CHAPTER XIV A SCREW LOOSE
Morey, elated over the great privilege granted him, lost no time in taking advantage of it. While Mr. Wright, Lieutenant Purcell and the experienced workmen who were to assist in launching the aeroplane were hurrying the last preparations, he crowded close to the craft. It was beautiful in its fragile symmetry and Morey hung over it as an artist might examine a picture. An attendant was pouring in gasoline and Mr. Wright was intently watching him when a middle-aged military man entered the shed.
“Everything all right?” he exclaimed in a full deep voice.
“So far as we know,” answered Mr. Wright, smiling. “But that is what we never know exactly. If I had a guarantee that it was, I wouldn’t hesitate to go up a thousand feet.”
As he said this he shook hands with the new arrival. Lieutenant Purcell promptly saluted and exclaimed: “Major Squiers.”
Morey took another look. This, then, was the head of the U. S. Signal Corps—the army authority on ballooning and air navigation. Morey knew that he was looking at the best posted man in the country on the subject that so appealed to him, and he wondered if he might get the opportunity to lay his father’s plans before such an authority.
“Looks like a fine afternoon for the trial,” went on the visitor. “The President is ready. You can go when you like. I wish you luck.”
Just then his eye fell on Morey and he frowned.
“He’s all right,” remarked Mr. Wright. “That’s our new assistant—he isn’t in the way.”
“Well,” said the Major—his frown relaxing—“you must look out for strangers.”
“I’ll answer for this young man,” spoke up Lieutenant Purcell. At the same time he stepped to his superior and spoke in a low voice.
Morey was already lost again in his intent examination of the airship. He had never seen anything that so interested him. The machines at Hammondsport were experimental and roughly finished. This white winged, complete car appealed to his enthusiasm and he was already in a land of dreams. If there had ever been any doubt about his ambition this meeting with the great wizard of the air and this close contact with his fairy-like creation would have decided Morey’s future. He determined to become an aviator and the owner of such a craft if it took years of effort.
In the midst of his close inspection of the waiting machine the boy started, looked again, and then turned to those in charge. The eager attendants had just taken their stands ready to shoulder the long spruce framework to carry it outside the house to the starting track.
“Mr. Wright,” whispered Morey, touching the great inventor on the arm, “look here. I think a link of your chain drive is bent.”
Mr. Wright and Lieutenant Purcell sprang forward together as Morey laid his finger on one of the little steel squares of the right hand link belt used to connect one of the propellers with the engine. One corner was bent sharply upward. The first examination showed that the steel link was cracked. Mr. Wright spoke under his breath as his helpers crowded about him and then ordered the doors closed. The next few moments were busy ones. Every one sprang to the task of repairing the damage. Mr. Wright with a wrench loosened the chain while others brought punches and a substitute link. When the defective bit of steel had been removed and a new link put in its place the perspiring inventor arose, wiped his forehead, and turned to those watching him. He had picked up the broken bit of metal. After looking at it intently and showing it to Lieutenant Purcell he turned to Morey.
“How did you happen to see that, my boy?”
“Oh, I just noticed it—I thought they ought to be perfect, all of them. So I looked ’em all over. I knew a bad one might dump you.”
“I certainly would have been dumped and worse. It might have been my last flight. I can’t say much except that I thank you. Here,” he added, laughing, “take this as a souvenir.” He handed Morey the broken link. “And whenever you see it, just remember that I’d be glad to do something for you.”
A few minutes later the aeroplane was out and on the track and as it sailed away to the applause of the hundreds watching it only a few knew that the country boy already racing over the dusty parade ground beneath the hovering airship had counted for so much in making the experiment possible and successful. It was indeed successful, for it was on this momentous day that Mr. Wright demonstrated to the Signal Corps and the world that his aeroplane could fly forty-five miles an hour. In doing this the machine was in the air a little over an hour.
As it finally drifted toward the landing place after circling the course many times the first face that the straining aviator made out was Morey’s. And it was Morey’s proud assertion, many a time later, that it was of him that Mr. Wright asked—
“Did I do it?”
In the excitement that followed, Mr. Wright and Lieutenant Purcell disappeared. As soon as the aircraft was within the shed those gentlemen were carried away by Major Squiers to meet the President, who had hastened forward compliment the nervy aviator. But Morey had no thoughts of distinguished guests. With his coat off he now helped to carry the aeroplane into the house and, with the other workmen, to adjust it on its supporting trusses. The attendants were excited and enthusiastic and they worked over the car as if it had been an exhausted race horse, cleaning the engine, tightening the bolts holding the wires and looking over every truss and brace for possible fracture.
“Hello there, Morey—I thought we had lost you, I’ve been looking for you. Why didn’t you come and see the President?”
It was Lieutenant Purcell, looking spick and span in his full dress uniform.
“I didn’t know it was so late,” answered Morey. “But I’ve had a fine time.”
“I think we’ll have to make you a member of the corps,” remarked the officer.
Morey gave a startled look.
“Me?” he exclaimed. “A member of the Signal Corps?”
“Of course I was joking. But I never saw any one who seemed to take so naturally to this as you do.”
Morey had donned his coat and was walking with the officer toward the barracks. They discussed generally the exciting events of the day and then Morey returned to the suggestion made by his companion.
“What do you mean by joining the corps?”
“I was joking,” explained the Lieutenant. “Of course you couldn’t. You would have to enlist as a soldier. I merely thought of it because we are trying to find a few youngsters to train in this aeroplane service.”
“Well,” exclaimed Morey promptly—his eyes glittering—“why couldn’t I enlist as a soldier?”
The lