thompson will let me.”
“Oh, is this
Miss Thompson?” asked the coach, in surprise. “I am hoping to have a chance to
meet your father.”
“Dad will he
glad to see you,” said Susan. “I have heard you’re a flier, too.”
“One of the
gang, are you?” asked Copley. “Well, I wouldn’t miss the game for anything,
now. It’ll be the first football team I ever saw taking orders from a pilot.”
“I’m not much
of a pilot,” Wheelock answered, looking uncomfortable, “and I may prove to be a
pretty poor coach—we’ll know in an hour or two. But I can wind the inertia
starter for you, anyhow, and that will help.”
So with Copley
in the cockpit to tend the switches and pull the trip-clutch, the coach wound
the inertia starter, the motor started again, and the ship taxied slowly from
the field, looking like a strange big dragon-fly, as it crawled across the turf
to the opening where the horseshoe-shaped grand stands ended.
Susan joined
Patty and her friends in the cheering section, where she knew the pilot would
find them, unless he chose to watch the game from the side-lines with Wheelock,
as she had heard the coach suggest.
Her classmates
were jubilant at her spectacular arrival and thrilled with the prospect of a
close game.
“The teams
can’t put on any show to compare with what’s already happened,” said Mary
gleefully, hugging Susan.
“Yes, and she
got here in time when nobody else could have done it,” added Betty, “even if
she did have to drop down out of the sky.”
“Of course she
would—Susan, the sky girl,” said Patty. “And let me tell you, flying over here
to-day has made me crazy about flying, too.”
“I'm awfully
glad,” said Susan.
And then, with
a fanfare of bugles, the school bands marched onto the field and the big game
was about to start.
Chapter Three
“MAYBE YOU’RE
A BORN FLIER”
THAT football
game between Midford and Newtown ,
which marked the conclusion of Bud Wheelock’s career as coach, was destined to
go down in school history as the greatest battle the rival teams had ever
fought. Back and forth surged the tide of victory. Opposing players bucked the
line, made brilliant passes, performed wonderful runs, and fought gallantly for
every point. Over and over again Midford or Newtown seemed on the verge of gaining the
advantage, but the other side would forge ahead and once more even the score.
Between the
halves, the demonstration by the Midford supporters went through as they had
planned. The blue and gold flags waved bravely in the autumn breeze, while the
band played the school song and Bud Wheelock blushed and looked vastly
uncomfortable. To add to the success of the occasion, the coach of the Newtown team asked the
privilege of making the presentation of the watch to Midford’s coach.
Although
Midford had thought this was to be a big surprise to their ancient enemy,
Newtown, the latter school produced a surprise of its own, by leading onto the
field a huge tame bear whose coat displayed the school colors of brown and
white; and this mascot was made the center of a fantastic parade, in which
clowns pranced and a kiltie band played, while a miniature circus-wagon holding
a strange imitation animal, pawing at the bars, and labeled “Midford Goat,”
brought up the rear.
This display
won applause from both sides of the field, and just as the between-halves
exhibitions were of equal interest, so the battle between the twenty-two youths
on the gridiron showed each team to be of equal courage, strength, and skill,
and the score stood even at fourteen to fourteen with two touchdowns for each
side, when the game reached the last five minutes of play.
The contest
had not been without casualties and several substitutes had gone in for each
side. Mary Aiken’s brother, captain and quarterback of the Midford team, had
been knocked out in the third quarter and had been taken to the side-lines on
reviving. But when there were only a few minutes left to go, Mary, Patty, and
Susan, sitting together in the cheering section, clutched at each other with
excitement as they saw Tom Aiken throw off his enveloping blanket after a few
words from Wheelock, trot out to where the players were lined up, give his name
to the referee, and take his old place behind the line of crouching football
fighters.
If this were
like most football stories, Tom would make a brilliant play and win the game.
He didn’t do exactly that, but he did cheer up the players, who were rapidly
tiring and losing courage in the stiff uphill fight that had lasted so long.
And he was a clever general so, backed up by the counsel of Bud Wheelock, he
managed a trick play that took the enemy by surprise on its own twenty-yard
line, and before either Newtown or Midford realized what was happening, the
ball was over the line in the hands of one Phil Mooney, whose name was marked
for immortality in the annals of the school from that moment. Midford had won,
twenty to fourteen, and Bud Wheelock’s last game crowned his career as coach
with the laurel wreath of victory. He, as well as the players, received
plaudits when the referee’s whistle blew just after the touchdown, and the
teams left the field.
Before the
cheers had died away, Susan and Patty had dashed for the exit nearest the place
where the airplane had been parked. But, quick as they were, Bud Wheelock and
Harry Copley were there before them, Bud again twirling the inertia starter,
while Harry sat in the cockpit and managed the spark.
A corps of
students assisted the police on duty at the field in keeping a large space
clear about the New Standard, which had a fine take-off in the broad avenue
leading up to the stadium. This too was guarded from the crowd, and as the
motor roared and the pilot watched the needles of the temperature-dials
climbing up to the required point, Susan and Patty donned their flying-suits
and once more stored their regular clothes in the ship. Bud Wheelock had placed
large stones under the wheels to act as chocks and keep the ship from taking off
inadvertently, and he helped them with their flying-suits and helmets.
Dusk was
rapidly approaching, and Patty remarked :
“Won’t it be
dangerous flying home in the dark?”
“No,” answered
Susan, who had often flown at night with her father. “This ship has lights, and
the airport at Midford is fixed for the air-mail and other night flying. It has
boundary-lights and floods and a beacon ’n everything. And it is glorious to
fly just after sunset—wait and see.”
The sun, in
fact, was just disappearing behind a bank of clouds in the west, when Copley
signaled to them to jump in, and with a grand roar of the powerful Wright
Whirlwind motor, and a rush down the wide road, the ship took the air, while
the assembled crowd cheered.
Susan, having
seen the beauties of an autumn sunset from an airplane before, knew what to
look for, but Patty was astonished and delighted at the breathtaking glory of
the sky, as they reached higher altitude and headed home, after circling the
field they had just left.
The tumbled
gray clouds on the western horizon had golden linings, as the fliers could
plainly see, and the sun, flaming scarlet, was slipping down behind them, only
its top edge visible, while violet shadows on the hills seemed to be moving
forward over the earth below, and lights began to appear in distant windows.
The sky was suffused with rose and golden tints that melted into mauve,
turquoise, and clear blue above, while the sunset glow was reflected on the
clouds to the eastward and mirrored in lake and river. One single perfect star
shone at the zenith.
The girls in
the airplane were engulfed in a magic world. It seemed almost too beautiful to
be real, and the strange, disembodied sensation of the flight through this
peaceful and colorful atmosphere made it all the more lovely. On they rushed
through the cold, smooth air, toward Midford and home, the winding lines of
highway below beginning to show the speeding golden lights of automobiles, the
scattered farms and villages revealed by glowing windows. Finally, athwart the sky,
shone the silvery moving finger of the beacon-light at Midford, pointing the
way to a safe haven for all fliers.
Susan saw it
first, because she knew where to look for it, and grasped Patty’s arm to draw
her attention. Patty nodded, her eyes shining through her goggles. Susan knew
that her chum was enjoying the trip, just as she had predicted. She was glad,
for they agreed on most subjects, and she had often regretted that Patty did
not share her enthusiasm for the air. Now she felt she had a friend who would
understand her own ideas about flying and be interested in it, too.
There was
still a rosy glow in the sky, although stars were beginning to show, when the
great irregular circle of tiny yellow and red lights that marked the boundary
of the Midford airport came into view, and Copley shut off the motor to glide
to lower altitude before preparing to land. In wide spirals, the ship coasted
down through the calm twilight, the beacon-light winking at them cheerfully.
Suddenly they heard the pilot’s voice, clear because the motor was still.
“Look, Sue!”
he was calling. “There comes your dad from the north!”
Sure enough,
in the direction he indicated, they could see the bird-like shape of the
gleaming silvery giant Ford monoplane, its red and green navigating-lights
barely visible, the afterglow reflected in its cabin windows, which gleamed
with golden light.
“He’ll wait
for us to land,” said Susan to Patty, “but we’ll have to signal the airport
first.”
The open plane
with the girls in it was now less than a thousand feet above the field, and
their pilot opened the throttle, circling low twice above the field, which
turned on its flood-lights at the sound of the motor. Then, shutting off the
power again, he swooped and landed gently, immediately taxiing over to the
dead-line, to leave plenty of space for the other ship.
Susan leaped
out, almost before the New Standard had stopped, and stood beside it, watching
with a rapt expression as her father brought his craft down to earth. Patty
joined her, both of them completely disregarding Harry Copley, who had summoned
the additional mechanics needed to take care of the big ship. Ecstatically
Susan squeezed Patty’s hand, as the huge and graceful shape of the plane
holding her family came nearer and nearer to the field, spiraling down as
silently and lightly as a sea-gull. Then, with a tiny bounce, the great wheels
and clumsy-looking tires hit the earth, the big ship came to rest, and with a
new roar of the motors, turned in a circle and taxied toward the dead-line and
the hangar where the girls were waiting.
“Isn’t it the
loveliest thing you ever saw?” said Susan. “Oh, I can hardly wait to ride in
it!”
“Haven’t you
been in one like it?” queried Patty. “Oh, of course!" said Susan. “But
this is Daddy’s own and it is marvelous! Although I must say I like open ships
best in some ways.”
“Yes, I certainly
felt close to the clouds and sunset and everything, up where we were,” agreed
Patty.
They were
silent as the great silvery-white bulk of the monoplane, silhouetted against
the dusk by the flood-lights, came toward them.
In a minute it
had stopped, as mechanics rushed forward. The door opened, and Sue’s mother and
brother stepped out. From the funny little window of the pilot’s cockpit,
Susan’s father waved to her cheerily, as she rushed to hug her mother. Patty
paused to chat with the ten-year-old brother of her chum.
Mrs. Thompson
was not dressed in clumsy flying clothes, like the girls, but in a smart fall
suit, and she stepped out of the cabin of the plane as spick-and-span and
unruffled as if it had been a limousine. She was a pretty woman, not a bit
taller than her daughter, but much lighter and daintier in build than the
robust girl who swallowed her up in a hug, the big flying-suit making her look
like a young bear. Mrs. Thompson laughed and straightened her hat and hair as
her daughter released her. Her hair was darker than Susan’s and her eyes gray.
She looked more like the sister than the mother of the girl.
“Oh, Mummy,
did you have a good trip? I wish I could have gone—but what a day we had—did
you hear about Dave?—isn’t it a shame?” asked Susan, all in one breath.
“We are
dreadfully sorry about the poor boy,” said her mother, answering the last
question first. “And what an adventure that was for you—flying to a football
game!”
“Yes, and
imagine us landing in the midst of the gridiron!” said Patty.
“Pretty tough
luck for the players, I'd say,” remarked young Junior Thompson judicially.
“And of
course, after that Midford wouldn’t dare lose, I suppose,” said Susan’s father,
approaching the group, Harry Copley beside him.
“I should say
not! Won twenty to fourteen in one of the best games I ever saw,” responded the
pilot.
So, to the
accompaniment of an excited and rather unintelligible story of the afternoon,
with Susan and Patty taking turns in the account and constantly interrupting
each other, the party proceeded to the hangar, where the girls changed their
clothes in the flying-students’ locker-room. Then, when a taxi arrived, they
returned to town, dropping Copley and Patty at their homes on the way.
The faithful
Mrs. Clancey had dinner ready for the Thompson family and they lost little time
in gathering around the big mahogany table in the dining-room.
It was the
custom of the household to change for dinner, even at a time like this, so
Susan slipped into a yellow silk frock left from summer, planning, as she did
so, how to start an unpopular subject that she intended to discuss with her
father after dinner—for it was understood in the Thompson home that nothing
likely to lead to argument and no unpleasant topics were to be introduced at
meal-time. So Susan put the subject temporarily out of her mind, when she went
to the dining-room to give a final look at the table, which was her special
responsibility.
Although she
had been trained from childhood to take care of her own room, and to keep it
and her wardrobe in order, Susan had a weakness for other branches of
housekeeping, as well. Though it was considered smart by many of her
schoolmates to profess to know nothing, and to care less, about cooking and
kindred arts, she could prepare a meal if necessary and enjoyed baking almost
as much as she did sports.
But the
setting and decoration of the table was her particular hobby, and she looked
now to be sure that the rose and violet asters in the pewter bowl formed the
central decoration she had planned, and that the rose-colored glassware and the
pale-lavender damask cloth gave the effect she had hoped for.
Sue always
enjoyed arranging these matters, but she particularly liked to give her mother
a pleasant surprise when she had been away for the day, and she would have been
keenly disappointed if Mrs. Clancey had failed to carry out her directions for
the dinner-table. To-night she had a special reason for wanting every one to be
in good humor. She had the rose-colored candles in their pewter holders lighted
by the time her mother came down-stairs, and was rewarded by the kiss she
received on the back of her neck, and the little squeeze her mother gave her as
she said:
“The table is
perfect, darling—as it always is when you arrange it.”
Over the soup
and roast beef and vegetables and salad, there was no lack of animated
conversation, with the journey in the big monoplane and the football game to
afford interesting material, and there was still lots to be said when dessert
had been served. But no sooner had the family adjourned to the living-room than
Susan sprang her surprise.
Her mother had
picked up a book and her father was poking the logs in the fireplace to a
brighter blaze, while her small brother was experimenting with the radio, when
Susan, who had perched on the arm of the davenport close to her dad, said
suddenly :
“Please, may I
learn how to fly? I want to, awfully!”
Her simple
question brought sudden and intense interest on the part of her hearers. Her
mother paused in the act of turning a page; her father dropped the fire-tongs
and stood up; while Junior left a dial just as some lively jazz was tuning in.
Susan had
spoken to her father about flying before, so she was hardly prepared for the
astonishment she had caused, but she realized that she was so serious about it
that her hearers had been impressed as well as surprised, for the earnest way
in which she had put the query was in marked contrast to the lightness of their
dinner conversation.
“You knew I
wanted to learn, Dad,” she went on. “And to-day I knew that I couldn’t wait any
longer. Please let me go into your school and take time right away!”
To “take time”
meant to take instruction from one of the pilots in the flying-school, and to
fly in a ship with dual controls, so that instead of being a mere passenger,
one could learn to fly the ship oneself. Susan had flown in ships of this type,
with her father and other pilots, and had even had her hands and feet on the duplicate
controls, but she had never taken charge of the ship as a student would—not
even for a minute—because to be a student she must have a Federal permit. Her
father was very strict about complying with all the regulations, and required
like adherence to the rules from the pilot-instructors on his staff. So Susan
had never “taken time,” although she had wistfully watched scores of young men,
and even a couple of young women, going through the school routine.
As a matter of
fact, neither of those young women students completed the course and became
qualified pilots. One had been told by her instructor that she would never be a
flier and had been advised to give it up, which she promptly did with an air of
relief. The other had been taken ill—and with such serious results that the
flight-surgeon had forbidden her to keep on with the course. So Major Thompson
had not had favorable experience with women students, and Susan suspected that
he had gained an impression of women as fliers that had now become a sort of
prejudice—and that this was one of the reasons why he had always laughed away
her hints about learning to fly.
She knew, as
she looked at her family, that she was not going to win her point easily, but
she was surprised to hear her mother say:
“Yes, Bill,
why not let Susan learn to fly, if she can qualify?”
Susan flashed
her mother a grateful look and exclaimed:
“Oh, Mother,
I’m so glad you’ll let me do it!” But here her father spoke:
“I’d rather
you didn’t, Sue, my dear. Not now, anyhow.”
He was very serious,
and Susan’s heart sank. She felt tears gathering back of her eyes and fought to
keep from crying.
“Oh, but Daddy
dear, I want to so much!” she said. “You know I love flying and I’m sure I
could learn. Please, Dad, let me try, anyway!”
“Why not let her
train?” asked her mother again. “You know, Bill, I think you are a little
prejudiced against women as fliers—and I must say I wish I could fly myself!”
“That’s right,
Mother,” said Susan. “Why haven’t you learned, all this time?” And she went
over and sat down beside her pretty mother, whose hair was shining in the
firelight and whose eyes were tender, as they always were when she looked at
her children.
“My dear
little daughter,” said Ann Thompson, “I’ll tell you a secret. Right after the
war I resolved to learn to fly. Schools weren’t so well organized in those
days—there was not so much Federal and State regulation, either. So your father
started to give me instruction, and he really had hopes of making me a flier,
but I couldn’t pass the physical tests—something about my eyes was wrong. So
your mother will never be your rival, Susan—but I’ll enjoy having you fly as I
once hoped to do.”
“Mother!”
exclaimed Susan, astonished and delighted. “You really did intend to fly! Oh,
how I wish you would do it yet! Are you sure you’re hopeless? Why didn’t you
tell me before?”
“Well, my
dear, I didn’t want you to be ashamed of your old mother,” said Mrs. Thompson,
laughing. “But you can uphold the honor of the women of the Thompson family in
the air, if your father will just say ‘Yes’.”
“Yes, Dad, why
not let Sue have a shot at it?” spoke up Junior.
All of them
looked at Bill Thompson, pioneer flier, war ace, flight-commander, major in the
army air-corps reserve, and saw that he was looking into the fire and his thoughts
seemed far away. He was silent and for a moment nobody spoke. Only the sound of
the dance orchestra, partially tuned in on the radio, came muffled and
indistinct.
Suddenly
another station broke in, with a military march played by some band, and Susan realized
what her father was thinking about—the long years of flying he had seen, the
friends and enemies he had watched die, the pilots he had known who had lost
their lives in crashes, the annual toll of death among students and
instructors, the hazards of that great pathless world of the air, still an
unknown country to the average man.
When he spoke,
his words came slowly and he still looked at the flames. Susan had never seen
her usually merry father look so grave or heard him sound so serious.
“Come here,
Daughter,” he said, “and let me look at you.”
Susan rose
from her place beside her mother and went to him. He was leaning on the mantel,
but when she reached him he straightened up and put his hands on her shoulders,
holding her before him.
For a moment
he regarded her silently. The two who faced each other there were singularly
alike, as Ann Thompson thought, watching them. Susan had the same tall, strong,
robust build, the same firm features, the same merry blue eyes, the same blond
hair, that distinguished Bill Thompson. He was over six feet, but she was only
a foot shorter. His face had lines about the eyes and mouth, brought by years
of war and years of flying, but it was scarcely more firm in its contours than
his daughter’s face. And they looked into each other’s eyes with the same
direct, proud, level glance.
Solemnly Bill
Thompson regarded his girl, and then he smiled and shook his head, ever so
gently.
“You would do
it and do it well,” he said, quietly and seriously. “Flying or anything else, dear—I
know that. You’ve got the right spirit, too. Maybe you’re a born flier—for they
do happen. But my dear little girl, you’re so young—much too young to fly. Even
though you’re ’most as big as your daddy, you’re just a kid still. And you’re my
only daughter, bless you!”
He drew her up
to him and kissed her forehead, gently. But gentle as he was, the tears, so
close to Susan’s eyes all this time, spilled over. She could say nothing and
went back to her place beside her mother, so that her father would not see her
cry and think she was really a baby still.
But her mother
understood and spoke again.
“If it’s just
that Sue is young, Bill,” she said, “why not promise her she can fly when a
certain time comes, or when she reaches some age you think suitable for
flying?”
There was
gentle sarcasm in her mother’s remark, Susan knew, because her father had flown
when he was younger than she was now. He had boasted of students hardly older
than Sue, and often told of a war flier he had known in France who enlisted at
sixteen, had brought down three enemy ships before he was seventeen, and had
died valiantly a year later.
Junior,
apparently losing interest in the matter, returned to the radio and began
experimenting with dials again. Bill Thompson looked at his wife and daughter
with a quizzical smile.
“You don’t
believe in my alibi, do you?” he said. “But what I did at fifteen should not
determine what my daughter does, should it?”
“Do you mean
that you would let Junior learn to fly, at Susan’s age, just because he is a
boy and she is a girl?” asked Mrs. Thompson.
“To be
perfectly honest, my dear, I don’t know,” answered her husband, slowly and
gravely. “Perhaps it is because she is so young—perhaps it is because the women
students we have had turned out so badly. Perhaps I’m just plain scared, but I
can’t see it for Susan—not now, anyhow.”
“But that’s so
unfair,” protested Mrs. Thompson. “You can’t say women are not good fliers.
Think of Lady Heath and Amelia Earhart and Elinor Smith and Amy Johnson and all
the others we don’t hear so much about. And you know how strong Susan is—and
how she has always loved to fly. How can you refuse to let her try, at least?”
“Ann, my
dear,” answered her husband, “it is hard to resist both of you. Between your
reasoning and your charm I find it difficult not to throw up my hands and
surrender. I can’t argue about it, I may be plumb foolish, but I won’t let
Susan learn to fly. Not just now, at any rate. And don’t be cross about it, my
darlings. Let’s call in Patty and have a hand of bridge.”
“If you call
Patty, you’ll have another argument,” said Susan. “Because I think she wants to
learn to fly, too.”
Bill Thompson
threw back his head and laughed his hearty ringing laugh.
“That would be
a majority I couldn’t overcome,” he said. “Well then, let’s go to a good
movie.”
“But we
haven’t the car,” his wife reminded him.
“By Jove!”
said Bill Thompson, “I’m glad you reminded me. Ashamed I forgot. I must call
the hospital right now and see how Dave is getting on. Going down to see him,
if they’ll let me in.”
He rushed out
of the room to his study. Susan exchanged a look with her mother, and they both
smiled.
Junior had at
last found a satisfactory station and a blare of sounds filled the air—it was a
broadcast of a prize-fight. Over the din of the loudspeaker, the two who had
wanted to become fliers, in spite of being feminine, spoke to one another.
“I think
Father was glad of an excuse to get away,” said Susan, a little bitterly but
smiling.
“Don’t be
discouraged, dear,” her mother answered. “I’m not convinced that he won’t let
you fly. He’s just a little afraid of the air when somebody he loves is concerned.
He may agree to it yet.”
“But how did
you ever persuade him to let you try it?” asked Sue.
“Ah!” said her
mother mysteriously. “I went through all this with him, then, but he’s
forgotten it. He couldn’t say I was too young, so he argued that I was a
mother, so I shouldn’t be flying—just as if he wasn’t a father, and we all
dependent on him for our living! But I won him over, in time, and when I had to
give it up, he was just as disappointed as I was.”
“So you think
there is still some hope for me?” Susan was her usual cheerful self again at
the thought.
“Yes, of
course,” laughed her mother. “Just wait and see. But don’t speak about it again
to your father for a while. I have a plan I want to think out first—then you
and I together will start our campaign.”
“Oh, Mother,
you’re a darling!” said Susan, hugging her.
Because she
wanted so intensely to fly herself, Susan realized what a keen disappointment
her mother had known, although she joked about it so gaily. Suddenly she loved
and admired her little mother more than she ever had before, brave and dear as
she had always thought her, ever since childhood with its vague memories of
war-time.
“No wonder you
are always ready to go with Dad on his trips,” she said. “I’ve always known you
were crazy about the air!”
“Let me tell
you, Sue,” said her mother, solemnly, “I enjoyed flying as a passenger more
before I flew myself than I ever have since.”
“Why, Mother!”
said Susan. “How is that?”
“Once you’ve
held the controls yourself, there’s not much fun in flying with any other pilot
in charge,” explained Mrs. Thompson. “Not for me, at any rate. But of course I
enjoy flying with your father, just as I enjoy going anywhere with him, in
anything. I go because he is going and wants me along—not because it’s in the
air, especially.”
“And if I ever
learn to fly well enough, will you come with me?” asked Susan, her eyes
shining.
“Gladly,” said
her mother. “You won’t have to ask me twice. But I’ll be so jealous the day you
get your license—just wait and see!”
“Oh, Mother, I
wish you were going to get one, too!” said Susan. “How far did you get in your
training?” '
“I had a full
course—hours and hours,” replied her mother blithely. “Everything but
tail-spins—we didn’t know so much about them in those days. And the next
flying-candidate will be Junior, I suppose. What do you say, Son?”
“Gee, I think
I’ve got Cuba
on here,” was Junior’s only answer, as a faint wail came from the radio.
Chapter Four
A GALA DAY AT
THE AIRPORT
SUSAN did not
feel altogether discouraged in her desire to learn flying, in spite of her
father’s refusal. Her mother’s support of her ambition helped, and she was sure
that somehow she would yet realize her dream and win her wings.
On the Sunday
morning after her adventurous day at the football game with Newtown , Susan awoke early and felt cheerful,
much to her own surprise. She even sang in her bath, and her mother came in and
said she was glad to hear it, adding that she and Susan’s father were going to
the hospital to see how Dave was progressing. She asked if Sue wanted to go
along.
“I’d like to
see Dave,” Susan agreed, “but I want to go to the airport celebration to-day,
and take Patty along, too.”
“I’m glad you
still love the field,” said her mother, “and that you don’t seem cast down over
what your father said last night. But we’ll arrange about the hospital and the
airport at breakfast.”
It was a
glorious autumn morning, and Susan felt glad to be alive when she arrived in
the sun-room, where breakfast was served.
She found her
father absorbed in the front page of the Sunday paper, which was propped up
before him while he consumed eggs and bacon and toast and coffee. Opposite sat
her mother, disposing of scrambled eggs and muffins and tea while she scanned
the book-reviews. There was no sign of Junior, but Sue knew from experience
that he had probably snatched a hasty breakfast and dashed out to exchange the
latest news of radio or football with some friend; or to carry on one of his
interminable mechanical experiments that were conducted in a room over the
garage.
After a cheery
exchange of greetings with her parents Susan peered into sundry dishes and
under various covers and finally helped herself to grapefruit and creamed beef
and a glass of milk and then they discussed the plans for the day.
Susan and her
mother and brother were to go to the hospital directly from church, it was
decided, where they would meet Bill Thompson, who was going over to see Dave
right after breakfast. They would return together for dinner, bringing Patty
along, and then go to the airport for the afternoon. Patty and Susan felt that
they could not miss this particular Sunday at the field, because the airport
was celebrating its fifth anniversary, and a special exhibition was to be
staged by the fliers for the occasion. Sue’s father, as head of one of the
largest concerns at the airport, was naturally interested, and the entire
Thompson family would be on hand. As it was an ideal autumn day, clear and
crisp but not cold, with the air calm, thousands of spectators were expected
for the celebration.
Everything
went as planned for the day—up to a certain point—but little did Susan and
Patty imagine, when they reached the Midford airport early in the afternoon,
what surprising experiences they were to undergo before darkness fell. Where
Susan’s plans went awry, however, her adventures always began, as she had
discovered before.
Cheered by
having found at the hospital that the mechanic, Dave, was rapidly improving,
Mr. and Mrs. Thompson went directly to the hangar and offices of the
International Aviation Corporation, which was Bill Thompson’s concern. Junior
sought the work-shops and mechanical headquarters of the organization, and Susan
and Patty went straight to the dead-line and mingled with the crowds of
spectators who were gazing at the ships on the line, or in the sky.
“Oh, Patty,”
said Susan breathlessly, “did you ever see anything so beautiful! If there is
anything lovelier than an airplane, what can it be?”
Certainly the
sight was one to make any aviation enthusiast happy. The crowd that pressed
against the ropes about the field was close to the dead-line where the ships
were lined up before taking off— and how gorgeous the ships were! There were
gay little orange and yellow Curtiss Robin cabin monoplanes that, with their
compact build and bright coloring, suggested taxi-cabs. There were bigger
Challenger biplanes—bright red, or green, or gray. There was a sleek Stearman
with a Wright Whirlwind motor, a black biplane trimmed with scarlet and bearing
the monogram of a private owner. There were two New Standards, of vivid green
combined with orange, designed to hold five persons in the open cockpits, and
with the odd arrangement of wings from which they are termed “sesqui-planes.”
One of these was the very ship in which Susan and Patty had gone to the
football game the day before.
Further along
the dead-line were a couple of Travelairs—one a biplane in the characteristic
Yale blue and silver, the other a monoplane cabin ship, radiant in white and
gold. One little Waco biplane in gray was a contrast to the vivid ships about
it, and not far from it was a Fairchild cabin monoplane, silvery in color, with
odd single wings that could be folded back. In spite of its ample carrying
capacity, it was dwarfed by the big tri-motored ships, the giant Ford and a
Fokker of the transport passenger carrying service, which were on the line for
the celebration. At the other extreme were Avian and Moth biplanes, tiny and
sporty. As a special feature there was a Keystone-Loening amphibian on display,
with its clumsy wheels almost hidden by the pontoons, and several army and
national-guard ships had gathered for the occasion, also a Pitcairn Super-Mailwing—very
businesslike in its black and yellow coloring and single-place cockpit—to show
how the mail is carried over some sections of the national air-routes.
Each plane had
its pilot and mechanics at hand, and various ships were taking off, to carry
passengers, or give aerial displays, as fast as the traffic-manager of the
field gave the word. It was an animated scene.
There was a
hum of excitement from the crowd, but it was lost in the roar of the motors
that were being tuned up on the ground, or carrying ships through the air,
while the noise of the constantly arriving motor-cars, augmenting the hundreds
already parked about the field, added to the din. The cries of salespeople,
offering tickets for rides in the air, provided an overtone of sound.
But neither
Susan nor Patty minded this. Susan had grown accustomed to the racket, bustle,
and confusion of the airport on other Saturday and Sunday afternoons, when
there was always an interested crowd on hand at the field. It was a less
familiar scene to Patty, and she was getting a tremendous thrill out of the
excitement of the airport this Sunday afternoon.
Not only were
the pilots of commercial ships carrying passengers on flights above the city
and the surrounding country, almost as fast as they could take them up, but
other pilots were performing breath-taking stunts over the field. Thousands of
faces were turned up to the sky to watch the graceful and mysterious evolutions
of the planes above them.
“Look!” said
Susan to Patty. “That ship is doing a ‘falling-leaf’—isn’t it fascinating!”
Far above,
against the blue of the sky, a scarlet biplane was dropping through the air,
turning as it fell, apparently lazily and inevitably, toward the ground. It
seemed destined to crash on the field, when suddenly came the roar of the
motor. It dived, straightened out, mounted again, and flew away.
A group of
three pursuit ships took its place. These were army planes with yellow wings,
and olive-drab fuselage that looked bronze in the sunshine. The hum of their
motors grew in volume and diminished again as they made loop after loop in
formation.
“Look, look!”
cried Patty suddenly, clutching Susan’s arm. “They’re falling—oh!”
Certainly the
ships did seem to be falling, as they came spinning nose down in a vertical
line and at dizzy speed, but suddenly these too straightened out and sped away.
Then the
audience at the field heard a voice announcing through the megaphone that there
was to be a dead-stick landing next, by Jack Wright, chief instructor of Bill
Thompson’s concern and among the most popular commercial pilots at the airport.
At the conclusion of the announcement one of the Challengers on the dead-line
sped off and into the air, climbing rapidly in wide spirals above the field.
“This is going
to be great,” said Susan to Patty. “Jack Wright is one of the best fliers down
here and a good friend of mine and Dad’s. Just watch what he does.”
“What is he
going to do?” asked Patty. “What is a dead-stick landing, anyway?”
“Why, it means
he lands without any motor,” explained Susan, surprised at the query.
“But they all
seem to stop the motor before they land anyway,” commented Patty. “I remember
Mr. Copley did it yesterday, when he was flying with us.”
Susan laughed
indulgently.
“Of course,
they throttle the motor before they land,” she explained, “because the slower
your flying speed is when you are coming down, the easier it is to land
properly. But although the motor is throttled down for any landing, the power
is still there, and you can turn it on again if you like, or if anything is
going to happen. But when it is a dead-stick landing, the motor is cut
entirely—the switch is turned off—and the pilot couldn’t start it again if he
wanted to. He has to know flying well enough to come down just right without
any power at all. Now watch—he has altitude enough—I mean he is up high
enough—and he will shut off the motor. Listen!”
Sure enough,
the megaphoned announcement came:
“Jack Wright
has now shut off his motor at an altitude of two thousand feet. Please observe
that his propeller is still. He is making this landing without power.”
Patty and
Susan watched breathlessly as the ship seemed to pause in the sky, and then
came toward the earth, gliding down in great swoops and curves, banking here,
turning there, circling at a glide, and finally, with a beautiful sweep, coming
to rest on the field, while the audience cheered.
There were no
more stunts scheduled for a time and the commercial fliers’ representatives
circulated in the audience, selling tickets to the crowd, which was eager to
fly.
“I'm glad I
don’t have to pay two or three or five dollars for a trip,” said Patty, “thanks
to you, Sue, and your dad. But I would pay it after that flight yesterday, if I
couldn’t go up any other way.”
“It’s lucky
for the commercial fliers that most people have to pay and are willing to,”
said Susan. “And I’m glad they’re doing such a good business to-day. When you
realize that they make their living this way, and help aviation a lot by
showing people what flying really is, then you can see that they deserve all
they make.”
“I should
think they’d make a lot of money, too,” said Patty. “Why, look at that flier
they call Frenchie Girard—he has been just turning people away.”
The flier she
indicated was a jovial young man, whose maroon ship seemed particularly popular
with the public. His assistants were selling tickets to passengers almost as
fast as they could pass them out.
“Yes, he is
popular,” conceded Susan. “But when you consider that he paid hundreds of
dollars to get his flying-training and thousands for his ship, and remember
that he can only fly in good weather and carries passengers only on week-ends
and holidays and in fairly warm weather, and add the fact that he has to buy
gas and oil and hire mechanics and hangar-space—well, you can see that he has a
lot of overhead.”
“What is this
I hear about overhead?” said a voice behind them. “Everything ought to be
overhead at a time like this.”
The girls
turned around and saw Bud Wheelock, arm in arm with Harry Copley. Both were in
flying-clothes and carried helmets and goggles.
“My goodness!”
said Susan. “I would never have known you if you hadn’t spoken, Mr. Wheelock!
Are you flying?”
“Surest thing
you know,” he said, cheerily. “I’m going to fly for Frenchie Girard. He has
more than he can handle and we’ve chartered a ship from your dad’s outfit.”
“But how did
you happen to get the job?” asked Patty.
“Funny
coincidence,” said Wheelock. “I came down to see Copley do his stuff this
afternoon and found my old friend Frenchie of the Lafayette Escadrille was on
the line too. Hadn’t seen him since I left France , but here he is, with a wife
and family and ship and everything.”
“Oh!” said
Patty, looking pointedly at Susan. “So he was in France ! I guess his
flying-education didn’t cost him so much after all, Susan!”
“It cost him
plenty,” put in Copley. “Frenchie had ten wounds, any one of them bad enough to
kill most men, but he has more lives than a cat, I guess.”
“Yes, and he
has a little bit of purple ribbon and some odds and ends of hardware to show
for his work in the war, too,” said Wheelock. “He was one of the best fliers
the French army had.”
“Oh, I’m
sorry,” said Patty with sincerity. “I was just spoofing Susan a little. I
suppose it did cost him a lot to get started.”
“Yes, he
worked like a dog to earn the money for that ship,” agreed Copley. “But he has
a fine personality and the public likes him, so he has been popular ever since
he began carrying passengers. Popular with everybody on the field, too.”
“Well, I
couldn’t let an old buddy lose money on a day like this,” said Wheelock, “so
I’m glad to help him out. Is the ship ready, do you think?”
“Sure thing,”
said Copley. “They’ll taxi her down to a place beside Frenchie and the boys can
ballyhoo for you, too.”
“Right!” said
Wheelock. “Glad I brought along my license. So long, Miss Susan! I’ll take you
and Miss Patty for a ride, if business gets dull and you want to go.”
The girls
agreed and the two pilots went off toward the ships, people turning to look at
them with interest as they passed, for both were tall, good-looking men and
their flying-clothes gave them an air of romance. Patty and Susan watched them
disappear in the crowd, but in a minute Copley came running back.
“Susan!” he
called, as he approached her. “Will you do something to help Frenchie and
Wheelock—and somebody else, too?”
“What is it?”
asked Susan, cautiously.
“Why, you know
Frenchie’s wife always sells tickets and supervises the other ticket-sellers,”
explained Copley, “and she has just collapsed. Seems she has been having
appendicitis, but thought she could stick it out to-day. They’ve taken her to
the field hospital and she’ll have to have an operation as soon as they can get
her into town. It’s hard on Frenchie, because they counted a lot on the money
they’d take in to-day. And we can’t find anybody to take Marie’s place in a
hurry—unless you want to do it. It’s a darned shame. Now that Wheelock is going
to pinch-hit for Frenchie, he’s lost his star ticket-seller. Will you take her
place?”
“Of course I
will,” said Susan without hesitation.
“I know Dad
and Mother won’t mind, if it’s helping out Frenchie and his wife and baby.”
“Can’t I do
it, too?” begged Patty. “Please let me, Susan!”
“We’ll see,”
said Copley, as he led them toward the place where the commercial ships and
their waiting passengers were assembled.
Just as they
arrived, Bud Wheelock took off with four passengers in one of the New
Standards, waving his hand as he saw the girls approach. Frenchie was still
waiting on the ground, the passengers’ seats in the cockpit holding a young
couple, evidently highly excited at the prospect of their first air-trip.
Copley led the girls over to him and he greeted Susan, whom he knew well
through her frequent visits to the field. He quickly explained to her the
system used for selling and checking tickets, gave a book of them to her and
another to Patty, and then, taxiing to the starting-point, he took the air and
was soon hundreds of feet overhead. Concerned as he plainly was about his wife,
he was carrying on like a good soldier.
The girls
joined the corps of ticket-sellers between the boundary ropes and the
dead-line. All up and down the field, a brisk business in selling air-trips was
in progress. The salespeople included young women, as well as young men, many
of them regular attachés of the commercial firms at the field, wearing uniforms
bearing the names of the concerns they represented. The two youths who were
selling tickets for Frenchie were apprentice mechanics, whom Susan knew. They
wore white overalls with the legend “Fly with Frenchie” inscribed on them, but
Sue and Patty found they needed no special costume, since they were kept busy
tearing off tickets and accepting bills handed to them in exchange. Flights
were three and five dollars according to duration, with the latter the more
popular.
While the
afternoon sun was warm, the flights of ships carrying passengers were the chief
activity at the field, but there was an interval devoted to a parachute-jump
that was a spectacular sight. The ship, a blue Travelair, was more than two
thousand feet above the field, according to the megaphoned announcement, when
the little spot that was the parachute-jumper separated itself from the plane.
After it had fallen like a stone for a little distance, the circle of snowy
silk that was the parachute opened out like a huge and lovely flower, bringing
its burden gently to earth.
During this
diversion, the girls were actively engaged selling the flying-tickets, but they
were not too busy to watch the jump.
“A perfect
jump, and delayed at that,” one of the mechanics remarked to Susan.
“Who was it?”
asked Susan. “One of the boys at the field here?”
“Naw,” he
answered. “That’s Pete Hawkins, a fellow from New York . And the lad that flew him is
Lester Burnett, the kid pilot—they came in yesterday. Making a cross-country
flight, barn-storming.”
“What do you
mean when you say the jump was delayed?” asked Patty, as she accepted the money
for two five-dollar rides from a prosperous elderly farmer, who was resolved to
take his wife up in the air. “It looked to me as if he came down pretty fast.”
“Why, the
reg’lar jump means you pull your ripcord about three seconds after you leave
the ship,” explained her informant, “but in a delayed jump, you wait longer, so
it’s more dangerous, see?”
Here Susan,
who had gone down the line to sell tickets to a bashful youth who was coaxing
his sweetheart to go up in Frenchie’s airplane, came back to where Patty was
stationed. Sue, too, had a query for the mechanic.
“Why do you
call Burnett a ‘kid pilot’?” she asked.
“Because he’s
only eighteen,” was the answer. “Got a full transport license, too. And say, he
certainly can fly pretty. He’s going to do some stunts later on. Wait and see.”
And later in
the afternoon, Susan and Patty did see notable exploits by the young flier from
New York , who
rolled his ship over and over across the sky, and made a series of wing-overs
before swooping down to earth.
This was the
final display, before darkness made further flying unsafe. It followed another
demonstration of formation flight by the army ships, which flew like a group of
homing birds, at precise distances and in a beautiful wedge of wings across the
sky.
The crowd
gradually dispersed, with much honking of motor-horns and confusion of traffic,
and Susan and Patty, exchanging smiles, counted up the ticket-stubs they had
remaining, as Frenchie and Wheelock made their final flights with passengers
who would not be denied the experience, even as dusk approached.
When the
pilots brought down their last loads, the girls watched them taxi to the
dead-line and then, carefully avoiding the danger of the whirling propellers,
Susan went up to make her report. She had sold more than three hundred dollars’
worth of tickets, and Patty had sold half as many.
“You certainly
did a fine job,” said Frenchie, with enthusiasm. “And you don’t know how much
it means to Marie and me. You can see what we would have lost without you, and
I wish you would take the regular commission of twenty per cent, that we pay
people who sell for us.”
“Oh, I
couldn’t! Thank you just the same,” said Susan, and Patty echoed her remark.
“Well, I don’t
suppose you want to take it out in flying-time the way some of the boys do,”
said Frenchie laughing, “but I can’t tell you how grateful I am. And Marie will
be, too. Want to take a twilight trip right now?”
“Oh, I’d love
to,” said Susan, “but Dad and Mother may be wondering where we are—although I
suppose Harry Copley told them.”
Just then a
whistle drew her attention to the edge of the field and there was Jack Wright
and beside him was a slim young man in flying-clothes and helmet.
“I think Dad
has sent for me right now,” said Susan, and she and Patty said good-night.
“Well, how’s
the young ticket-seller?” asked Wright, as the girls approached. “Your dad
thinks you ought to be pretty tired, so he has some refreshments up there, if
you’re hungry.”
“I'm starved,
now you mention it!” exclaimed Patty.
“Fancy Patty
having to be reminded she is hungry!” laughed Susan. “But I am, too.”
“And here’s a
young man you ought to be acquainted with,” continued Wright. “Let me present
Lester Burnett, the pilot who flew the parachute-jumper. Burnett, Miss Thompson
and Miss Carlisle.”
Susan found
herself shaking hands with a slim, blond lad, no taller than herself and
scarcely heavier, who had a frank face and steady gray eyes.
Together the
four walked to Mr. Thompson’s headquarters, and Susan found the boy quiet and
modest, almost shy. She did not ask him about his flying-training, but
complimented him on the stunts he had performed that afternoon.
After young
Burnett left them to go to the hangar where his ship was “parked” for the
night, as he expressed it, Susan learned something about him from Wright. He
told her how the Burnett boy had flown well enough to solo after three hours of
instruction, how he had steadily made each grade of license, working as a
mechanic to earn his tuition. He had achieved a wide reputation around his home
field for his coolness in two great emergencies, once making a forced landing
under unfavorable conditions without injury to ship or passengers, another time
bringing his ship down to a dead-stick landing when some accident had set it
afire. He had suffered serious burns, himself, but had kept his head, cut his
switch, landed his ship, and plied the fire extinguisher before help reached
him.
“Thought he’d
never live through that,” said her informant, “but he did and went right back
into the air, the way all good pilots do.”
“But he
doesn’t show any burns,” remarked Patty.
“Not in winter
flying-clothes,” said Wright, “but you ought to see his arms. I guess his hands
are pretty well scarred, too, and he has a nasty mark on his cheek, but it
doesn’t show in this light.”
“Well, I’m
certainly proud to have met him,” said Susan as they reached her father’s
office. “Oh, Patty, see those sandwiches! Don’t they look good?”
With a sigh of
bliss, Patty sat down beside Susan’s mother, who laughed as they came in.
“Poor little
hard-working girls!” she said. “But it was sweet of you both to help out
Frenchie and his wife that way.”
“Yes,” said
Patty, “we took in almost five hundred dollars between us—and we could have had
a hundred dollars commission, if we had wanted it.”
“Or I could
have had all that in flying-tuition,” added Susan mischievously, “but I just
couldn’t bear to take the business away from Dad, so I said I’d wait until I
can learn to fly right here.”
Her father
looked up from his desk and smiled, but made no comment. Susan’s mother passed
her the sandwiches.
“That’s right,
Daughter,” she said. “Patronize home industries and accept no substitutes.
You’ll learn to fly yet, I’m sure.”
“I should
think she could,” said Patty, with her mouth full. “We met a boy to-day—just a
kid, too—who’s an expert pilot. Even Mr. Wright said so. Makes me furious to
think boys get away with that and girls can’t—”
But here Susan
kicked her so vigorously that she ended suddenly with something that sounded
like “Ouch.”
Soon
afterward, Harry Copley brought Bud Wheelock in to introduce him to Susan’s
father, and there was talk of war flying and other reminiscences until it was
time to leave the field.
Patty and
Susan noticed—and commented on it afterward—that Bud Wheelock avoided
mentioning his future flying-plans and evaded any direct question about what he
was doing. But he had a transport license, the highest grade issued by the
United States Government, and his work during the afternoon had proved him a
capable pilot.
Chapter Five
THE ARIEL IS
CHRISTENED
IN later
years, Susan often looked back on the week that followed the Midford-Newtown
football game as one of the most important of her entire life, for it seemed as
if the events which had started with that game had moved swiftly and inevitably
toward her cherished goal.
To begin with,
Patty, who had paid little attention to aviation and made good-natured fun of
Susan’s love of it, now became suddenly enthusiastic about everything
concerning flying. This outspoken enthusiasm became evident to her classmates
the day after the airport celebration, when Patty declared openly that she was
going to learn to fly. Susan smiled indulgently while this was going on; and
when some of the girls affected to consider this only a fad, she staunchly
upheld her friend.
At recess the
chums were, as usual, in the group that constituted their own special “gang,”
when the subject came up—brought into conversation, as it often was, by the
sight of an airplane flying overhead.
“Oh, isn’t it
gorgeous!” sighed Patty, as the ship flashed by overhead, scarlet and gold.
“Susan, it’s just like the one that the Burnett boy was flying, isn't it? Only
a different color!”
Susan squinted
up at the airplane, and shook her head, as she squeezed Patty’s arm
affectionately.
“No, my dear,”
she said. “It isn’t the least bit like Burnett’s ship, except that it flies, of
course. He had a Travelair, which has an odd sort of appearance in the air,
different from any other—I’ll show you sometime. But anyhow, his had double
wings, being a biplane, while this is a monoplane a Cessna, I think—and so has
only single wings.”
“The lecture
on airplanes will now begin,” remarked Mary Aiken, laughing. “Why the sudden
interest, Patty?”
“That flight
over to the football game must have gone to her head,” said Polly Smith. “But
it was worth while, anyhow. And you found that Bud Wheelock was a pilot just as
I said, didn't you?”
“I should say
we did,” interposed Susan. "We were selling tickets for his passengers all
yesterday afternoon.”
This, of
course, caused a small sensation, and Patty and Susan were besieged with
questions, until it was time to go back to class. Several of the girls, and
many of the boys of the school had been at the airport the day before, but none
of them had seen Susan and Patty selling tickets, or had realized that Bud
Wheelock was flying—a fact bitterly mourned by the girls, who seemed to consider
that seeing their hero of the football field in flying-togs would have been a
memorable experience. And when they heard Patty declare that she intended to
learn to fly, most of them looked as if they would like to realize the same
ambition.
During the next
few days, Patty and Susan often discussed their resolution to be fliers,
although Susan said nothing about it at school because of her father’s
opposition. Patty respected her confidence, and did not reveal her friend’s
desire, even while seeming to glory in proclaiming her own.
When Susan
went over to Patty’s home, she found that Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle listened
indulgently and did not discourage their daughter. She felt a little
discouraged herself because her own father had not mentioned the matter again.
But in the
middle of the week Patty came dashing over to the Thompson’s house one morning,
waving a letter in her hand. She bounded into the diningroom, where the
Thompson family had just started breakfast.
“Oh, Susan!”
she shouted. “What do you suppose? Here’s a letter from Phil, and he thinks
it’s great for us to learn flying, and he’s learning how himself, and he’s a
member of the Yale Flying Club, and he wants us to come down to the big game at
the Bowl in New Haven this week, and he has tickets for us and everything!”
“And Patty
said it all without stopping once for a breath!” laughed Mrs. Thompson.
“Evidently the
flying plans rate higher than the football game as news,” said Mr. Thompson.
“Gee, the Yale
Bowl!” ejaculated Susan’s small brother.
But as for
Susan herself, she could say nothing. In fact, if she had not had her breath
taken away by the exciting news Patty had revealed, she would have had
difficulty in speaking in any case, because her friend rushed around to the
back of her chair and hugged her ecstatically.
“Look at the
letter!” continued Patty when she had been offered a chair and invited to have
some breakfast. “Just look! Oh, Mrs. Thompson, you’re going to let Susan come
to the game, aren’t you? Mother is going with us, and there’s a special message
in the postscript for you, Susan!”
So Susan took
Phil Carlisle’s letter and read it carefully, and there, after he had endorsed
his sister’s ideas and described his own interest and progress in flying and
asked her to bring Susan to the game, was the postscript:
“P.S. I’ll
take you and Susan over to the Yale Flying Club headquarters and show you
around, Sunday after the game. Tell Susan not to be discouraged if her family
opposes her flying, for some of the boys in our club have had to fly under
assumed names because of the attitude of their relatives. But they have
old-fashioned folks. What’s the matter with Susan’s people, when her father is
a pilot himself? She’s always been a game kid and I think she’d make a swell
flier.”
Susan smiled a
little at this. Phil, she reflected, had good reason to consider her “game,”
because when she and Patty had been little girls and he had been in high
school, it was always Susan who would not let a dare pass by, who climbed as
many trees, swam as many yards, jumped as many fences, and even cleaned as many
fish, as Phil challenged her to.
Phil had
taught both girls to dive by the simple expedient of taking them out on a float
at the lake and explaining to them patiently how to do it—but adding that if
they didn’t try it voluntarily, he would have to throw them in! Both the girls
had followed his command—Patty because she adored him, and Susan because she
would not let any one say she was afraid—and he had rewarded their efforts by
making them expert swimmers and divers. But that had been six or eight years
before, and Susan had seen him infrequently during the intervening period,
while he had been away at school and college.
Sue looked up
from the letter to find her mother regarding her with a smile. Patty handed the
letter over to Mrs. Thompson, whose eyes twinkled as she read the postscript.
Then she handed it to Mr. Thompson. Much to everybody’s surprise, he laughed
aloud, and then handed the letter back to Patty.
“If Susan’s
mother will let her go to the game,” he said, “and of course she will, I’ll
send you down in the big ship, with one of my best pilots. How’s that?”
“Oh, Mr.
Thompson, aren’t you wonderful!” cried Patty. “But couldn’t you go yourself?
Phil would feel proud to have you come, I know.”
“Sure of
that?” asked Mr. Thompson, smiling at her. “I sort of gathered from the
postscript that he didn’t think much of me, after all!”
“Oh, you know
what he meant by that,” said Patty, blushing. “He just thought you ought to
understand how Susan feels. You know Phil has always adored you—ever since you
showed him how to make gliders and things when he was just the kid next door.”
“Phil’s all
right,” said Susan’s father, tolerantly. “I’m glad he’s learning to fly, too.
The future of aviation in this country will depend on lads like that.”
“But can’t you
take us down?” urged Susan. She was proud of her daddy, and loved him none the
less because he had not endorsed her flying project.
“Lots to do
here this week-end, dear,” he said. “But the big ship will get you there
safely, with Copley or Wright at the stick, and one of the mechanics will go
along, too. They have no field at New
Haven yet, but there are some near by, and if Phil
will wire where he does his flying, we’ll park the old bus right there and it
will be handy for everybody.”
“I may go,
then, Mother?” said Susan.
“Of course you
may, bless your heart!” said her mother. “There will be plenty of room for
Patty and her mother and you in the new ship, and it is a fine way to avoid the
football crowds. I’ve been to New
Haven for the big games and the congestion on the
trains and the highways is incredible. Flying is the ideal way to travel to the
Bowl.”
“When shall we
have to start?” queried Susan.
Everybody
looked at her father, who said he thought they could leave Midford early
Saturday morning and be at their destination by Saturday noon, if the weather
was good. But it was decided to wait for the telegram from Phil, specifying the
airport where he flew, and to talk it over with Patty’s mother, before definite
plans were made.
Naturally
Susan and Patty were the envy of their classmates at Midford High School
Before the end
of the week it was decided to leave as soon after dawn as possible on Saturday,
which would bring them to the field at Bethany ,
Connecticut Bridgeport , Susan’s father decided it
would be better, under conditions at the time of the game, to have the big ship
fly to Bethany , which would save motoring to the
Bowl through the traffic congestion between Bridgeport
and New Haven .
Then, according to the plans of Bill Thompson, the ship would fly to Bridgeport from Bethany the
next day, and take off from Bridgeport
for the return trip.
Both Susan and
Patty were so excited Friday night that they thought they would never get to
sleep. Each of them had a neat overnight case packed in readiness for the
journey. They knew there might be some parties, in addition to the football
game, and meant to be prepared for anything, although Phil had not invited them
to any dance. Patty was of the opinion that he would have what she termed “some
grown-up girl” to go to the game with him and to any affairs afterward. But
even if he did, they did not mind, and looked forward to the game as being
worth several hundred miles of travel in itself.
There was a light
frost on the grass of the airfield, and a gray haze was just gilded with a
newly risen sun, when Mrs. Carlisle, Patty, Susan, and Susan’s father and
mother arrived at the field very early Saturday morning. Grinning widely, Sam
Connell, chief mechanic of Bill Thompson’s staff, greeted them with a salute
and showed them the beautiful ship standing at the dead-line, its engines
roaring, its propeller idling over. A group of mechanics was gathered about it,
while Jack Wright, sitting in the high pilot’s cockpit forward, was watching
the tachometer.
Susan was
pleased that Wright was to be the pilot. Although she liked and appreciated all
the fliers on her father’s staff and at the airport, she always felt that Jack
Wright particularly sympathized with her desire to become a flier. She knew
that she might learn much of value from him on this trip, which was to be her
first experience in the huge cabin monoplane that had taken her parents on
their air-journey the week before.
Because it was
a giant cabin plane, holding twelve people, and the last word in flying luxury,
its passengers did not need to don special apparel. They stepped through the
little door in the side of the cabin and found themselves in something like the
lounge of a fine yacht.
The outside of
the ship was of the peculiar silvery metal in corrugated effect that is
characteristic of Ford ships, but inside there were wall panels of delicate
woodwork in golden-brown tones, windows hung with silk of gold and blue,
comfortable chairs upholstered in blue brocade, a couch in blue-and-gold-striped
fabric, with gold-covered cushions bearing the international company’s monogram
and emblem in blue; and even blue-and-gold rugs and a few fine pictures.
Stationery, designed for the ship, was to be found in a clever little
writing-table that folded against the wall when not in use, and the pantry
arrangement in the rear of the cabin provided the means of serving refreshments
on fine china, likewise monogrammed, and decorated with the firm’s emblem, a
golden eagle.
Every member
of the party was admiring these features, while the motors roared up forward,
when Susan’s father drew her outside.
“Do you
remember that we were going to have a formal christening of this ship?” he
asked her, his arm about her shoulders.
“Yes, Dad,”
she said.
“In view of
the important trip you are about to make in the new bus, Connell thinks we
ought to get her labeled before you hop off,” explained her father, “so instead
of waiting for a big occasion, we’ll have a little ceremony now. Wait
here!"
He called the
rest of the party together, and the mechanics crowded around, while at a signal
Wright stopped the motor. The field staff and executives began to gather. From
somewhere the tall figure of Harry Copley appeared with his characteristic
leisurely gait. He carried a bottle of ginger-ale.
One of the
mechanics produced a ladder, another held it, and Susan mounted until she could
reach the prow of the ship, where the propeller was attached.
“Oh, dear!”
she exclaimed, as she got to the top of the ladder. “I hate to get the ship all
messy and wet, and I might hurt something by smashing the bottle.”
Copley said,
“Don’t worry. This ship can stand more than that.”
So Susan shut
her eyes, hit the bottle decisively on the metal, and said solemnly, “I
christen thee Ariel.” As she spoke Sam Connell pulled a tarpaulin from the
fuselage and disclosed the name, painted in blue on the side of the ship. The
last touch was complete. Then everybody shook hands and acted as if something
important had been accomplished.
“Isn’t it
perfect?” said Patty, when they were back in the cabin, the motors roaring and
everything ready for the start.
“Yes,” said
Susan, “I know we’re going to have a gorgeous time, but I wish Dad and Mother
were coming, too.”
“I wish they
could,” said Mrs. Carlisle. “This is my first air-trip and I must confess I
dread it a little, although I do believe in aviation.”
“You won’t be
a bit airsick, or anything else,” said Mrs. Thompson. “This is a marvelous way
to travel. Susan thinks a big cabin ship is a little effete, compared to the
sporty open planes, but it has advantages. And you’ll be in New Haven in time for lunch.”
“Where will
you be, Mother?” asked Susan. “Oh, I’ll be right at home for a change,” said
her mother, “but we’ll all be at the field here at Midford to meet you when you
get back. Isn’t it wonderful to think you’ll travel almost a thousand miles,
and yet have all that time at New
Haven between now and to-morrow night?”
“You’ll
average more than a hundred miles an hour, easily,” said Bill Thompson.
Then farewells
were exchanged, Susan feeling a little weepy, because it was the first time she
had ever left her dad and mother on the ground while she sailed away on a long
sky-journey. But she soon realized how foolish she was and smiled gallantly.
Then the people on the field stepped back to avoid the powerful wind from the
propeller, when it was speeded up for the start. The little cabin door was
closed by the chief mechanic, Sam Connell, who was to go along with them, and
he went up front, to sit beside Wright in the cockpit, while the youth named Hank
Smith, who acted as steward on the ship, took a seat at the rear. Susan and
Patty and Mrs. Carlisle found comfortable seats aplenty to choose from, and
with a roar of the motor, and a sudden movement forward, the air-journey of
almost five hundred miles from Midford to New
Haven was under way.
Chapter Six
BY SKYWAYS,
NOT HIGHWAYS
EVEN Susan,
with all her experience, was surprised to see how smoothly the great cabin
plane left the ground and how quickly the airport with its hangars, its
administration buildings, its wind-cone and tee and flag, fell away below them.
When Jack
Wright tipped the ship over to make a right bank for the turn toward his
distant goal, the windows on that side seemed to be looking directly down on
the field. Mrs. Carlisle appeared apprehensive, but she smiled when Susan looked
at her, while Patty showed sheer delight.
Susan rose and
walked forward to the door leading to the cockpit, which had been closed, a
measure reducing the sound of the motors in the cabin. She opened the door and
looked at the instrument-board before Jack Wright, and at the controls, which
were entirely unlike those of the smaller ships she had traveled in. Instead of
the straight “joy-stick” of the usual plane, this had two big wheels, poised
vertically on steel shafts, while the rudder-controls were also different. As
for the instruments, they were almost overwhelming in number, including bank
and turn indicators, a compass, radio signal dials and several different gages
to determine gas and oil supply, motor-temperature, and other matters.
As she stood
in the doorway, Sam Connell turned and asked if she would like to ride with the
pilot, so he and Susan exchanged places, after she had explained to her guests
that she would ride in the cockpit for a while, and Patty could sit there
later.
Sue found that
Jack Wright had the air-route map spread out on his knee on the board provided
for that purpose, and he explained to her, shouting over the racket of the
motors, how the course would not be direct from Midford to New Haven, but would
go off at an angle to allow for the influence of winds, and thus they would
still be going on a direct line, although apparently following a triangular
course.
The noise of
the motor made it impossible for him to explain this in detail, so Susan looked
with interest at the map to see what towns and airports would be passed on the
journey. She watched while Wright steadily climbed the ship to an altitude of
two thousand feet, and looking back, saw the Midford airport just a spot of
open ground with the city beyond it.
The early
morning haze of autumn covered the distances on the horizon, but there were
violet and blue shadowed mountains, turquoise lakes, a golden thread of river,
and stretches of green forest, spattered with the red and gold and bronze of
autumn-tinted foliage. The brown fields of the farm-lands were dotted with
yellow corn-shocks, or simply looked like henna-colored squares, between the
green meadows and the creamy roads.
Susan thought
it was wonderful to be alive and soaring above this beautiful world. Smoke
curling upward in the calm air proved that breakfasts were being prepared in
most of the homes below, while the roads and streets showed little traffic.
“You’ll be
hungry before we get there!” shouted Wright.
“Your mother
had a lunch put on board.” Susan nodded, appreciating how thoughtful her mother
had been. She was watching for the next big town, although they were flying
over a succession of small villages. Soon they passed above a large lake, and a
great stretch of wild forest country, and here the air grew rough.
Rough air is
something that must be felt to be understood, as Susan well knew, and when the
monoplane hit the first bump and suddenly fell, only to rise again abruptly a
few seconds later, she looked into the cabin to see how her friends were
standing it. Mrs. Carlisle looked rather pale, but Patty seemed to be enjoying
the ups and downs, and came to the door between cabin and cockpit to tell Susan
about it.
“It felt like
an elevator dropping,” she commented. “What happened?”
“The air was
rough over the lake,” explained Susan. “When it’s a cold streak we fall, and
when it’s warm, we rise. Maybe that’s not the right way to explain it, but it’s
what the pilots tell me—and if you tell your mother, she may not be so
frightened.”
“Mother isn’t
frightened,” stated Patty. “She’s just plain seasick.”
“Oh, I’m
sorry,” said Susan, and promptly returned to the cabin because she felt that
she was hostess on the ship and owed a duty to her guests.
But the air
continued rough and the Ariel bounced up and down like a boat on the waves.
Susan pointed out the shadow of the plane that was chasing along on the ground
beneath, but Mrs. Carlisle leaned back and closed her eyes, decidedly not
interested in anything.
Susan and
Patty were disconcerted, but Sam Connell came to their rescue and assured Mrs.
Carlisle that the roughness would not last long. The girls did not realize that
the ship was climbing again until suddenly shreds of white passed the windows
and obscured their view of the earth. Then there was more of this white, like
fog, and they realized that they were in the clouds. This information aroused
even Mrs. Carlisle’s interest and Patty was obviously thrilled.
“Your pilot is
climbing to get into smoother air,” explained Connell. “We’ll be out over the
clouds in a minute. Look!”
The three
passengers did look and saw a beautiful and unforgettable sight. Susan had
flown above the clouds before, but her companions never had—and even to Susan
the experience was always new and lovely.
Above them was
the radiant morning sky, brilliantly blue. Below them was a mass of white,
fleecy billows like a sea of snow—but really not like anything else in the
world but cloudland. It was tinted with gold and rose hues as the sun struck
through, and the air up here above the clouds was again “as smooth as cheese,”
as Connell put it.
“Look there,”
said Susan, as she pointed below and a little bit behind the ship. Mrs. Carlisle
and Patty exclaimed with delight, for there was a miniature monoplane in
silhouette, chasing along beside them with a rainbow-tinted circle surrounding
it.
“Isn’t it like
a little airplane ghost!" remarked Patty.
“No, I think
it looks like a little angel ship,” returned Susan.
“It is the
most beautiful sight I have ever laid my eyes on, this whole scene,” said Mrs.
Carlisle warmly. It was evident that she had forgotten her airsickness and the
girls smiled at each other.
“It’s like a
magic world—a real fairyland,” cried Susan.
“But of course
we’re not seeing many cities,” said Patty.
When they had
flown above the clouds for an hour, the girls looked at the map of the
air-routes, which was fastened up over the writing-desk in the cabin, and told
each other which places they had missed while they were in cloudland.
“We are up six
thousand feet right now,” said Patty, glancing at the altimeter in the cockpit.
“Yes, and your
pilot is still on his course, too,” said Connell. “You can trust Wright for
that. He’s flown the mail and can fly blind.”
As Susan and
Patty stood looking through the glass of the cabin door into the cockpit, they
saw the altimeter register decreasing height. Susan opened one of the cabin
windows wide and the roar of the motors came in, as well as a breeze of clear
cold air. Then, as they went lower, the air grew damp, and moisture formed on
the window-ledge. Susan reached out and snatched at the shreds of fleecy
whiteness through which they flew gradually down, until they saw the country-side
again. It showed only in patches through the whiteness, to be sure, but it was
indisputably the solid earth, an earth of road and flat farm-lands.
“Where do you
suppose we are now?” asked Mrs. Carlisle.
Susan promptly
went up to the cockpit and inquired, finding that they were close to a great
city and almost one third of the distance toward their destination. The pilot
had thought it best to come close to land when he approached the site of a busy
airport, and they could see the spires and chimneys and roofs of the city in
the distance, all reduced to a single level by their own height, which was
still in the thousands. The airport with its wind-tee and huge flat buildings
was soon passed, and Susan looked down with interest at the tiny little ships
on its dead-line and the scarcely larger ones that were circling the field, a
thousand feet below them.
The country
was now changing in appearance and there was a constant succession of towns and
villages for a long period. Then came a long stretch of wild country, wooded
hills, mysterious lakes, and narrow rivers. Patty was in the cockpit now, and
Susan sat with Mrs. Carlisle, while Connell talked to them of the country
below.
“This is the
most dangerous stretch of the whole trip,” he said cheerfully. “Many a mail-pilot
has cracked up in these hills and been lost in those ravines.”
Mrs. Carlisle
and Susan looked down with horror at the sinister dark green of the pine-clad
hills below. The ship had gained altitude again and was four thousand feet up,
with half their journey over.
“Let’s have
something to eat,” suggested Susan, to change the subject. And to her pleased
surprise, Mrs. Carlisle acceded readily. So Hank Smith, the steward, was
aroused from his perusal of a magazine of lurid fiction, and asked to bring out
the lunch stored in the little refrigerator in the pantry. He was not a
particularly cheerful youth, Susan thought, and he performed his duties in a
rather surly way, but the lunch was excellent. Susan herself carried sandwiches
up to the pilot and Patty in the cockpit, and took to them the hot chocolate
and coffee provided in thermos containers by her thoughtful mother. There,
thousands of feet above the ground, they had an excellent luncheon, while
traveling a hundred miles an hour.
Afterwards
Mrs. Carlisle, quite accustomed to air-travel by this time, produced a new book
from her traveling-bag and settled down to read, with only an occasional glance
out of the windows at the changing world below.
Although the
passengers were not conscious of the constant noise of the triple motors after
a time, it was nevertheless an obstacle to conversation, and Susan was content
to sit beside Connell and exchange only occasional comments. After a while
Patty rejoined her and Connell returned to the cockpit, where he might be
needed to relieve Wright at the controls. The cabin of the ship was warm but
the cockpit had been decidedly cold, and Patty rubbed her hands together and
stamped her feet as she joined her chum.
“That’s one of
the things that seem strange,” she shouted in Susan’s ear. “To think this ship
is so solid and yet it can stay up in the air!”
Susan nodded,
understanding just what Patty meant, for it did seem incredible that the ship
and the weight of its contents could be sustained in flight by such simple and
yet important factors as the vacuum caused on the backs of the wings by their
curvature, the power of its motors, the thrust of the propeller. Although she
had studied books on aerodynamics and understood more about what made it
possible to fly than Patty had ever heard, Susan still felt it was almost
miraculous that any ship heavier than air should achieve what aviation had made
possible. She had heard her father say something to this same effect, in
commenting on how much more logical it had seemed to him that the flimsy craft,
like a box-kite, in which he first left the ground as a boy should actually
fly, than that the solid, heavy ships of to-day should be able to do so.
Looking out of
the cabin window beside her chair, Susan remembered the pictures she had seen
of those crude old airplanes of pre-war days, and she wondered if the pioneers
of flight, such as the Wright brothers, were not amazed at what had been
developed from their original discovery.
“I dare say
they feel like the man in the Arabian Nights who let the genie out of the
bottle,” thought Susan, smiling to herself. Then she drew Patty’s attention to
the large wheel and tire of the landing-gear below their window—a wheel and
tire that seemed big enough to make several for an ordinary ship. The great
wheel oscillated very gently on its carriage, as the ship sped on over hill and
valley, meadow and lake, city and village.
The girls
called off the names of the larger towns as they approached them, sped over
them, and left them behind. Now they were following a railroad for a time, and
derived great glee from seeing a puffing train left behind them, with no effort
at all. Suddenly, in the distance, there was a glint of blue and silver against
the horizon.
“Look, look,
it’s the ocean!” cried Patty.
“No, I think
it’s Long Island Sound,” said Susan. “We must be in Connecticut now.”
Soon her guess
was confirmed by Connell, who left the cockpit and came back to talk to them.
“Almost
there,” he said. “Over yonder is Hartford ,
the state capital, and headquarters for aviation. I wish we were going to land
there, but it’s a long way from New
Haven . It’s the place where the governor of the State
learned to fly.”
“But why do
you want to land there?” asked Patty.
“Got lots of
friends there, that’s all,” said Connell. “Matter of fact, we’ll have to stop
there some day, because the motors on this ship were made there, and we’ll have
them checked over. That’s the place where Wasp and Hornet motors come from—and
the place where fliers have to watch their step.”
Susan and
Patty wanted to know about this, so Connell explained.
“Connecticut has strict
flying-laws,” he said, “and it has the organization to back them up. No crashes
allowed in this State. And anybody who gets into trouble flying, or runs any
risks, or takes the wrong sort of ship into the air, or flies without the right
kind of a license—well, he gets what’s coming to him, I’ll tell you.”
Susan and
Patty looked awed by this and Mrs. Carlisle, who had ceased reading to listen,
seemed duly impressed, as she peered down at the landscape below. It was a
beautiful landscape, with villages nestling on hills, or scattered along the
roads, showing white Colonial houses embowered in trees, red barns, and thrifty
farms. Each little town seemed to have several busy factories, and there were
wide rivers, many lakes, low rolling hills, and some forests. Golf-courses and
great estates were frequent, and the sight of the salt water of the Sound,
sparkling in the distance, fascinated the girls. All of a sudden they realized
what a tremendous amount of automobile traffic was visible below them on the
highways.
“Susan,” Patty
squealed, “do you suppose all those cars are going to the game? Why, it looks
like a procession of black ants !”
“Of course!
Wasn’t that what Mother said?” retorted Susan. “Isn’t it great to be up here,
away from it all?”
“Yes, but
there’s traffic here, too,” remarked Connell, and pointing out the other side
of the ship, showed them another big cabin plane in the distance ahead of them.
“That probably
took off from Hartford
to carry people to the game, too,” he said. “I know that one of the executives
of Pratt and Whitney, who make these motors, has a ship something like this
one, and I suppose they go to the games in it. People who don’t own ships charter
them, too, for a time like this. I guess we’ll find some other people who have
gone to the game by air.”
Now they were
following the Naugatuck Valley and the Housatonic River Bridgeport , the point for their start home, was
set beside the Sound, its many factories grim and dark against the landscape,
and indicated Waterbury ,
the site of many brass-mills. New Haven , the
seat of Yale University
They re
planning a big field for New Haven ,
somewhere near the harbor,” explained Connell, “but this little field is the
nearest to the Yale Bowl now, so you’ll avoid some of the traffic. The airport
at Hartford, called Brainard Field, is probably the best in the State, but the
Curtiss Field at Bridgeport, where we’re going to-morrow, is a good field, too.
Avian airplanes are made at Bridgeport
and also Sikorsky amphibian ships, so there’s lots of flying there.”
The ship
circled above Bethany Field, while Jack Wright observed the wind-direction
cone, and made sure the landing-space was clear. Then he brought the Ariel down
in great, gradual spirals, until finally, almost imperceptibly, they felt it
touch the ground.
The pilot
turned the plane about and taxied to the dead-line, where several other ships
were parked, and where Phil Carlisle was waiting. The other cabin monoplane was
not in sight, so they judged it had gone on to another airport. Their own big
ship attracted attention from the attachés at the field, who seldom had a
visitor from such a distance as Susan and her party had covered that morning.
Phil Carlisle
rushed up as Hank Smith opened the door of the ship and assisted the passengers
to alight. Hank still looked sullen, but Susan had decided he was shy, or
perhaps not well, and she smiled and thanked him pleasantly for what he had
done to help them enjoy their journey.
The first
thing Mrs. Carlisle said to her tall son was:
“I have never
enjoyed anything so much in my life!”
“You’ll be
wanting to be a pilot, too, first thing we know,” said Patty laughing.
Then there was
a general exchange of news and greetings; farewells were said to Jack Wright
and Connell, who had planned reunions with some of their Connecticut flying friends; and the party
from Midford hurried away in the big, sporty car Phil had provided to take them
to the game.
Although they
had not been cold on their long trip through the air, the girls were promptly
impressed by the autumn chill in Connecticut ,
and were glad they had brought along extra sweaters, while the steamer-blankets
and fur rugs Phil had provided promised to be very welcome before the afternoon
was over.
In the haste
necessary to reach the Bowl before the game began, Susan had no opportunity to
form an opinion of the young man who had pronounced her a good sport. She was a
little shy—which was unusual for Susan, who had considerable poise—for she had
begun to feel self-conscious about anything concerning her desire to fly.
But she did
feel surprised to see how Phil had grown up—suddenly, as it seemed to her. It was
hard to reconcile her memory of the lad who had taught her to dive, and
challenged her to races, with this tall, quiet, broad-shouldered young man who
was a senior at Yale. Only his laughing black eyes, smooth, dark hair, and
fine, even features seemed the same, although he had grasped her hand and said,
“Hello, Susan!” as if they had parted only yesterday.
Phil Carlisle
had worked during his holidays for the past three years in college and that, as
Patty confided to her, was how he had been able to learn to fly without any
extra expense to his parents. And he had been able to surprise them with the
news that he was on the verge of getting a pilot’s license.
During the
ride to town through the suburbs of New
Haven , where traffic was bad but not impassable, Phil
told them he was to sit in the Yale cheering section, but had provided them
with seats next to those of some friends and relatives of his classmates. After
the game, the Midford guests were to go to dinner with him, but he was booked
to go stag to a fraternity dance later.
“I knew you
wouldn’t let Patty go to any dance,” he said to his mother. “She’s such a kid,
and Susan, too. But I’ll try to give you girls a good time, anyway, and
to-morrow I’ll show you the town.” Patty and Susan looked at each other,
registering indignation at these remarks.
“Honestly,”
whispered Patty, “if you hadn’t already made up your mind to fly, wouldn’t you
do it now, just for that? Calling us ‘kids!’ ”
But her
brother, deftly maneuvering the car into parking-space before a restaurant in
Westville, close to the Bowl, was cheerfully unconscious of the comments of his
passengers. He had not partaken of any flying luncheon and his guests found the
motor-trip from Bethany
had given them appetites, too.
In Westville
the girls got their first glimpse of what a big game at the Yale Bowl means. As
far as they could see, on every road, a double or triple line of automobiles
was moving slowly toward the scene of the game. There were huge cars and humble
cars; foreign cars worth thousands and domestic cars worth mere hundreds; cars
with license-plates from every State in the Union, and every car laden with gay
and well-dressed people, taking the delays and congestion as part of the fun.
Many
automobiles bore streamers and pennants in Yale blue, or Harvard crimson, and
some had banners with class numerals draped across the back of the cars. Large
bouquets of violets, or of red roses, were worn by some of the women to denote
their loyalty to one side or to the other, while other girls, and many of the
men, had gay quills of college colors thrust into their hats.
It was a
brilliant and thrilling scene, and Susan and Patty could hardly eat anything,
they were so eager to get to the Bowl.
Chapter Seven
THE
YALE-HARVARD GAME
THE
Yale-Harvard football game that Susan and Patty saw that afternoon at the Yale
Bowl was one of those experiences which are never quite forgotten. It was all
thrilling to the girls who had journeyed almost five hundred miles by air to be
present, and they went through the afternoon in a sort of happy daze.
After their
hurried second luncheon near the Bowl, Phil drove them to the official Yale
parking-space, almost opposite the great oval of cement that reared its high
gray walls far above the surging throngs. A large Yale flag floated over the
side nearest to the girls, and in the distance was the Harvard banner, each
denoting the side where adherents were to sit. Even the parking-space itself
intrigued the visitors, who saw the long close line of cars spread out fanwise as
each advanced to its allotted place under the direction of undergraduates.
Late arrivals
were eating picnic lunches in, or near, their cars and a distant hum of voices,
motors, and hawkers’ cries added to the excitement that pervaded the entire
city.
Hurrying
toward the Bowl the girls, with Mrs. Carlisle and Phil, found themselves part
of a huge procession of cheerful, prosperous-seeming people, bearing banners,
fur coats, programs, and other adjuncts to the enjoyment of the game. Venders
of miniature footballs, flags, and the Yale bulldog emblem shouted their wares;
uniformed boys offered the official programs; and hundreds of people squeezed
through a narrow gate as cries of “Hold your own ticket” met their ears.
Then they were
within the iron gates and mingling with the throng on the promenade around the
Bowl. As the seats Phil had secured for them were at Portal Three, close by,
they would have to go only a short distance to find them, but Mrs. Carlisle was
so interested in the spectacle afforded by these hundreds of sports-lovers from
far and near, that she insisted on walking around the promenade.
"Really,
Susan,” said Patty, “I never imagined there were so many people and so many fur
coats in the world!”
"Yes, and
lots more would come if they could,” said her brother. “This is the hardest
game to see, so far as tickets go. I was lucky to be able to get enough for you
all—I just had a good break.”
There were
hundreds of pretty women and handsome men, beautiful costumes galore, and over
all an atmosphere of gay, luxurious, and care-free enjoyment.
When it was
time to go inside and find their seats, the two girls gasped at the sight
presented as they emerged from the passage to which their portal led. Here they
looked out on the field from the wide terrace-like walk, which was on a level
with the ground outside but just half-way down the inside of the bowl. Somehow
Susan was reminded of ancient Aztec or Greek festivals, or pagan sacrificial
ceremonies of prehistoric times, as she looked on the huge oval of seats, some
of them still empty, the others crowded so closely with spectators that it
seemed incredible that the solid dark mass, marked with pale-pink dots that
were faces, represented human beings.
This strange
effect of the crowd persisted for Susan after the game began, and when one side
of the great gathering stood, at certain moments in the game, it seemed to her
as if flowers suddenly rose on a multitude of stems—while the rim of dark dots
that were the heads of people in the top seats of the Bowl suggested a row of
glass-headed pins.
“Just think,
Patty,” said Susan, after they had met the friends Phil Carlisle had mentioned
and were safely in their seats, “do you realize that there are eighty thousand
people here—almost as many as there are in the whole city of Midford ?”
Then the Yale
band and the Harvard band appeared on the field. There were stirring cheers
from both sides, where undergraduates numbered by hundreds were led in singing
and cheering by lithe and active young men in white flannels; and then, after
brief preliminary practice by an astonishing number of men in football
uniforms, the game was on. Vast as the place was, each player showed up
clearly.
That game was
all a blurred and happy memory later to the girls, who watched the opposing teams
clash with strange lack of partiality. Susan did not quite know why she felt
just as enthusiastic over a gain by Harvard as she did over a score by Yale,
until Patty said:
“Susan, do you
suppose Bud Wheelock is here?”
But although
they scanned the officials and everybody else lined up beside the players’
benches on the opposite side of the great Bowl, they could not identify the
Harvard man and aviator who had been the Midford High School
Between the
halves Phil Carlisle joined them and commented with enthusiasm on how evenly
the teams were matched, for at that time the score was tied, seven to seven.
Then the girls stood up and stamped their feet to keep them warm, and listened
to the college bands playing their respective songs.
Susan could
not help feeling moved as she saw the Yale graduates, young and old, who were
seated around them, reverently removing their hats and joining in the singing
of “Bright College Years.” Echoing back across the field came the sweet lilt of
“Fair Harvard,” sung as earnestly by thousands of men.
The Yale side,
where the girls were seated, was soon in shadow, but the sun shone on the
visitors’ cheering section and made their living flag of crimson and white with
its traditional waving “H” seem beautifully vivid.
Then came the
second half, with its downs and fumbles, its trick plays and spectacular runs,
its stubborn bucking of the line by both teams; and when the final whistle blew
Harvard had not equaled the touchdown Yale scored in the third quarter and the
Eli team was victorious.
Phil Carlisle
was in high spirits, as he joined them and watched the undergraduates pouring
down on the field for the snake-dance under the goal-posts, but the girls and
his mother were so chilled that not even this celebration could hold them long.
They were soon among the thousands driving out of the parking-space at a
snail-like pace toward New Haven .
Arrived at the
hotel, Phil’s guests changed from the clothes they had worn since dawn, and
dined with him in the grill, which was packed with a happy mob of attractive
young women and the Yale men who were their escorts.
“It doesn’t
seem possible that we have come so far, and seen so much, since we got up this
morning, does it?” said Susan, as they watched the brilliant scene.
It was during
dinner that Phil first showed his recognition of the fact that the girls were
growing up, for he danced with each of them between courses, crowded as the
tiny dancing-space was. Susan and Patty were wearing simple but charming
chiffon frocks, the former in white and her friend in rose, and Phil told his
mother that he was proud to be seen with two such pretty girls.
“Not to
mention my handsome mother,” he added gallantly and Mrs. Carlisle laughed, much
pleased.
After dinner
Phil dashed off to his frat dance and the girls sat for a time with Mrs.
Carlisle, watching the animated groups in the ‘hotel. But they were tired and
it had been a long day, so they were quite willing to go to bed early.
Susan and
Patty had a room together and Mrs. Carlisle had an adjacent bedroom. From their
windows the girls could look out on some of the buildings of the famous old
university, and the musical chimes of the Harkness Memorial came to their ears
from the delicate, tall tower that looked as if it were built of carved ivory.
The city of New Haven ,
dozing under its elms, seemed suddenly a long way from Midford, and both the
girls felt a little homesick as they looked out on the narrow streets.
“Midford may
not be so old, but it’s prettier,” said Patty, as she surveyed the scene.
“Midford is
nice,” responded Susan. “But somehow I like this place. Maybe because Mother’s
people were from Connecticut .
My grandfather went to college here, and Mother hopes Junior will too. And I’ve
always just adored Yale, anyway.”
“Well, let’s
see how we like the Yale Flying Club, or whatever it is,” said Patty, making no
attempt to conceal a yawn. “What sort of arrangement did Phil make about it?”
“He’s coming
here to meet us in the morning," answered Susan. “And we’re to have a look
at Yale itself and then go to Bethany , and then
fly over to Bridgeport
and see the field there. Phil thinks he will fly back in the Yale ship from Bridgeport to Bethany ,
and let one of the other fellows in the club take it back from there.”
“Sounds
involved to me,” said Patty, sleepily, her head almost out of sight beneath the
covers. “But if it’s all right with you . . .”
“Well, it
gives us more flying than we’d get in any other way around here,” pointed out
Susan. She was in bed, too, by this time, but sat up to put out the light on
the bedside table.
“Righto,” said
Patty drowsily. “Anything that means flying suits me, old dear! Nighty-night!”
“Good-night,” answered Susan and dropped off to sleep.
They were
still at breakfast when Phil arrived the next morning. He looked amazingly
fresh and wide awake, although he admitted having danced through most of the
night.
Their journey
to the Yale campus was a mere matter of crossing Chapel Street from the hotel
to the old art-school building; and from there they had a rapid, but
interesting, tour of the university, seeing its new art museum and the
university theater, looking at the picturesque Harkness quadrangle and the
older dormitories, in one of which Phil had his rooms, which his relatives duly
admired.
They saw the
few remaining landmarks of old Yale, the college which dates back to the days
before the Revolution, and the place where Nathan Hale and many other great men
studied in their time. They visited the campus and the Sheffield Scientific
School
Susan was
thrilled with the vista of buildings belonging to the university, which
stretched away into the distance up Sachem Hill beyond the residential section
of the town; and Patty affected to be terrified at the sinister-appearing
fraternity houses called “Tombs,” which were headquarters for Greek-letter
societies. Susan enjoyed thinking of her grandfather as a student there; Patty
talked about the proms.
But their trip
lasted only an hour or so, and then Phil led them to the car he had secured for
the morning. Having none of his own he had “wangled” one, as he put it, from
one of his classmates, who was presumably still in bed, and they set off for
Bethany over a fine level road through a charming landscape.
The party was
still fortunate as to weather and this Sunday was clear, although much colder
than the day before had been, and the drive out to the field in an open car
made the girls anticipate the warm comfort of the ship, something about which
Phil seemed skeptical.
“But you’ve
always flown in an open-cockpit plane,” Susan told him, “with heavy clothes and
helmets and everything. You can’t imagine how different the closed job is until
you try it, especially the Ford tri-motor. It even has heaters.”
Phil looked at
her in amazement.
“My word, the
child can talk flying, all right,” he said.
Susan flushed
and was silent, but Patty came indignantly to her rescue.
“I’ll bet
Susan has forgotten more about flying, right now, than you’ll ever learn,” she
stormed. “Why, Phil Carlisle, you’ve been away from home so long, that you
don’t even know that we have an airport, I suppose. But Susan fairly lives down
there in vacation time and her father is an expert pilot— and she is going to
be an expert pilot, too. And so am I, so please don’t make fun of us. And we’re
not children any more, either, so don’t try to boss us, as you used to.”
Phil pretended
to be warding off blows, but he apologized handsomely to Susan.
“Awfully
sorry, honestly,” he said, “but it doesn’t seem a minute since you were both
little kids, scared of mice and with your hair in pigtails, so I keep
forgetting you’re grown up and entitled to respect, and so on. But no kidding,
Susan, I bet you do know a lot about flying. I’m afraid our work will seem
pretty tame to you.”
Susan assured
him they were going to be thrilled by the Yale club; and Patty remarked that
she did not remember that either of them had ever worn pigtails and that they
were still afraid of mice; and Mrs. Carlisle told them they were all children
still. Then they were at Bethany .
How glorious
the great silver ship looked to Susan! How pleased Jack Wright and Sam Connell
were to see them again! How happy Mrs. Carlisle and Patty were, to be getting
into the cabin for another journey, and how impressed Phil was with the great
size and power of the plane and the luxury of its fittings!
On their
arrival the previous day, there had been such haste to get to the Bowl that he
had not even looked into the cabin, but now he was eager to inspect it all, and
begged to sit with the pilot on the trip to Bridgeport .
“I can see
right now that we won’t get much attention on the rest of this trip,” remarked
Mrs. Carlisle, as her son disappeared into the cockpit, but the girls only
laughed.
Connell and
the mechanics at the field started the motors and meanwhile Susan and Patty
looked out at the other planes and the buildings of Bethany Field. They learned
that two chartered ships, both Fairchild cabin monoplanes, had brought in
parties from New York
for the game and that a privately owned Lockheed-Vega had also flown in. All
three ships had left directly after the game for the return journey.
“Which is only
natural,” as one of the Bethany
pilots remarked. “If people really fly down to save time, the quicker they can
get back, the better.”
“Yes,” agreed
Connell. “If their side won, they can celebrate in New York just as well and if it lost, they
can go home and weep.”
Then Jack
Wright signaled that all was ready for the Ariel’s departure and the girls
hurried on board, where Mrs. Carlisle had already started to read a Sunday
newspaper, showing herself a seasoned air-traveler.
The air was a
never-ceasing source of delight to the girls, however, so they watched from the
windows as the great ship took off, circled the pretty little field of Bethany , then rose rapidly to gain altitude enough for flying
over the hills to the city of New
Haven . This was not directly on their course, but
Wright and Phil had planned it as a surprise for the girls, and Mrs. Carlisle
joined them in admiring the neat appearance of the city seen from a height of
two thousand feet. Phil joined them in the cabin to point out the college
buildings, spreading from the dark red and dull gray of the original Yale about
the central campus in the heart of the city to the huge laboratories and the
round-domed observatory out toward the suburbs of Whitneyville.
“No pilot can
mistake New Haven
for any other town,” remarked Connell. “The big open space of the Green in the
city center, with its three churches, is a landmark; and the town is laid out
around it, in an exact checker-board, all the streets at right angles.”
The girls and
Phil speculated as to whether a forced landing could be made on the Green if
necessary, and Connell showed them how the country clubs and golf-links about
the town provided ideal places to “set down” a ship in case of emergency, with
the harbor waters convenient for seaplanes.
“When the town
gets its airport finished, it will be a grand place for flying,” said Phil,
“but now the boys at Yale have to use Bridgeport
as a base, and before that, we even went to Hartford .”
He continued,
telling the girls about the Yale Aeronautical Society, which dated back to
years before the World War, when in 1911 Lincoln Beachey and other pioneer
fliers held an air-meet at Yale Field, the old baseball ground of the
university. The club had lapsed after the war, he told them, but in 1926 it had
been reorganized by a group of students who were interested in flying, and who
had become private student-pilots after studying at the Hartford airport under Lieutenant Harry Depew
Copland, a noted pilot and instructor. Some of the Yale men had bought their
own planes, but for the benefit of those unable to afford individual ships, the
club had purchased a Waco
biplane which all its members could use for solo flying. And the Yale club had
held an intercollegiate air-conference, with government officials and famous
fliers as speakers.
Phil explained
to Susan how flying in Connecticut was safeguarded, confirming what Connell had
told her, and described how carefully every prospective student was examined by
flight-surgeon and officials, and how no student could fly alone, or “solo,” as
they called it, even after his instructor thought him ready for it, until the
State deputy commissioner had taken him up, examined his ability, and issued
him a license.
By this time
they had passed New Haven
and were following the line of the shore, with green meadows and railroad
tracks and seaside resorts on the right side of the ship, and Long Island Sound
on the left.
Susan and
Patty as well as Mrs. Carlisle were charmed with the appearance of the water
from their lofty height, but to Phil, who flew there almost daily, it was an
old story.
“Look!”
exclaimed Patty. “It’s all streaked with brown and dark green. And it looks so
smooth, too!”
“Those streaks
are rocks on the bottom,” explained her brother. “And it isn’t smooth at all.
Takes a dead calm day to have this water perfectly smooth.”
The Sound, far
below them, whether smooth or not, was beautiful in its coloring of blue,
violet, vivid green, and golden brown, the tones varying according to its depth
and the character of the bottom. Many boats were to be seen, and the distant
shores of Long Island showed sapphire blue on
the horizon.
Then they were
in sight of the tall chimneys and crowded houses of Bridgeport ,
and without having to fly over the city, they reached the Curtiss airport in
the suburb of Stratford .
From the air it showed considerable activity, and Susan suggested that Phil sit
in the cockpit for the landing, since he had been so polite about keeping them
company on the journey.
The girls and
Mrs. Carlisle craned their necks shamelessly, letting in cold November air
through open windows, as they came down to the field, for Patty’s mother had
already caught the vivid interest the girls showed in every airport.
“Funny how an
air-field appeals to me,” said Susan.
“But I suppose
it’s because they do look awfully good when you’re having trouble in the air.”
Mrs. Carlisle asked her if that had ever happened to her.
“Gracious,
yes!” answered Susan. “I’ve been with Dad lots of times when we had to get down
on the ground and make it snappy. Once we were out of gas, once a pipe broke.
Oh, it’s happened lots of times. Just a forced landing—it can happen to any one,
if something goes hay-wire!”
Patty and her
mother regarded their young hostess with new interest and Mrs. Carlisle
remarked that their present journey made it seem impossible that trouble could
ever occur in the air.
But now, with
an orange Fledgling plane flying beside them, its pilot waving a greeting, they
were over the field, and Jack Wright shut off the motor and made his usual
perfect landing. Then he taxied the Ariel to the field-manager’s building and
the passengers alighted while the pilot went in to pay his respects.
Phil promptly
found some of his fellow fliers of the Yale contingent and introduced them to
his mother, his sister, and Susan. The Yale Club students hastened to comment
on the beauty of the Ariel, and when they had looked inside the cabin, at
Susan’s invitation, they were frankly envious of Phil for having been among its
passengers.
Much to the
secret amusement of the girls, Phil did not act at all patronizing now, or as
if they were mere “kids,” but treated them with actual deference. Quite
seriously he informed his friends that the young ladies from Midford were to
become fliers, too.
The Yale men,
who seemed very young to the girls and were, in fact, from eighteen to
twenty-two years old, were so in earnest about their flying, their club, and
aviation in general, that Susan liked them immediately. The girls and Mrs.
Carlisle were taken to the hangar where the club plane was housed and admired
it sincerely, although Susan and Patty had seen many like it.
“It’s the
first ship I’ve ever seen that was going to college,” said Susan.
Then they
heard of the historic occasion when the Yale Club ship was on its first journey
in Connecticut with Yale men as pilots on the
way to be registered at Hartford ,
when a forced landing became necessary. The boys had been taken to court to
explain about it, and had been “on the carpet” before the State commissioner,
too.
“You can’t
kill yourself in an airplane in this State and get away with it,” remarked
Phil, explaining how in Connecticut ships and fliers were regularly inspected,
how every accident involving an airplane or pilot was investigated, and how
every man or woman in an airplane had to carry a license, just as if he or she
were driving a car. If an accident showed a pilot to be careless, or in error,
or if a ship was flown without the proper permits, official action followed.
“Why, even
parachute-jumpers have to be licensed to jump in this State,” said one of the
Yale men, “and have to pass examinations before they get a license. They can go
somewhere else and practise, but no jumping here without the right kind of
ticket and a twenty-eight foot ’chute. Don’t step off your airplane in this
State unless you have to, Miss Thompson.”
Susan said she
had no desire to make a parachute- jump unless she had to, anyway.
“But there’s
one thing certain,” said Phil seriously, “the aviation laws in Connecticut are strict,
but it gives student-pilots like ourselves—and passengers and everybody
else—the finest kind of protection. Connecticut
is a safe place to learn to fly, I think.”
“Oh, other
States have good laws, too,” spoke up a Western boy. “But I must say this State
has a fine record—no student, or passenger, in a commercial plane ever killed,
up to now, at least.”
“Yes, but that
didn’t help you when you wanted to fly,” said another student, and the Westerner
flushed. Susan guessed that he was the boy who had studied flying under an
assumed name, because of his family’s objections.
“Just the
same, the flying-laws in some States just aren’t,” added Phil. “In New York,
for instance, any student flies alone, when the instructor says so. Try and do
it in Connecticut !”
“Yes, and the
examination the deputy commissioner gives you here, before he checks you out,
is as hard as the Federal examination at the end of ten hours’ solo flying,”
said the Western boy. “They give you a student-pilot’s license in this State
and you have to earn it—and keep flying afterward, too.” He and Phil here
proudly showed their licenses.
“Maybe your
father would let you learn to fly in Connecticut !”
whispered Patty to Susan. But Susan’s face had the determined look her friend
knew so well.
“I’m going to
learn to fly—and in my own State, too,” she said. “As a matter of fact, our
laws are just as good as Connecticut ’s,
according to what Phil tells me, and Federal laws protect everybody. I’m going
to learn to fly at home—and with my dad’s permission—wait and see!”
As they were
talking a gleaming, sleek-looking, golden-hued plane circled overhead and
descended on the field from the east, in a perfect landing. The pilot alighted
at the dead-line and came toward the field-manager’s office, near which Susan
and her friends were talking.
“I wonder what
that ship is,” said Phil. “I've never seen one like it.”
“Oh, yes, you
have,” remarked one of the Bridgeport
pilots, who was watching the new-comer. “That’s a Vought-Corsair with a Wasp
motor, a fast ship, too, and it’s very much like the Connecticut State
“It’s
certainly a slick ship,” said the Yale man from out West.
“That’s the
first time I’ve seen an airplane that Susan didn’t recognize,” remarked Patty.
But Susan was
looking intently at the new-comer. “Patty!” she exclaimed. “Do you know who
that is? It’s Bud Wheelock! Here, of all places!”
“Well, why not
here?” asked Patty. “After all, we weren’t the only people at the Bowl
yesterday, and he’s a Harvard man.”
“Who did you
say it was?” said Phil. “Bud Wheelock? Well, I’m darned glad to see him again!
Gosh, he taught me all I know about football when I was at Midford. Not his
fault I didn’t make the team at Yale.” And he rushed out on the field to meet
the pilot.
There was much
slapping of backs and shaking of hands, between the long-time coach of Midford
High and his former pupil. Then they both joined the group where Susan and
Patty waited, Mrs. Carlisle having gone into the waiting-room to see about
luncheon arrangements.
The Yale boys
were visibly impressed when introduced to the famous star of a champion Harvard
team and expressed their admiration of his ship. Again Susan noticed how reticent
he was about his flying, but he did admit he had flown up from New York for the game, stopping over at Hartford to have his motor checked.
“And you girls
came all the way from Midford!” he said. “I wish I were going back with you.”
“Don’t you
want to see the ship?” inquired Susan.
She took him
out to the Ariel and he looked it over carefully, talking earnestly as they
walked back to the others. He spoke with so much animation, pausing so often
and walking so slowly, that Patty was consumed with curiosity to know what it
was all about, but she had no opportunity to ask Susan until Bud Wheelock had
taken off for New York ,
after having inquired at the field about the weather report. He said his ship
was “a peach to fly,” but cold on a long trip, with its open cockpit.
The group
watched him make a beautiful take-off, chandeling up in an almost vertical line
and waving gaily to his friends. Then Patty put her question, as the Corsair
disappeared over the Sound toward its home field on Long
Island .
“What were we
talking about?” repeated Susan.
“Why, flying,
of course!”
And Patty had
to be content with that answer.
Chapter Eight
A HAPPY
BIRTHDAY
BEFORE dark,
that Sunday night, the girls and Mrs. Carlisle were back at Midford, after an
early lunch at Bridgeport , where they had
watched Phil and one of his friends take off for Bethany before they made their own departure.
Patty and Susan took turns riding beside Jack Wright, and the return journey
was even quicker than the trip to New
Haven because of a tail wind.
Susan gave her
parents a complete, although rather incoherent, account of the journey, but
there was one phase of her experience that she wanted to discuss in detail. The
Thanksgiving holiday and its attendant festivities, however, kept her so busy
during the following week that she did little more than think about it,
although she made one or two trips to the airport for some tactful inquiries
about certain matters.
Once the
holiday was over, Mr. Thompson left on a business trip that took him to Chicago and lasted two
weeks. Mrs. Thompson stayed at home, but saw little of her daughter, who seemed
to be very busy, spending every afternoon at the Midford airport, and
neglecting even Patty.
One night,
after her father’s return, when the family was assembled in the living-room,
Susan, who had been reading before the fire, suddenly spoke:
“Father,” she
said, “do you realize that I shall be sixteen years old next week?”
“Bless my
soul, it doesn’t seem possible!” he answered, looking up from his own book in
surprise.
Susan’s
mother, who had been writing a letter, simply smiled. She had a suspicion of
what was coming. Susan’s brother, absorbed in a mail-order catalogue, ignored
her completely.
“Yes, it is
possible,” Susan continued. She looked solemn and seemed quite grown-up. In
fact, it occurred to her father that she had grown up a good deal in a short
time, when he remembered how few years had passed since she was a tiny girl
riding on his shoulders.
“What do you
want for your birthday, dear?” asked Bill Thompson. “If you had reminded me, I
could have brought you back something special from Chicago .”
“You don’t
have to go to Chicago
to get what I want most,” said his daughter, suddenly laughing. She ran over to
his chair and sat on his knee, while he smiled at her affectionately.
“Daddy
dearest,” she continued, “don’t give it to me, if you think I shouldn’t have
it—but what I want most of all is a student-permit and a course in your
flying-school. I know it’s a gift that is worth a lot of money, but look!” she
took a folded paper from her book, and handed it to him.
The famous
pilot opened it slowly, read it through, and looked up.
“Susan, my
dear little girl!” he exclaimed. And turning to his wife he asked, “Ann, do you
know what this is?”
“I’m not
sure,” said Susan’s mother, “but I suspect it is something about flying. Your
daughter has been busy at the airport while you were away, but I promised not
to be curious, so I can enjoy the surprise, too. What is it?”
“It’s a
certificate that she has finished the ground-school course at my own place,” he
answered. “And she has passed the written examination with a mark of over
ninety and done it all in the time I’ve been away!”
“Susan, you
are a smart child!” said her mother. “Now I know why I haven’t had you around
making cookies all this time.”
“Yes, I missed
some good times with the girls, too,” said Susan. “And I suppose I’ve lost my
place on the swimming team, but I wanted to show Dad I was in earnest about
learning to fly. As soon as I’m sixteen, I’ll be eligible for my
student-permit, if I pass the physical examination. I asked Dr. Morris, the
flight-surgeon, and he said he knew I could pass that all right, from what I’ve
done in athletics at school.”
Her father
threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“I can see
that when you make up your mind, the whole thing is settled,” he said, “and you
deserve to have your wish. My dear little girl, you shall have the birthday
present you want, and something else, too. And when you get your pilot’s
license, I’ll give you a prize.”
“You are the
dearest daddy in the world and the finest pilot that ever flew,” said Susan,
and gave him a resounding kiss and a hug. Then she ran over and kissed her
mother and danced a few steps in the center of the floor, before dashing to the
telephone to tell Patty the good news.
Her father and
mother looked at each other and smiled, but the former shook his head ruefully.
“She’s just a
kid and she’s a girl,” he said, “but she has worked hard on this ground-school
course and she deserves a chance to win her wings. I believe in flying and I
love it—she ought to have her chance at it. And I think she’ll be a sensible
pilot and not do any fool stunts that might mean a crash.”
“I knew she
was resolved to learn to fly somehow,” said her mother, “but I knew she would
never do it without your permission. I’m glad she has it now—I was with her
from the first, please remember!”
“Yes, my
dear,” answered Bill Thompson. “Yes, my dear, she is your own daughter, and she
gets what she wants. Between you both, a poor helpless man has no chance at
all.”
His wife
laughed.
“Just as if
you ever failed to get anything you wanted,” she said. “And don’t forget my
heart was set on being a pilot once. I never realized that ambition, so I’m
doubly glad about Susan.”
“Well, she has
all the men at the field on her side, I’ve already discovered,” said Sue’s
father. “Copley and Wright had a hand in this ground-school business—and kept
it a secret, too. But they’re good judges of flying material, and if they think
Susan will do, I guess she’ll make the grade.”
Ann Thompson
laughed and rumpled her husband’s hair.
“Don’t try to
deceive me!” she warned him. “I can plainly see that you are already as proud
of Susan as if she had flown the Atlantic , and
I can imagine how conceited you’ll be when she gets her license. Why, you’ll
pretend it was all your idea from the first!”
“And that
reminds me,” said Mr. Thompson, laughing. “As long as you didn’t know about
this ground-school course, I wonder whose idea it was? If Susan had thought of
it all alone, she would have done it a year ago, I think.”
When Susan
came into the room again, her father put the question to her. She smiled as she
answered: “Why, it was Bud Wheelock’s suggestion, when I met him at Bridgeport that day after
the Yale game. He asked if I was going to learn to fly and I told him all about
it. We talked about studying in different States and he said perhaps you would
like the idea better if I accomplished something like a ground-school course;
and that even if I never became a pilot, it would help me appreciate flying.”
“Then you owe
some thanks to Wheelock for getting the birthday present you wanted,” said her
father, “but you really earned it yourself.”
“Yes,” added
his wife, “and as long as Bud Wheelock said you made him a flier, I suppose he
thought he was reciprocating by helping make Susan one also. Where is he now?”
“Getting ready
for some big flight,” said Susan. “But do you know what Patty just told me on
the ’phone? She has her parents’ permission and she is already sixteen, so—if
we’ll go down with her, Mother—she wants to take her physical examination
to-morrow, even though I must wait. She says that’s the way she’ll catch up
with me, because she doesn’t want to start studying ground-school, if there’s
anything wrong with her.”
“I know Patty
isn’t as strong as you are,” said Mrs. Thompson, “but I think she’ll pass all
right, and of course we’ll go with her, gladly.”
“It wouldn’t
seem natural to have Susan flying,” remarked Susan’s father, “without Patty
along with her, somewhere.”
“Well, I’ve
had to do other things without her,” Susan pointed out. “She can’t play
basketball, you know, or swim very far, but she’s my very best friend, just the
same.”
“You’ll get
further away from her, if she’s on the ground and you’re in the air, than you
ever could on a basketball floor,” answered her father, “and I know you’ll
enjoy flying more if she can fly too.”
But there was
sad news in store for Patty, and for Susan as well, for when the dark-haired,
merry little chum of Bill Thompson’s daughter had gone only a little way in her
examination by the flight-surgeon, Dr. Morris shook his head and told her she
could not get a student-permit then—and possibly never.
“Nothing
organically wrong,” he told Mrs. Thompson, “but the heart reactions are not
what they ought to be. In case of emergency or excitement in the air, it would
mean danger for her. She may outgrow this tendency, but I couldn’t pass her as
a flying-student.”
Patty’s brown
eyes filled with tears and she hid her face against Mrs. Thompson’s shoulder.
Susan began to weep a little herself, and Dr. Morris had to comfort all of
them, for Mrs. Thompson also felt sad.
“Poor little
Patty,” she said. “Now you know how I felt when I couldn’t finish flying. And
it was worse for me, because I had learned it and loved it, before I found I
couldn’t pass this examination.”
Susan realized
more keenly than before what a disappointment her mother had sustained, while
Patty, who had never heard of Mrs. Thompson’s ambition, was so interested that
she sat up and wiped her eyes, and asked about the details. But she was crushed
by the knowledge that she would not be able to become a pilot and for days her
chum had alternately to comfort her and to distract her attention from
aviation. Susan did not dare take her to the airport for a time, but Patty was
not one to be unhappy long, and soon she was enjoying flights as a passenger,
even if not as a pilot. In spite of her disappointment, she took pleasure in
Susan’s plans, and made herself invaluable to Mrs. Thompson in preparing for
her chum’s birthday.
The mysterious
doings that were in progress before her sixteenth anniversary were entirely
unknown to Susan, who was trying to make up for lost time in her school
athletics, as well as studying flying in text-books, but when the birthday
morning dawned, she discovered that somebody had been very busy planning for
the nicest birthday she had ever celebrated.
She was
awakened by a knock on her door and sat up, wondering why she felt so happy,
before she remembered that this was the day which made her eligible for her
flying-studies. It was a cold morning in early December and her windows were
all wide open, so before getting up she reached for the warm blue dressing-gown
beside her bed. She opened the door, excited and expectant, and found a large
package addressed to her. Otherwise the hall was empty.
Back to bed
she went, and unwrapped the bundle, finding one box inside another, down to a
little one, which, when opened, revealed a tiny toy airplane, and a card saying,
“To Susan from Ariel, happy birthday.”
Susan threw
her head back and laughed and as she did so, another knock came, and a long
white envelope appeared under the door. Leaping out of bed, she ran and pulled
the door open, but again the hall was empty. Knowing that she was in for a
merry time, and entering into the spirit of the game, Susan picked up the
envelope and opened it. On a plain slip of paper were the words, “Don’t spend
too much time prinking.”
She decided to
begin dressing, and started her bath. Pinned to the shower curtain was another
envelope, and this, opened, revealed the application-card that must be filled
out by every candidate for a student-pilot’s permit. It was ready to be handed
to the flight-surgeon, with fifteen dollars for fees clipped to it, and only
Susan’s own signature missing. The card said, “To Susan from a sincere
admirer,” but she knew it came from her father.
This delighted
the girl, and she splashed happily through her morning tubbing, and sang as she
sat at her dressing-table afterward. Her song stopped abruptly when she pulled
out the drawer where her handkerchiefs were, and found an oblong box, addressed
to her.
Opened, it
revealed a card saying, “Many happy returns! To Susan from Jack Wright and
Harry Copley,” and there, wrapped in tissue-paper, was a pair of goggles, the
same kind that those pilots used.
Susan could
hardly wait to get downstairs after this unexpected and delightful surprise. As
she dashed out into the hall, carrying her gifts, she almost fell over a book.
Picking it up, she found it was a famous and bulky volume on aviation by a
recognized authority; and on the title-page in childish handwriting was an
inscription and good wishes from her small brother.
Loving
greetings and good wishes met her at the breakfast-table, and from the twinkle
in her father’s eyes and her mother’s smile, Susan knew that more surprises
were coming.
She was not
kept waiting long, for when Mrs. Clancey deposited a covered dish, ostensibly
of bacon and eggs, before her, the removal of the cover revealed a small box
which, in turn, revealed a wrist-watch of the large and simplified type
preferred by fliers. This gift was accompanied by an affectionate note from
Patty.
Before
breakfast was over, Susan was called to the telephone, where a feminine voice
that she couldn’t identify said, “Look up the Midford Airport
Just as she
was finishing breakfast, the door-bell rang and a special-delivery package was
announced for Miss Thompson, who went out to sign for it and found that it held
a pair of warm leather flying-mittens, from her grandmother in New York .
All this had
made her morning exciting. At school there were numerous other little gifts,
not related to flying, from friends and classmates, and after her last class
Susan went to the airport and arranged to have her physical examination the next
day, after she had turned in the formal application required by the Department
of Commerce aeronautics branch at Washington .
Then, with
Patty, she went to a photographic studio downtown and had some rather
unflattering pictures taken, similar to those used for passports. Two of these
had to be submitted with her application to the flight-surgeon the next day.
These preliminaries completed, she returned home with her chum.
“I know Mother
planned this exciting sort of birthday for me,” said Susan to Patty, as they
walked briskly along the broad avenue toward the Thompson home in the crisp
winter dusk. “But I'm sure you had something to do with it, too.”
“Your birthday
isn’t over yet,” was Patty’s mysterious reply, and Susan wondered what else was
in store.
When the girls
reached the Thompson home, they went directly upstairs and there on Sue’s bed
was laid a lovely new evening frock of pale yellow taffeta and tulle, the most
grown-up dress she had ever owned, as she told Patty ecstatically. There was a
note with it from her mother that said:
“Try this on
and wear it to-night, if you like it, dear. It isn’t for flying, but your
sky-clothes will come later, when you’re ready for them. There is no other
birthday so lovely as the sixteenth, and I hope my big little girl will have
many happy returns of a happy day.”
Hardly had
Susan finished reading this, when her mother appeared and the girl rushed to
embrace her.
“It is simply
perfect!” she cried. “Oh, Mother, you do the darlingest things!”
“I don’t want
you to think you must spend the rest of your life in canvas and leather
flying-clothes, her mother answered. “And now look in your closet.” There Susan
found satin slippers, not too high- heeled, but matching her frock exactly, and
silk stockings and the underwear to go with her new gown. She was exclaiming
with delight over the discovery when Patty said:
“My goodness,
Susan, I must dash home—I just remembered something!”
With that
exclamation, she hastily departed. Susan’s mother went out at the same time,
telling her daughter to be sure to put on her new frock.
After Susan
had done that, and admired it, she sat down and looked over her other gifts.
The slip of paper that represented her flying-course did not look very
impressive, she thought to herself, but it was worth about $600, since that was
what it would cost any student to qualify for a Federal private license, aside
from the fees necessary for the license itself, and the preliminary
examinations. Then she started reading the new text-book.
So absorbed
was she in the prospect of the interesting work ahead of her—for she was
resolved to begin her lessons at once, in spite of cold weather—that she was
surprised when her mother summoned her to dinner.
“Is it going
to be a party?” Susan asked, for she had noticed that her mother was wearing
her favorite black-lace frock.
“Oh, a sort of
party, of course,” said Mrs. Thompson. “Come right along in the yellow dress
and we’ll celebrate, because you only have one sixteenth birthday in your whole
life, and it ought to have due honor.”
Nevertheless,
Susan was surprised to find all her best friends at the table, and other
guests, too. There was Patty, also in a new frock, and Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle , and Mary Aiken, and Polly Smith and Betty
Noble, and Harry Copley and his wife, and Jack Wright with Caroline Potter, the
girl to whom he was engaged, as well as Tom Aiken of the Midford football team
and three other players.
In the center
of the table was a silvery monoplane with lights gleaming from its cabin, and
suspended by invisible wires, so that it hovered over a mass of autumn flowers.
There was a tiny airplane to hold the place-card before each chair, and the
candlesticks were disguised as miniature propellers.
There was a
merry tumult of greetings from the party, as the guest of honor arrived. Susan
was both surprised and delighted, and she received double congratulations on
her birthday and the start of her flying-training.
It was a jolly
dinner, and before it was over two telegrams arrived for Susan. They were from
opposite sides of the continent. One, from Phil Carlisle at New Haven , said, “Congratulations and best
wishes from one student to another.”
The other,
from Los Angeles ,
bewildered the girl for a moment. Who could be wiring from the Pacific coast,
she wondered? The name at the end of the message was not entirely familiar, for
it was Montgomery Wheelock, but she soon realized that this was the man they
knew as “Bud.” His message was, “Am sure to-day means start of successful
flying career. Congratulations.”
As the
birthday dinner came to its conclusion with a great cake holding sixteen
lighted candles as the climax, Mrs. Clancey slipped a package into Susan’s
hands.
“Sure, ’tis
something your father recommended,” she whispered.
“Thank you,
ever and ever so much,” said the girl, who had known the kindly housekeeper for
years. “I know I’ll love it, like all the birthday gifts you’ve given me.”
Mrs. Clancey
smiled and nodded and Susan did not have to pretend to be pleased, when she saw
that the gift was a leather-bound pilot’s log-book, where she could register
her flying-experiences and make notes that would be valuable afterward for
reference.
After dinner
the boys and girls danced to the music of the radio, and their elders played
bridge. When the party broke up, Susan was sure it was the end of the happiest
birthday she had ever known, and she told her father and mother so as she
thanked them for it, when their guests had gone.
Then Mr. and
Mrs. Thompson and their daughter planned how she could fit her flying-training
into the free hours after classes each afternoon, and devote all day to it on
Saturday and during the Christmas holidays.
“Your course
probably won’t take you more than twenty hours of flying-time altogether,”
warned Susan’s father, “but at this time of the year, you can’t get instruction
every day, and it may be months before you get your Federal license. Plan to
fly Sunday afternoons, too.”
“That reminds
me,” said her mother. “Here’s a little extra gift that I want you to have and
use.”
She went to
her desk and took from it a large, leather-bound diary. Bill Thompson regarded
it with approval.
“Your log-book
will cover your real flying, when you go solo,” he told his daughter, “but the
things you learn and see and hear when you’re a flying-student ought to be
written down too. It will be a wonderful record for you to look back at, some
day—and by the time your own daughters are flying, it may seem like an antique
to them.”
So Susan took
the diary, promised to keep a faithful record of her training, kissed her
parents good-night, and went upstairs to bed, eager for the next day to come.
“At last, at
last—it is really true and I am going to fly!” was her joyous thought, as she
drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Nine
SUSAN'S DIARY
EXTRACTS from
the diary of Susan Thompson, student at the International
Aviation Corporation
School , Midford Airport
"December
15. I could not think what had happened when I woke up this morning, because I
had a feeling as if I had inherited a million dollars the night before. Then I
realized to-day was the start of my flight-training. It was terrible to have to
go to school this morning, but I did.
"This
afternoon Mother and Patty went with me to the flight-surgeon's office at the
airport. Dr. Morris was very nice and the test was not so bad as I thought it
might be. He took my name and age and all that, but he knew all about me
anyhow, because of my father. He listened to my heart and lungs and took my
blood-pressure; and listened again after I had hopped around on one foot. He
made me balance on one foot and do motions with my hand toward my face. This
was to show reactions, or balance, or something. Then he hit my knees with
hammers, just as they always do.
"The most
interesting part was the eye-examination. I had to read the chart and watch
lights separate and come together when the doctor put things over each eye, and
tell him when it happened.
“Then he gave
me an exciting test. I was sitting in a dark little room and there were two
sticks set up in a little box arrangement, way down at the other end, with
ropes going from them to my hands—little ropes like clothes-line. It was up to
me to pull the ropes and bring the two sticks parallel. I did it three times,
and Dr. Morris didn’t tell me whether I had succeeded or not.
“I had to look
at pictures made of colored spots, which he turned over fast, and tell him what
they showed, mostly different numbers. And I had to look at a little white-topped
stick which he put—from way off—right up to my nose. Made me cross my eyes and
I hated it.
“Somewhere in
all this I had my field of vision mapped and my perception of depth tested,
according to what the doctor told Mother. He looked up my nose and down my
throat, and asked if 1 did much dreaming, and that was about all. To-morrow I
will know whether I passed the test, but the doctor seemed to think I was O.K.
He said most of the candidates who fail have poor eyesight, or nervous trouble,
and I’m all right on those points anyhow.
“December 16.
To-day was Saturday and I went to the airport right after breakfast. Dr. Morris
said he had found me all right, and he would give me a temporary permit, to let
me begin my work without waiting for the Federal students’ permit from Washington , which might
take weeks to arrive. I went over to the school with it and told Jack Wright,
and he said we would start right in.
“I was
thrilled to death when they brought out the training-ship we were going to use.
It was a Travelair biplane, the first dual-control ship I have ever been in.
Sam Connell got in it to rev up the engine and I went into the office to get
into flying-clothes. Jack said revving up took some time on a cold day in
December, but he had to get the motor warm, anyhow.
“Father was in
the office and glad to see me. He said, ‘Jack, I want you and Copley and the
fellows on the staff to treat Susan like any other student. She is the first
girl we have had who will stick to it, and I want to see just how our system
works.’ That ‘system’ word scared me a little, but the flying-clothes were
worse.
“The school isn’t
so busy at this time of year, although the air is good in the winter, Jack
said. He said my folks were sensible just to give me the goggles and gloves,
because it may be spring before I need my own flying-suit and I am still
growing out of my clothes. I have to wear a student helmet, anyhow. We had a
hard job getting me into the winter flying-suit. It was the biggiest, ugliest,
heaviest one I have ever seen. It took two men to hold it out while I got into
it, but it was one of the suits students use, and we were obeying Dad’s orders.
The legs were too long and the collar was too loose and the sleeves fell way
over my hands, but it was certainly warm. I had on woolen stockings and they
gave me some parachute silk to go around my neck. Otherwise the breezes
certainly would have gone down inside the suit. It was brown canvas outside,
wool inside, and had air for insulation somehow in between so it looked all
balloonish. I fastened the belt and pulled up the zippers. Then they brought
out my parachute.
“I know Dad
thinks it a good thing that a State law makes it necessary for students and
instructors to wear parachutes, but I think they are horrible. The straps
around my chest and legs were uncomfortable and the darned thing bumped against
my knees when I walked. It was awfully heavy, too. It was quite a problem to
find a helmet to fit me, and some of the boys who are students loaned me
handkerchiefs to stuff in around the edges, but even so it was not very tight.
“Then I had to
get into the ship. It was all I could do to step on the lower wing from the
ground, and it seemed impossible to get over the edge of the cockpit with all
the heavy clothes I was wearing, and the parachute besides. Finally Jack Wright
bent down and let me step on his back, and one of the mechanics loaned me his
shoulder, so they made a sort of ladder and I got up the edge of the cockpit.
“The rear
cockpit is where I sit for training, just as I would flying alone, and my
instructor sits in front. The front cockpit has a door, but there is nothing to
do but go over the top to my place. However, I finally got in and sort of
squeezed around and scrunched down, so as not to break off the windshield,
which is very brittle. I sat on my parachute.
“Then Jack
Wright, who was also in his flying-clothes and parachute, climbed up on the
wing and fixed the speaking-tubes that screw into my helmet and go to his
mouth, so he can talk to me in the air.
“He showed me
the stick and rudder, pedals, the throttle, and the instruments on the dash in
the rear cockpit, although we both knew I had seen them often before. But I
have found out there is a lot of difference between seeing them when somebody
else is flying the ship, and seeing them when you are doing it all yourself. He
made me fasten the safety-belt and showed me how to pull my parachute rip-cord,
if I ever had to jump. Then he got in and the mechanics let us go and we taxied
across the field to head into the wind for the take-off.
“Jack was
still treating me like any other student, so he reminded me about never leaving
until we were sure there was no other ship landing, or taking off, that would
be in our way. He showed me how the wind-tee and the wind-cone on the field
gave us the wind direction, as if I didn’t know it already, and told me a flag
flying or smoke from a chimney would do to watch, also. He told me I would
understand his signals in the air all right.
“The
ground-school taught me that the greater the opposition of the air, the more
support it offered the ship, which is why a propeller actually pulls a ship
along, and why we always take off and land into the wind. Thus, if the wind is
coming from the east, we fly toward the east to take off, or land.
“Jack wiggled
the ship around so we could see the blind spot in front of us where the engine
cowling hid the horizon. Then he said to me through the speaking-tube, ‘Are you
all set?’ and I said ‘Yes’ as loud as I could. He asked if I could hear him all
right, and I told him I could. He said, ‘Now watch what happens to the
controls, and keep your hands and feet on them, so you can feel what I am doing
in the front seat. I will explain to you whether you need it or not, and we
will pretend you have never been in the air before, to make sure we are not
overlooking anything.’
“Then he ‘gave
it the gun,’ pushing the throttle way forward, and we skimmed ahead, with the
tail coming up as he put the stick forward. The controls in front and back are
together, so we can each see the other work. I could feel the stick move ahead
under my hand, and then gradually come back as we gained flying-speed and left
the ground. I got a big thrill when I realized that this was my first lesson in
the air and that I was now on the way to becoming a real flier.
“We were
headed right over the hangar and I saw Jack wave, so I looked down and there
was Dad, standing out in front of his office and looking up at us. Lots of the
people on the field were watching us, too, and I thought they were nice to be
so interested in me. But I could not think about them very long, because I had to
notice what was going on under my hands and feet. The rudder-bar had stayed
straight up to now, but I felt the left side go forward and the stick go over
to the left side, as we banked and turned to come back around the field.
“It is
funny—for I have been in a banking ship hundreds of times—but it felt entirely
different this morning. I felt the throttle-handle under my left hand move back
a little and then I noticed that the tachometer, which had been revving fifteen
to sixteen on the ground, was down to fourteen. Jack Wright spoke about it
through the tube, and said the ship would still climb and had excess power at
this figure. He told me to look at the altimeter and I did and saw we were five
hundred feet up, but he kept climbing, circling the field, and warning me
always to fly close to the field after the take-off.
“ ‘If you have
engine trouble, it will develop soon after you take off, as a rule,’ he said to
me through the tube, ‘so stay within gliding distance of the field until you’re
sure.’
“Father and
all his staff believe in safe-and-sane flying, and Mother made me promise never
to do anything foolish in the air, but of course I know better, anyway.
“When the
altimeter read one thousand five hundred feet, Jack shut off the motor and put
the stick a little forward.
“ ‘This is a
normal gliding angle,’ he told me.
‘See how it
feels.’ My right hand was on the stick, holding it lightly, so I could judge
pretty well, but he added, ‘Watch the nose of the ship in relation to the
horizon. That’s the cardinal rule of flying for a beginner.’
“The wind was
northwest, so the horizon was nice and clear, and I saw that it came about
half-way down the ship’s nose when we were level, and a little above when we
were gliding.
“Jack said
that he was going to make some banks and turns and for me to watch what
happened and ‘follow through.’ It was fascinating to feel with my hand and feet
how the stick and rudder moved to the left when we banked and turned that way,
and how, when it moved to the right, we moved too.
“Jack Wright said
to me through the speaking-tube, ‘Now I’m going to show you how the stick
works. I put it forward and the nose of the ship goes down—too far down and we
dive—a little way down and we are at the gliding angle. I put it in the center
and we fly level. I pull it back and the nose of the ship goes up, see? If I
pull it too far back, the ship will lose flying speed and stall—feel it?’
“He pulled the
stick back until I could feel the ship stand almost motionless in the air. Then
he put the stick forward and we were level again.
“ ‘If your
ship stalls, you’ll go into a tail-spin, but I’ll teach you all about that
later,’ he continued. ‘Now I’ll show you how the ailerons control the lateral
stability of the ship. You learned in ground- school what the ailerons are, and
that the stick moving from side to side controls them, just as moving it from
front to back controls the elevators at the rear.’
“He told me to
look to the rear and see the elevators work when he put the stick forward and
back. When he put the stick forward, the elevator went down and we went down.
Back, the process reversed.
“Then he said
to watch the ailerons, so I looked out and saw the odd little pieces that are
hinged on the rear or trailing edges of the wings. He put the stick to the
right and we tipped to the right, while the right aileron went down, the left
up, and then reversed the process. So I was really seeing flying- surfaces and
angles of incidence and dihedrals and other things in aerodynamics actually at
work.
“It was awfully
exciting to see and feel the controls working in the air and it seems so simple
and easy to remember—a little like managing a horse. Pulling back brings the
front up; pushing forward puts it down. If you lean to one side and bend the
stick that way, that side goes down. It is almost as if your own balance
influenced the ship, the way it does when you ride a bicycle.
“After that
Jack showed me how the rudder worked. I felt him push the right rudder and we
sort of slipped to the right. He explained that that was because we did not
bank. He said one must always bank when using the rudder.
“All this time
we were between fifteen hundred and two thousand feet in the air and within
sight of the airport. It had taken about twenty minutes to tell me all this and
he asked if I was cold. My hands and feet were pretty cold, but I was so
excited about the lesson that I didn’t mind. I said I was all right.
“Then he said,
all of a sudden, ‘All right, you take control now. Try to fly the ship straight
and I will help you out, if you need any help.’
“I was
surprised and a teeny bit scared for a moment, but I grabbed the stick tighter
and tried to hold it in the middle and straight. He lifted up his right hand a
couple of times and said, ‘Your right wing is dropping, move your stick to the
left,’ and then he did the same with his left hand, so I moved the stick a
little to the right.
“Then he
beckoned backward and said, ‘Pull up the nose, you’re letting it fall,’ and
again ‘Not too far back, you’re climbing her.’
“It did not
take any effort to move the stick. In fact it moved only too easily, but I knew
Jack could grab the duplicate controls in front, if anything went wrong, and
pull me out of it. He had his feet on the rudder, I knew, but he held both
hands up, to show me I was managing the stick all alone. We galloped all over
the sky.
“I suppose I
didn’t keep very straight, but pretty soon he said, ‘Very good, Susan. Now I’ll
take control and we’ll land.’
“I didn’t know
how hard I had been working at it until I felt him taking the stick from me,
when he grabbed the one in front. Then I let go of mine, rubbed my hands
together, and sat back relaxed.
“He shut off
the motor, put it into a gliding angle, and landed with some gorgeous banks and
turns. We had been up a half-hour, which is the regular time for the first
air-lesson. I’m crazy about it.
“Jack told Dad
I was ‘getting along fine’ and I hope he meant it. We are lucky because there
is no snow, although it is December. The ground is hard and brown, and you feel
the bump even on a perfect landing. I told Mother she would have to do my
Christmas shopping for me.
“December 17.
This is Sunday and I went to the field early. It was warmer than yesterday and
not so clear. I forgot to put my goggles on and the wind almost blew my eyelashes
through the back of my head on the take-off. Now I know what flying-speed
means. I had the same thrill at leaving the ground to-day that I did yesterday.
“As soon as we
got up high enough, Jack told me to take charge of the stick and the rudder and
try to fly straight. I watched for the horizon, but there was a gray mist in
the distance. I thought I was all right, but he grabbed the stick away from me,
all of a sudden, and dove straight down. I let go and felt scared to death.
Then the ship straightened out again and I yelled at Jack and asked what had
happened. He said I had pulled the nose up too high and was going into a stall,
when he took it away and dove to recover. He said that was because there was no
horizon and I must head down a little lower than I thought the horizon was. I
tried it and he said I was O.K.
“Then I tried
some turns, very gentle. It was awfully exciting, tipping the stick and the
rudder over and trying to get them coordinated just right. I wonder how long it
will be before I can do the swoops and turns and banks way over on one side,
that Jack can do.
“I had two
lessons to-day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon—both about the
same, only I made more mistakes in the morning.
“December 18.
It rained to-day in the morning, a cold rain that turned to sleet to-night. No
flying. Did some Christmas shopping.
“December 19.
Snowed hard to-day, no flying. More Christmas shopping.
“December 20.
Clear and cold. I went down to the field right after school—got there at two
o’clock. Jack Wright had everything ready. I did more banks and turns, but I
banked too steeply for the amount of rudder I was giving it, and side-slipped
to the left. It was terrible. Somehow I got the ship level and Jack did not
seem to know how scared I was, because he let me keep on flying. My hands and
knees felt rather wobbly, but I kept on. It seems queer that I should be
scared, when I have been up in the air so much, but it is different when you
are doing it yourself.
“The field and
the rest of the landscape looked lovely, covered with snow and with the sun
shining. Rather dazzling for your eyes, though. Jack told me to be sure to
observe the way the horizon moved as we came down for a landing, even if I was
not landing myself yet.
“I did watch,
and it seems that the edge of the world is above the nose of the ship gliding
down, then level when we level out; and then quite suddenly when the stick is
pulled back, the nose climbs high and the horizon is low. I don’t think I’ll
ever be able to do it. But then I am surprised that I can even fly straight. It
is not very straight, even so.
“December 21,
more of the same. No sunshine to-day, very cold. I was trying to fly straight
and using the town for a guide, keeping the Metropolitan building at my right
elbow, when I found the world blotted out. I thought it was fog, but it was
snow— only a snow-flurry, in fact. Jack turned and smiled at me, so I kept on
and we were through it in a minute. But I had cold feet for awhile—literally
and figuratively.
“Had cocoa at
the canteen after the lesson. They made it especially for me, as coffee is the
only hot drink most fliers seem to want, they say.
“December 22.
No more school after to-day—hooray! Christmas vacation means lots of work for
me. Father went on a trip in the Ariel, but Mother stayed home to do Christmas
preparations, and I stayed home to fly. Patty came to the field with me, the
first time since I began air-work. She felt pretty blue, but said she was
thrilled to see me sitting in the rear cockpit. She laughed at the way I looked
climbing in. Jack showed off a little for her, and did some stunts with me. A
wing-over is like shimmying your shoulder. A loop is fun. He is going to teach
me how to do them sometime and we will practise spins, as soon as I do landings.
I just kept on with my flying to-day. I feel quite important and superior when
I am up two thousand feet in the air looking down on the city and the farms.
“December 23.
I am sorry I said I felt important yesterday. To-day Jack let me try taking off
and landing and he had to scold me. I was not so hot,’ it seems, according to
the mechanics and pilots who watched us. On the take-off I pulled the stick
back too fast and nearly went into a flat spin, or pancake. On the landing I
tried to level out thirty feet above the ground, which would mean another
pancake.
“Anyhow, I did
the gliding all right. I like it better than anything else in flying. I managed
the throttle, too. Took two lessons and did a little shopping.
“December 24.
A dark day. Looks like more snow for Christmas. Father drove over to Newtown in the car on
business. I took a taxi and went to the field early.
“Kind of sad
news. They had to fire Hank Smith, the cabin-boy on the Ariel, because they
found he had been stealing tools from the machine-shop and selling them
downtown. Sam Connell said he ought to be arrested, but Harry Copley would not
prosecute, as the value was small. He just gave Hank a real army lecture and
warned him and discharged him. I met him leaving, when I was getting to the
field. He looked rather awful, but I didn’t know about the trouble, so I spoke
to him just as usual. I even said ‘Merry Christmas!’ It must have sounded queer
to him. He didn’t say anything, but he has always been like that.
“Anyhow, I had
my lesson, and as soon as we started I forgot Hank Smith and every one else. It
certainly takes your mind off other matters when you fly. I kept on with
take-off and landings and did a little air-work, too. My banks and turns were
better than my going-up or coming-down stuff, but Jack says maybe Santa Claus
will bring me a little flying-sense. He tells me things like that, but he tells
Dad I am getting on O.K. Harry Copley told me to-day not to worry, because I am
a perfectly average student.
“I finished my
shopping to-day. Told Mother I didn’t think I ought to hang up a stocking,
after the way I’ve neglected Christmas, but I helped to trim the tree to-night
and made some popcorn balls—and I will spend all day to-morrow at home. I might
as well, since there will be nobody at the field.
“Have had
almost five hours of flying time so far, which means I ought to be half through
my training.
“December 25.
Snowed hard all day, so didn’t mind missing my lesson. Had a beautiful
Christmas.
Never expect
much when my birthday is so near, but got oodles of things—books, hankies,
stockings, gloves, writing-paper, and so on from relatives and friends. We had
all the funny toys and things we always find in our stockings. Mother gave me a
perfectly slick leather flying-suit and helmet, both brown and businesslike.
The suit has a raccoon collar. Father gave me my own personal parachute. Not
pretty, but at least it is my size. He said he wanted me to wear one always and
it was better to have my own instead of using those of the company.
“Junior said girls
had all the luck, but he got some nice things, too, including a wire-haired
fox-terrier. I can’t tell which gave me the biggest thrill—finding the
flying-suit on my bed or finding the parachute under the Christmas tree. They
both cheered me up, because they make me feel I am going to learn to fly, even
if my landings are pretty rotten so far. Patty gave me a lucky bracelet with an
ivory owl on it. If I ever get a ship of my own I will have an owl on it
somewhere. Father said James Gordon Bennett had a yacht named Lysistrata with
owls everywhere, so I will remember that.
“We had a
wonderful dinner with all the folks here, and went over to Patty’s in the
evening. Phil was home and I told him what a job I have flying. A very merry
Christmas.
“I hope it will
be a good day for flying to-morrow and all through vacation. Had a Christmas
card by air-mail from Bud Wheelock in California .
“December 26.
Pretty exciting to-day. The Travelair was out of order, because one of the
other students made a ground-loop and broke an aileron off. Harry Copley was
going on a little hop, so his Fleet ship was on the line, and they put the dual
controls in that for me. I was just going to get in, and Jack Wright was all
ready to go, when Hank Smith came running up from somewhere and shouted, “Don’t
go! Don’t go! Miss, don’t go!” He was so excited he couldn’t talk straight, but
finally the boys found out he was sore at Copley for firing him, and somehow
got into the hangar yesterday, when every one was home, and sawed the control-wires
of Harry Copley’s ship almost through. He said he did not care what happened to
Harry, but he did not want me to get killed, so he had to give himself away,
when we started to get in the ship.
“Everybody was
furious at him and wanted him put in jail at once, but I talked to him a little
and found out he was supporting a crippled mother and she had to have an
operation, so that was why he stole the tools and looked so cross always. He
should have told Dad his troubles instead of acting so, but he thought
everybody was against him, because some of the mechanics have made fun of him.
He is so small and shabby and shy; and yesterday was Christmas and he thought
his mother was dying for lack of care and they had no food, or fire, or
anything. He has no job, or any chance of one, and I guess he went a little
crazy and came down here to have revenge on Copley. He thinks it is Copley’s
fault if his mother dies.
“I felt
terribly sorry for him. Father did, too. So Father and Copley took him into the
office and talked to him, and I hope it is all straightened out. Father said he
would have to take Hank up and put him through some stunts himself, so he would
get an idea of what it is like to be in a falling plane.
“They are
getting him a job somewhere else, since he would be treated roughly on this
field if the story got around. And Dad gave him some money and telephoned
Mother and they went to his house and arranged about his sick mother and
everything.
“So Jack and I
had to find another plane to use and took a Challenger with dual controls. It
seemed to have more power than the Travelair but needed more care in banking.
But it was easy to take off and land. So now we will use both ships in turn and
maybe others, too, when I get smarter.
“December 27.
Cold, dark day, but very calm in the air. We spent an hour, in two sections,
practising taking-off and landing in the Challenger.
“I have
decided that I like gliding best of all there is in flying, but it is hard. I
hold my breath from the moment I shut off the motor to come down until I am
landed. It ought to help me on the swimming team.
“Taking-off is
exciting, too. First I taxi to the starting-place. This is hard, but Jack helps
me. The ship seems to try to get away from me when I taxi it. I head it around
into the wind and ask if Jack is ready. Then I push the throttle way ahead with
my left hand (that is what they call ‘pouring the coal,’ or ‘giving it the
gun’,) and gradually put the stick way forward with my right, until the nose is
down and the tail up. Then I bring the stick gradually back—and we are off!
“Jack has me
climb pretty high before banking and turning back down the field, and he
doesn’t like a steep bank there, because we have the wind behind us, and need
altitude anyway, he says. So we climb to about a thousand feet or so, and I do
air-work. I make figure eights, doing a right bank and turn, and then a left
one, according to how he points with his hand before me. Then he signals by
pointing down and I have to shut off the motor and find the field and make a
landing. Sometimes he lets me decide when to start coming down, and we do it
from different heights. But when I shut off the motor and put the stick forward
so the ship glides, I get the biggest kick out of flying.
“I like
gliding down away from the field and turning to come into the wind; and I like
turning under power and gliding in straight from a long way off; and I like
coming down in big easy spirals, keeping on banking and turning until I get
into position to land. But when I have come into the field and have to decide
when to level out, and when to bring the nose up, it is bad. Sometimes I bounce
high—and Jack has taught me to give it the gun again and make another circle
and landing—but sometimes I get down pretty well, though I have not made a
perfect landing yet, after almost eight hours in the air. I am furious! I
wonder if maybe I shall never be a flier after all! I am terribly discouraged
to-day, but I am going to keep on just the same.”
Chapter ten
"TAKING
TIME"
SUSAN kept on,
true to her pledge in her diary. She flew every day when weather permitted, all
through the Christmas holidays, and after school had been resumed, she devoted
every afternoon to the airport and her studies. She flew in sunshine and in
sleet, in snow and under clouds, landed on snow or on a field frozen hard, or
soggy from thaws.
During the
vacation period, she often took two lessons a day, one in the morning and one
in the afternoon, having lunch at the field canteen and amusing herself between
her trips into the air by puttering around the ships in the hangar, and the
motors in the machine-shop.
It is not
considered good policy to keep a student up for too long a time, and the
weather was often so bitterly cold that she could not spend more than a
half-hour in the air without becoming numb and chilled, but those whole days at
the airport taught her a great deal besides her actual lessons. She heard the
pilots assembled for lunch at the field canteen discussing their own adventures
in the air, and the exploits of others. She heard the mechanics talking about
their discoveries, and the expedients used to avoid disaster when crashes
seemed imminent. She heard pilots who took needless risks condemned, and fliers
who stunted at low altitude called fools.
One of the
most interesting pilots at the field, in Susan’s opinion, was Slim Sanford, the
mail-pilot who flew over Midford each day about noon, carrying the west-bound
mail, and returned each evening flying toward the east. Sanford was one of the veterans of the
air-mail, a middle-aged man, silent and modest. She saw him only when he came
into the canteen occasionally for a cup of coffee. He was always greeted with
enthusiasm by the fliers there and responded pleasantly, but usually had little
to say, except some comment on the weather, or the air.
“That fellow
could tell you stories more exciting than any fiction, if he wanted to,” Jack
Wright remarked to her one day, as they were eating lunch together when Sanford arrived.
“Yes,” said
her father, who was with them. “Slim Sanford
has been through everything there is, in the way of flying. Began about the
same time I did, and started in on air-mail work as soon as there was any
air-mail. He belongs to the Caterpillar Club, too.”
Susan knew
that the Caterpillar Club was composed of fliers who had escaped disaster by
using their parachutes, and she regarded Sanford
with increased interest. He was talking to the field-manager at the other end
of the canteen and she thought nobody would have recognized him for a pilot. As
his mail-ship was a cabin plane, he was wearing an ordinary suit of clothes, a
rather shabby overcoat, and a soft felt hat, and his mild blue eyes, graying
hair, and gentle expression did not suggest the adventurous character his
exploits proved him to possess.
Other pilots
at the table told how Slim Sanford had flown in a South American revolution;
how he had carried the mail through thunder-storms and blizzards; how he had
been shot down twice in the World War, but had escaped from a German prison-camp,
and had blazed the trail of the air-mail over some of the worst routes in the
country.
Susan was
thrilled at all this, and she was quite overcome with delight when Slim Sanford
himself brought his coffee and sandwich, and asked if he might sit beside her
father. Introductions followed, and the mail-pilot showed keen interest when he
heard Susan was a flying-student.
“It’s the
greatest game there is,” he told her. “Keep at it. You’re lucky to be starting
now and starting young.”
“Tell me,”
said Susan, emboldened by his kindliness, “what was the most exciting
experience you ever had in the air?”
The pilot
thought a minute, stirring his coffee and looking out of the wide windows of
the canteen toward the snow-covered field and the blue sky. When his answer
came, it surprised Susan.
“I guess it
was when I was flying in fog, one night,” he said. “I was spinning for almost a
thousand feet. Couldn’t tell when I had her level, and so I’d go into another
spin. Open ship, too. Nine hundred feet above the ground, I came out of the fog
and got my bearings, so I could straighten out. But I thought I was gone for a
while, all right.”
“Why didn’t
you use your parachute?” asked Susan, wide-eyed.
“Centrifugal
force would hold me in, anyhow,” he said. “And you don’t leave the mail unless you
have to. Have you had any spins, Miss Thompson?”
Susan said she
hadn’t, yet, and Jack Wright hastened to say that he was going to teach her to
get into, and out of, a tail-spin that very afternoon. Her father agreed that
it was something every flying-student ought to know about.
So after her
usual lesson in taking-off and the figure eights and steep banks that were now
part of her routine air-work, Susan felt the control of the ship taken over by
Wright, who said to her through the speaking-tube:
“Now I’ll take
you for a ride and then we’ll try something new.”
Swiftly he
climbed the ship, while Susan sat back and looked out on the wintry scene
below. It was now early January and she had had nine hours of air-training.
Wright had told her she needed only to perfect her landings and she would be
ready to “go solo,” and try for the State student-pilot license. After that
would come ten hours of flying alone, and then she would be eligible for her
Federal private license.
Although
approved schools, such as the one under her father’s supervision, made only
eight hours of solo flying necessary, Jack Wright wanted Susan to have plenty
of training before she went to the Federal inspector from the Department of
Commerce at Washington ,
to display her flying-ability and take her examination.
Both of these
first licenses, the State and Federal, would give her the privilege of flying
alone, or carrying friends as guests. The next grade of license would be
commercial, requiring fifty hours of flying, and permitting her to carry
passengers for hire, to test and demonstrate planes, and otherwise earn money
by her flying-ability. The highest grade of license, that of a transport-pilot,
would require two hundred hours of flying. This would allow her to fly any type
of licensed aircraft, for any purpose and in any State. Susan thought she would
be lucky if she achieved this grade of rating within two years, or even before
she got to college, but she was resolved to keep on flying and make every grade
in turn.
“It’s just as
logical as going to college after finishing high school,” she thought to
herself, looking down on the beautiful world spread out so far below.
Her train of
thought was interrupted by the voice of Jack Wright, who shut off the engine
and said to her:
“Just watch
carefully the first time and see what happens. Don’t be scared! You can always
get out of a spin, or anything else, if you’re up high enough, provided your
ship holds together. This one will!”
The altimeter
showed that they were three thousand feet up and Susan realized that they were
above the open country preferred for stunting. The girl took hold of the front
edge of the cockpit with both hands and removed her feet from the rudder. She
knew that in stunts like this, student-fliers often “froze” to the controls,
holding them so tightly in nervous terror that the instructor, trying to fly
with the duplicate controls, was helpless. Many crashes and deaths have been
caused in this way, and Susan was too air-wise to take any chance.
So, leaving
the controls absolutely free, she watched while Wright turned the motor on
again with a roar, and pulled the ship’s nose up, up, up—to the stalling angle,
when the plane seemed to be standing on its tail, like a trained seal on the
stage.
For just an
instant the ship seemed to hang there. Then the nose dropped—straight down
toward the earth three thousand feet below—and there was a terrific whirl.
Susan felt as if her head were going to fly off, as if her face were crimson
and she had lost her breath. Strapped in her seat, with her hands braced before
her, she was in the position of one fastened against a wall, with her body from
the waist up extending horizontally outward. Only it wasn’t a wall, but a madly
revolving thing like a gigantic top.
The world
below was directly in front of her eyes, above the cowling of the motor; and
little white houses, red barns, and snow-covered fields were circling in a
crazy sort of picture. Then there was a movement of stick and rudder, the ship
slowed up, miraculously, and straightened out, flying level again.
Susan caught
her breath and rubbed her cheeks, as Wright turned to her and said:
“How did you
like it? That’s a tail-spin!”
“I didn’t like
it at all!” Susan told him. “I’m sure I could never do it myself!” She had
never felt so dizzy in her life, and she meant she could never get out of a
tail-spin, for she knew that every flier was apt to get into one, whether he
liked it or not. Jack Wright laughed consolingly.
“We made two
spins that time, under power,” he told her. “Now I’ll stall into a spin without
the motor and just go round once. Be sure to watch the controls. Look into the
cockpit and you won’t get dizzy.”
This time he
shut off the motor, while Susan, again carefully avoiding the controls, watched
them move. Instead of putting the stick forward, so that the ship would take a
gliding angle when he stopped the motor, he held it level, and in an instant it
began to “fall off” and stall.
Susan knew the
sensation of a stall so well that she could tell it was coming, a valuable thing
for any student-flyer to know. She thought to herself that it felt very much as
a sail-boat does when it comes up into the wind too far and “jibes” before
coming about on the opposite tack. But there cannot be any other sensation in
the world exactly like that which one feels when one is poised in the air, with
no power, about to drop off into space. The ship dropped and the spin began.
The spin this
time didn’t seem so bad, somehow. Perhaps it was because she had experienced
the other, perhaps because she did not look at the landscape, perhaps because a
spin without power is never so terrific as one with it. Through the
speaking-tube Wright’s voice came to her:
“Now watch the
controls—rudder and stick to the right—see?”
Susan saw
this, and felt less dizzy than she had before, because she concentrated her
attention on the contents of the cockpit. Wright spoke again:
“Hold them there
as long as you want to spin—then neutralize with everything center—ease your
stick forward—give it the gun—you’re out!”
It looked
quite simple thus explained, but Susan doubted whether she could do it herself.
However, after they had flown level a little while Jack Wright turned and
looked at her over the wind-shield between their cockpits, speaking to her at
the same time.
“Want to try
it again?” he asked. “Keep your hands and feet on the controls and follow me
through, then maybe you can try it yourself.”
Again he shut
off the motor and Susan felt the stick and rudder being put through the
motions. She did not mind it nearly so much now, and thought she might even
rather like it after a while. But when it came time to do it herself, she was
glad to know that Jack Wright with his firm hand, his fine judgment, and his
long experience was ready to take over the control at any minute.
When the first
time came to try her first stunt, she was more excited than she had been since
her very first lesson, and had any of her friends been there they would have
recognized her expression of determination. "Susan's fighting face,"
as Patty called it.
She pulled
back the throttle, held the ship level, felt it fall, put the stick and rudder
a little to the right, recognized the tremendous whirl of the spin, and was
terrified for a minute. But she felt the reassuring touch of Wright's hand on
the stick in the other cockpit, and with that moral support and actual help she
neutralized her controls, put the stick forward for a dive, pushed the throttle
on, and was out of the spin, flying level again and feeling a great sense of
relief.
Wright turned around
and shook hands with himself in the front cockpit in token of congratulation.
"That was great!" he told her. "Getting cold now, though. Take
her down."
Susan looked
around frantically for the field, and finally located it almost directly behind
them. They were more than two thousand feet up in the clear, frosty air. Her
nose and cheeks, the only unprotected part of her face, were cold and her feet
felt numb even in woolen stockings and overshoes, while she had to wriggle her
fingers inside the great mittens to keep them from going to sleep. But she felt
happy as she shut off the motor, and banking, turning, gliding down, brought
her ship to rest on the field. It was a perfect landing, too. She knew it by
the reassuring way in which the two wheels of the landing-gear and the slanting
tail-skid met the field all at the same time with a gentle thump, in what is
called a three-point landing.
“Hold that
stick back,” called Wright, and the ship came to a stop after a brief run. Then
they taxied to the hangar and there, after helping Susan, who was so stiff she
could scarcely move, out of the cockpit, Wright told her that she would soon be
ready to “cut loose.”
“A few more
landings like that one,” he said, “and you’ll go solo. You did well on the
spins, too. You’ll be a flier like your daddy pretty soon now.”
“Oh, but I’m
so cold,” was Susan’s only answer. She was shivering and her teeth chattered as
they hurried to the canteen for something hot to drink.
“Yes,” agreed
Wright. “It’s not very comfortable flying in mid-winter, but the air is
smoother than it is in summer, or even in spring and fall. Gosh, the air to-day
was as smooth as cheese! But you don’t want to be a fair-weather flier. I’ll
have to see that you get some bumps.”
There were
some days of heavy snowfall after that, so that Susan’s instructor could not
take her up, but on the first day after the snow ceased, they “took the air”
again. It was a gray day, with low-lying clouds scudding across a sullen sky
and a haze veiling the distances on the land. Susan’s father, who had been
testing a new ship, remarked that the air was rough.
“Going to take
your daughter up, just the same,” said Wright cheerfully, holding out her
parachute for Susan to slip her arms into.
“That’s
right,” said Bill Thompson, pinching her cheek as he passed. “Got to take it as
it comes, in this game! Go up and ride the bumps.”
“O.K.,” said
Jack Wright. “We’ll go up and do figure eights first.”
Susan had
flown enough as passenger and student to know something about rough air, and
she felt the ship wobble more than usual as she took off on their start. Wright
motioned up with his right hand, to show her that that wing was low, and as she
straightened it out, a giant invisible hand seemed to strike the ship from
beneath and push it higher. Susan was prepared for this and did not waver, but
she was a little apprehensive when the time came to bank over, for her turn
above the field. The ship seemed unsteady and yet it took the bank and held it
well, and then she leveled out again and was climbing.
Over a patch
of trees beyond the field boundaries the ship suddenly dropped, and it was
strange to see how powerless Susan seemed—all she could do was to keep level
and go straight ahead. Still climbing, they passed above the river, and it was
as if a giant hand seized and shook them as a terrier shakes a rat. Susan was
beginning to feel a little frightened, but her instructor looked so
unconcerned, peering down with apparent interest at the scenery below, that she
did not dare admit that she would like to have him fly the ship.
Then he
pointed to the left and she knew it was his signal for a turn in that
direction. The ship was still wobbling about and up and down, like a boat in a
rough sea, and Susan felt decidedly shaky in her knees, but she pushed firmly
on the left rudder with that foot, and brought the stick firmly over to the
left.
Early in her
training, her instructor had told her that one great fault of students,
especially women, was a tendency to “over-control,” keeping the stick and rudder
too stiff instead of handling them lightly. To-day Susan felt a desire to hold
more firmly to the controls than ever before in order to counteract the
influences of the air, but she resisted, though she was careful not to let a
gust of wind, or a bump of air, take the controls away from her. When she found
she was making her turn well, holding the bank firmly while the horizon seemed
to swim past the nose of the ship, she felt better, and she was able to reverse
and make the right turn without so much trepidation. She even began to whistle
a little, “to keep my courage up,” she thought to herself, scornfully.
After she had
done her air-work, and Wright signaled to go down, she found she had lost all
fear of the rough air, and made her landing quite calmly, although she noticed
that the ship seemed to be going down-stairs, as it glided in an odd series of
drops downward.
After that
landing, which Wright told her was pretty poor, they made a series of short
hops around the field, and landings from different altitudes. On the first of
these, her instructor told Susan she had leveled out too soon. On the second he
told her she had let the right wing fall. On the third he said:
“I guess the
air is too bumpy for landings—let’s go in.”
Just because
he had not told her that she was improving, Susan felt sure she was hopeless,
and as he took the controls and taxied the ship to the hangar, she wiped away a
tear that almost froze on her eyelashes. When they came into the office, her
father asked her how she liked the air.
“F-f-fine,”
Susan answered in a broken voice, which he attributed to the fact that the
temperature was not far above zero, instead of noticing that his daughter was
trying not to cry.
Harry Copley
was more observant. As Susan was hanging up her equipment in her locker, he
came past her and patted her shoulder.
“Cheer up,
Sue,” he said. “I was watching your work and you’re coming along all right.
This was a rotten day for flying, too. We wouldn’t take every student up in
this air!”
Susan was
grateful to the operations-manager and managed to smile. She had already found
out that it was easier to become discouraged in flying than it had been in
anything else she had ever tried. Although she was so determined to fly, she
would have given up her idea if any one had told her at that moment that it was
hopeless to try.
When she went
back to the office, to join her father for the trip back to town, she had an
amazing surprise. Jack Wright was there in conference with Bill Thompson, and
as Susan entered, he turned to her.
“I was just
telling your father that you’re about ready to go solo,” he said. “You flew
well in rough air and your landings were good. I think we’ll turn you loose, as
soon as the State inspector can take you up.”
Susan could
hardly believe her ears. She had thought Wright was disgusted with her work,
and now he said she was almost ready to graduate from his teaching!
“But, Jack,”
she said, “you told me yourself that my landings were poor. I didn’t make a
single good landing to-day.”
“Any landing
is a good landing if you can walk away from it,” said Wright. “We’ll check you
up with Copley and then you go solo. And after you get your license, you can
take your dad for a ride.”
“Oh, Harry,
are you really going to fly with me?” said Susan.
“Just because
I fly with every student before we turn them loose,” said Copley. “I guess I’m
not taking any more risk with you than I am with the rest of them.” He winked
at Wright.
“Yes, and
Copley will surprise you, too,” said Susan’s own instructor. “Look out for
him—he’ll give you some pretty stiff work to do.”
“But I won’t
fly with you until you check out,” said her father.
Susan knew
that Copley gave instruction in advanced air-work and air-acrobatics, as well
as checking over the students of other pilots. Her father did not ordinarily
give instruction.
There were
three pilot-instructors in addition to Wright, but she had flown only with
Wright up to this time, for it was the policy of the school for each student to
fly with one instructor only, until time to finish the course. Susan thought
she had been lucky to have Jack Wright, for he was chief of all the
instructors, capable and good-natured and really interested in the progress of
his students. She was sorry she had been discouraged this afternoon, just because
he had not told her she was doing well.
She said so,
and he laughed.
"You
silly kid," he told her, "I was so busy wondering how soon we could
have you examined for the State student-pilot's license and let you go solo,
that I forgot to tell you how much I liked your work.
Cheer up now
and get plenty of sleep. You want to pass your examination with flying
colors!"
Chapter Eleven
“THE SKY GIRL”
IT was a
cardinal rule of the flying-school that no student could expect to do good work
without plenty of sleep and unless he was in good health, so Susan obediently
went into special training in preparation for the tests that were to prove her
able to fly a ship alone.
The rules of Connecticut , held up by
Phil Carlisle as a shining example, were almost identical with the rules of the
State where Susan lived; and instead of being turned loose to fly alone when
their instructors thought it advisable, the students were required to pass an
examination by a State Inspector, representing the aviation department of the State
government. They were then granted a student-pilot’s license to use while
flying the ten hours additional that are required for a Federal private
license.
But several
rainy and snowy days followed Susan’s flight in the bumpy air and she was
unable to take another lesson. During those days, while she followed her
regular high-school routine, and even went through examinations, she said
nothing, except to Patty, about the fact that she was soon to be a real pilot,
if only a beginner. And Patty, admiring Susan as always, unselfishly forgot her
own disappointment and was duly excited over her chum’s prospect of realizing
the ambition she had cherished for so long.
During the
days when her check flights and examination were delayed by weather conditions,
for it was now late January and there were alternate thaws and storms, Susan
found little to write in her diary, but she went to bed early every night,
called the airport every morning to see whether there was any chance of a
lesson, and watched the weather reports carefully.
She looked
over the newspapers always for flying-news, and one dark morning, while sleet
drove against the windows of the Thompson home and the roads were nearly
impassable, she found an interesting surprise in the headlines.
AMERICAN
FLIER ATTEMPTS
EPOCH-MAKING
VOYAGE
Montgomery
Wheelock, Millionaire Sportsman and War Aviator, Takes Off To-day on Attempt to
Fly Around South America—Non-stop Flight with Ten Refueling-Points.
Her
exclamation drew her father’s attention, and with her he read the details of
how the flier planned to leave Los Angeles , fly
down the Pacific coast of South America around
the Horn, and return by the Atlantic coast. There were details about the
project, the co-pilot, and the navigator, but the story emphasized the fact
that Wheelock had himself planned and financed the expedition, which was to
establish a new record if it was successfully completed. In reading the
newspaper account, Susan learned much that nobody in Midford High School had
suspected of the football coach; and her father was also surprised to find that
the man he had known as an unassuming pilot, was not only an expert flier who
had owned his own amphibian and land planes for years, but was a well-known
Wall Street operator as well.
Susan lost no
time in telling Patty the news and it spread like wild-fire through the school.
Polly Smith reminded every one of the fact that she had known about the trip
before any of the girls had heard of it. Never before had so many copies of the
Midford newspapers been bought and so eagerly read by boys and girls, and the
interest was so intense that the school bulletins recorded the progress of the
flight every day.
Susan was
vividly interested in the Wheelock expedition, but she did not neglect her own
flying, and the first good day found her at the airport again. It was a
Saturday and she arrived early in the morning. The weather was clear but cold
and Susan had put two sweaters under her winter flying-suit, and a wool muffler
around her neck, as well as extra skating-socks under the shoes and arctics.
“And putting
on skating-socks reminds me,” she said to her mother, “that I haven’t done any
skating this year, except on two evenings. I certainly have devoted this winter
to flying.”
“Well, skating
doesn’t compare with flying as something to do, does it?” pointed out Mrs.
Thompson. And Susan hastened to say that she did not grudge one minute she had
spent at the airport.
When she
reached the field, this Saturday morning, she was a little cast down by what
she learned there. First, Jack Wright had gone by train to a neighboring State
to take delivery on a new plane ordered by one of the students. He was expected
back during the morning, but she met another disappointment when Harry Copley
told her she would have to “take more time,” because she had not flown for
several days. “Taking time” meant going through instruction again, and although
Susan hated this, because it would add at least a half-hour to the ten and a
half she had already spent in the air and would be put on her record, she knew
it was for her own good and was a rule made for the safety of students, who
always lost a little knack if they went long without practising flying.
So she took
off the warm flying-clothes that she did not need in the hangar, and substituted
one of the “monkey suits” that mechanics wore, picked up a spark-plug wrench,
and went out to watch Sam Connell make adjustments on a motor that was being
taken down to the machine-shop.
Suddenly there
came to her ears the hum of an airplane motor, and she ran out to the field,
her wrench still in her hand. She had hoped to see Jack Wright arriving, but a
little white biplane came down on the snowy field, as lightly as a feather, and
taxied up to a point close to her. A woman’s voice called from the plane:
“Can you sell
me some gas and show me a place where I can eat?”
It was a sweet
voice with a charming English accent, and as the pilot raised her goggles,
Susan recognized a face she had often seen in the newspapers. It was Lady Mary
Heath, transport-pilot and licensed mechanic, famous heroine of a long-distance
flight from England to Africa , and winner of many records—and this was the
English Moth plane she had always favored. As Susan came closer the pilot
realized that she was speaking to a girl. She laughed and apologized.
“Oh, I’m
sorry,” she said. “I thought you were a mechanic. But I would like some gas for
my ship and a cup of coffee for myself.”
By this time
some of the staff of the field had arrived, and while mechanics were taking
care of the ship, Susan escorted Lady Heath to the canteen. The flier was
wearing a leopard-skin coat and helmet with very high laced boots, and Susan
made a mental note of the fact that fur was attractive for winter
flying-costumes.
She had a
pleasant conversation with the aviatrix.
Lady Heath
showed deep interest in the young student, wishing her luck, and encouraging
her with stories of her own training.
“I have an
awful time making a good landing,” Susan confessed, and Lady Heath said that
she had known the same difficulty once upon a time. Before she took off, to
resume her trip across the country, the famous woman flier visited the
headquarters of Bill Thompson’s concern and met Susan’s father, with whom she
found topics of mutual interest to discuss. She spoke of flying in Europe .
“It must have
changed a lot since war-time,” said the former officer of the Royal Flying
Corps. “I hope to go over before very long and see how things are managed in England
and on the Continent. If Susan is a good girl, she may go with me.”
Lady Heath
said she was sure Susan would be a good girl, as well as a good flier. Then,
with a pleasant farewell, the attractive woman who had flown thousands of miles
alone in a tiny plane, hopped into the cockpit of her little ship, taxied to
the starting-point, and was soon a speck in the western sky.
This was an
experience Susan enjoyed, but she was glad when at noon another whirring motor
announced the arrival of Jack Wright. He came in, cold and tired, and had lunch
at the canteen, saying he had some business to attend to in the office before
Susan could have her lesson. Then he had to take up the student who owned the
new ship. Sue was disappointed at the delay, and as she watched the other
students of the school coming in for lessons and going off into the sky with
their pilot-instructors, she felt perilously close to tears.
The other
students were all young men—some clerks, others mechanics, one a policeman. The
student who owned the new ship was a wealthy young banker. None of them was as
near the completion of his course as herself and all of them, she knew, had
less free time for flying than she did, so that even if she had wanted to take
another instructor, she would not have felt justified in using the time booked
for the other students. Some of them had to take instruction at lunch hours, or
early in the morning, to enable them to carry on with their wage-earning; and
none of them, except the banker, was well off. To each of these men, with that
exception, aviation was a goal for which they had saved money, often at the
cost of even the necessities of life. To the banker, it was a great sport.
So Susan
greeted each of them cheerfully, as they donned their equipment and left the
field. Finally, when the early winter twilight seemed sadly close, Jack Wright,
with many apologies, told her to be ready. That was superfluous. Susan had been
ready for hours, it seemed to her, but she put on her parachute, her muffler,
her arctics, her helmet, picked up her gloves and goggles, and followed her instructor
to their training-ship.
This, she
knew, would be her last real lesson in ordinary flying with Jack Wright, and
she felt suddenly sorry that her instruction was so near its end. When she was
seated in the rear cockpit, he stood on the wing beside her and watched while
she turned the switch off and on, calling “Switch off,” “Clear,” and “Contact”
in response to the queries of the mechanic out in front who was twisting the
propeller to start the motor.
Susan had done
this often before, just as she had learned to “twirl the booster” and start the
magneto on other ships, but she had never felt it so significantly as she did
to-day. And when at last the motor started to roar, and she caught it with a
push of the throttle-handle forward, immediately retarding to avoid letting the
ship run away, she felt both proud and sad.
She was too
busy flying after that to feel anything but absorption in her work. She took
the ship off, flew to a thousand feet, did two figure eights, and landed. As
the ship came down, she realized she was going too fast and would overshoot the
field, or be unable to stop at a safe distance from the hangars, so she “gave
it the gun” again and climbed to make another circle of the field and a better
landing.
“You beat me
to the gun when you overshot,” said Wright. “Good!”
Susan was
excited by the difficulty she had in keeping the ship from ground-looping, or
turning sharp circles, as she taxied it back to the starting-point. A
ground-loop may be serious or it may be trivial, she knew, but she did not care
to have any at all. Jack Wright recognized her symptoms, and on the third
attempt at landing, he coached her, just as he had done when they first began
to practise this.
“Shall I never
learn to land properly?” Susan thought to herself in exasperation as she rose
above the hangars on her third take-off. “What good would it be to fly the Atlantic , if you couldn’t put your ship down safely on
the other side?"
On the third
try, she nearly went to the other extreme and undershot, but Jack Wright went
on coaching her in his calm, quiet, patient way. He allowed her to choose her
own moment for shutting off the motor, and then, as she put the ship into the
gliding angle, she heard his voice.
“Bank a little
here—now straighten out—straight into the field—keep coming—don’t dive
her—that’s right—give her the gun, you won’t make it—good—blip the motor
again—don’t let it die on you—a right—keep coming—down—down—level off—bring
back that stick slowly—all right—hold it back!”
By the sigh
she gave when they were landed, Susan knew she had been holding her breath
again. But Wright did not seem concerned. The sun was still above the horizon,
although it was brilliant scarlet, and a cold brazen tint was covering the sky.
The instructor scanned the horizon, while they waited for another ship to land.
Then he said:
“Guess I’ll
let you fly with Copley now. Are you too cold?”
Susan was too
excited to be cold. They taxied to the hangar and Wright sent a mechanic for
Copley, who came out, evidently expecting this, because he was wearing his
flying-clothes and parachute.
“Hello,
Susan,” he said. “Going to take me for a ride?” Then when Wright had hopped
out, he climbed into the front cockpit in a leisurely way. “All right, let’s
go,” he added, and sat back, apparently ready to let the girl take full charge.
She felt a
little awed at first, knowing this was her check flight, but forgot it as soon
as she had taken off, and repeated the figure eights she had done before. She
was flying straight when, to her astonishment, Copley rose in his place,
turned, and faced her over the wind-shield.
“There’s
nothing like it!” he said. “Gosh, what did the world do before there was
flying!”
Susan didn’t
know what to say to this, so she simply smiled and nodded.
“Let’s see you
stall her,” commanded the operations-manager. “Pull her up—up—easy now, no
spins,” and Susan brought her ship down, just before it had gone too far.
“Do you think
you could make a forced landing?” he asked, his elbows resting on the space
between the two cockpits. Susan shrugged her shoulders and said:
“I hope so!”
"Well,
try it!" said Copley, and without an instant's warning, shut off the
motor.
Immediately
and instinctively Susan put the ship into the gliding angle, looked around for
the field, and made a gliding turn and bank down to it.
There was no
advice from the front cockpit this time, and the girl was pleased to find
herself coming into the field very well, and to feel the delicious little
settling motion that a ship has when it is being "set down" just
right.
"Very
good, Susan!" said Copley. "Do another like that and you're
O.K."
They were not
very far into the field, so the girl pushed the throttle way ahead, pushed her
stick forward, brought it back, and was off quickly. The sun had gone now, and
the sky was rose and violet, while the border-lights made a gold and red circle
about the field like a wreath of little jewels. The beacon flashed just as
Susan banked for her first turn, and the light seemed to wink at her
cheerfully. She felt quite gay as she shut off the motor, and in the light of
the sunset afterglow, made a landing that had a few little bumps, but still
seemed to pass Copley's approval.
"I'll
bring her in for you," he said, and taking the stick in the front cockpit,
he flew across the field in a fascinating way that Susan knew she would not be
able to manage for many years, if ever.
At the hangar,
she found Jack Wright and her father waiting. Bill Thompson helped his daughter
unfasten her safety-belt and parachute, and jump down from the edge of the
cockpit. Susan rubbed her hands and stamped her feet.
“How did she
do?” asked Mr. Thompson, and Jack Wright echoed the inquiry.
“Ready to cut
loose any time,” said Copley cheerfully. “She’s ‘Susan, the Sky Girl’ from now
on.” Susan’s heart gave a leap at these words and then seemed to miss a beat.
“I thought
so,” said Jack Wright. “We’ll have Inspector Driscoll take her up to-morrow and
then she’ll check out.”
As she heard
the words, standing beside her ship among the older pilots in the winter dusk,
the whole thing seemed to Susan like a dream.
Chapter Twelve
PILOT SUSAN
THOMPSON
"OH,
Mother!” shouted Susan, the minute she reached the house, “to-morrow I check
out and go solo—if I’m good enough!”
There was
great rejoicing in the Thompson household. Then Susan rushed to the telephone
to tell Patty, who said she was coming right over, because she too had some
news. It proved to be a letter from New Haven, saying that Phil had not only
secured his Federal private license, but had been appointed to Kelly Field, the
army training-base for aviators, which every year accepts a certain number of
civilian candidates.
“I’m a member
of the Yale R.O.T.C. unit of the Artillery Reserve anyway,” wrote Phil, “which
helped a little; and if I make good at Kelly Field, I may go into the army
Aviation Corps myself and make it my career. Tell Susan Thompson and ask her
what her father thinks of the idea. He knows about the army. It’s a stiff
course and lots of fellows get washed out because they can’t make the grade,
but I won’t go until I get through here next June, and I intend to make good at
it. If I fail, that s my hard luck.”
This was
interesting enough in itself, but there was more to come, for hardly had Susan,
her parents, and Patty adjourned to the living-room after dinner, when Junior,
as always busy at the radio, tuned in on a station that was giving Associated
Press news. And the news proved to be the report that Montgomery Wheelock,
known as “Bud” to Midford High School , had successfully completed his long
flight and was reported as having arrived safely in Panama , the end of his journey.
So many
telephone calls had to be exchanged between Susan and her schoolmates as a
result of all these exciting developments in one evening, that it was much
later than usual when she got to bed. And after she had finished making her
daily entry in her diary, she was still too excited to go to sleep. But it was
her entry the next night that was most interesting and here it is:
“First thing
this morning I remembered that today I was going to meet my test and see if I
had really learned to fly. It was a gray day, the air misty, and it felt as if
it might snow before night. But I went down to the field early, as we had
agreed.
“Mother and
Patty said they would not go down, because it might make me self-conscious; and
Junior didn’t show any more interest than usual, but Father said of course he
would be there. Why not? He thought they were foolish, because he said any
flier who paid attention to those who were looking on would crack up anyway,
sooner or later—and it might as well be sooner! But maybe he was only joking.
“Anyway, I
went down with him, as usual, and felt pretty calm. I did not have much sleep
last night because there was so much excitement all evening, but I did not feel
a bit sleepy, because to-day was the biggest day of my life in some ways.
“When we got
to the field Harry Copley had gone somewhere to get delivery on a new ship and
I was sorry he was not there, but I found Jack Wright waiting for me.
“He looked at
me very seriously and said, ‘You wouldn’t be afraid to fly by yourself right
now, if I told you to go solo, would you? I told him, No, of course not,’ and I
really meant it. I was not a bit scared.
“He took me
for one hop around the field, to be sure the ship was all right, he said. The
air was a little rough, but I made one landing and then he taxied the ship up
to the Inspector’s headquarters and went in.
“He told me to
hold the throttle down and keep the stick back while he was gone, and for just
a minute I almost hoped Inspector Driscoll would not be there, but he was. Then
he and Wright came up to the ship and I said to Jack, ‘Will it feel any
different when there is nobody in the front seat?’ And he said, ‘I am glad you
are so sure you are going to fly alone, but you won’t mind the difference and
the stabilizer can stay where it is.’
“So then the
Inspector got in and told me I was to taxi to the starting-point and go up,
just as I do with Wright for figure eights. He said, ‘I shall want you to show
me banks from fifteen to sixty-five degrees, but I shall not require vertical
banks.’ Then he said he would tell me when to land, and if I made three good
landings when he was in the ship, he would turn me loose and let me see if I
could make three landings solo.
“The dual
controls were still in the ship, of course, and I started out, just as I have
always done with Jack Wright in front of me. As soon as I gave it the gun and
started off, I forgot I was flying the ship myself. The Inspector, who is an
expert, of course, and would be looking for all my faults, seemed just as if he
were Jack Wright.
“I went up to
fifteen hundred feet and made figure eights with different degrees of banks,
and then he pointed down and I made my landing—the best I have ever done. When
we were on the ground, he told me to make two more landings, from lower
heights, and I did. The first one bumped a little, but the third was pretty
good. I made these both with a three-hundred-sixty-degree turn, shutting off
power when I was headed away from the field and gliding in.
“Still he
didn’t say anything, and I was afraid I had made some mistake, but I taxied
back to the take-off point, and then he got out and climbed out of the front
cockpit and stood beside me. He said, ‘Do you feel all right to go solo?’ and I
said, ‘Yes, indeed I do.’ So he said, ‘Very well, take off as usual and fly
about half-way to Wethersfield Cove down there on the river; then turn under
power and throttle her down when you are headed for the field, and come in on a
long straight glide. I will be standing here, but don’t be afraid you will hit
me. After you make your landing, I will tell you what to do next.’
“Then he moved
away and I was all alone in the ship! It was sort of incredible and yet
wonderful, but I did not feel the least bit afraid. I looked over at the hangar
and there was a group watching me, but I did not look at them long. I had her
headed into the wind, anyhow, so I just gave her the gun and started off. It
did not feel the least bit different on the take-off and I went up over the
hangar roofs perfectly. I was glad the wind was that way, for I would rather go
up over the hangars and field buildings, and come in over the river and woods,
than do it any other way.
“The air was
still bumpy, naturally, but I did not mind and I revved it back after I had
made my first turn, but the ship kept climbing, even with the tachometer down
to twelve and a half. I was flying the Challenger, which we have been using for
several weeks now. I looked at the altimeter and it said almost a thousand feet
and still climbing, so I headed the nose down because I didn’t want to break an
altitude record without meaning to. It seemed wonderful.
“I looked
around and felt as if I owned the whole world. It was perfectly marvelous to be
up there, flying alone and getting away with it. I thought how lucky Dad was to
have been flying all these years, and decided I would never, never, never give
it up, even when I get to be an old lady. I thought beforehand I might miss
seeing my pilot’s head in front of me, but instead it seemed awfully nice just
to see the nose of the ship and the horizon.
“Then I was
about half-way between the field and the cove, so I banked and turned and
headed back, then shut off the motor. I could see the Inspector standing there,
looking so tiny. I had never made a landing like this before and I wondered if
I was high enough so I could glide all the way, or did I need more power, or
what? I peeped over the edge and the trees down below looked tall, but men
working on the road looked small. Anyhow, I kept on with the glide and blipped
the motor a couple of times, to make sure I had power enough. I was so busy
thinking about landing that I forgot I was alone, or rather I forgot to be
worried about what would happen if I made a mistake, with nobody there to take
care of everything. Anyhow, I made the field all right, and there I was.
“Inspector
Driscoll came up and said, ‘Make two more, any way you want to,’ so I took off,
feeling just slick. I tried to wave to Father and Jack Wright and the men at
the hangar, but the wind nearly blew my hand off my arm, so I gave up the idea.
“I made both
the other landings with gliding banks and turns. They were both so good that I
was surprised, and after the last one, the Inspector came over to me. He didn’t
say anything, but got into the front cockpit and taxied the ship to the hangar.
“I was afraid
I had made some error, but he got out over there while I waited. All the people
from Dad’s place came up around the plane—and there were Mother and Patty and
Junior, right in the midst of the crowd!
“I still sat
in the ship, because I thought the Inspector might be going to say I needed
some more lessons, but instead he reached over and shook hands with me, saying,
‘Let me be the first to congratulate you, Miss Thompson. You did very well!’
“I had soloed
and passed inspection in twelve hours of flying-time.
“Then Father
lifted me out and kissed me; and I hugged Jack Wright and Mother and everybody,
and I was so sorry Harry Copley wasn’t there.
“We went over
to the Inspector’s office—Jack Wright and Dad and I—and I had my first license
made out and paid for in about fifteen minutes. I certainly will always
treasure it, no matter how many other licenses I may win.
“Then Father
said to Jack, ‘It is just about the time we thought she would be through. This
must be Copley now.’ Sure enough, I heard a plane coming and looked out, and
there was a perfectly lovely little Avian coming in, white and gold and blue.
It flew right up to our hangar. Harry Copley jumped out and when I got there,
with Father and Jack Wright and Inspector Driscoll, Mother and Patty were there
too, and all the men from the school and the shop, and a lot of people I didn’t
know.
“I ran up to
Harry, who was puttering around the cockpit.
“ ‘Oh, Harry,
I got my license!’ I said. ‘Just this minute! Isn’t it wonderful? I’m so
happy!’
“And he said,
‘I should say it is, but I knew you would come through. How do you like this
ship?’
“I said, ‘It’s
a peach.’ And Dad said, ‘Jump in and see how it feels to be sitting in your own
ship.’
“I could not
believe my ears at first, but he picked up a flap of white canvas that was
hanging over the side of the cockpit, hiding that part of the fuselage, and
there it was painted in blue and gold:
“ ‘SKY GIRL.
Pilot Susan Thompson.’
“And inside
the cockpit was the license card and everything, all made out to me; and
mounted on the engine cowling was a little gold owl.
“It seemed too
wonderful to be real. The whole thing was like a dream, and I looked around at
everybody and burst into tears, like a big baby. Mother cried a little, too,
and Dad hugged me. Jack Wright patted my back and Harry Copley gave me a huge
handkerchief. And Patty said, ‘Susan, I’m ashamed of you,’ but she looked kind
of sniffly, too.
“I said, ‘But
my license says I can fly light-weight commercial biplanes, eighteen hundred
pounds. Is this all right?’ And Dad said, ‘Oh, I guess between us we can teach
you how to manage it.’ Then everybody laughed, and I laughed, too, and got into
my own dear little ship and felt happier than I ever have before in my life.
“I am sorry
for the girls who lived in the years before flying was possible.
“Mother says I
have just sprouted my wings, and I know that I have many happy adventures ahead
of me in the skies.”
THE END
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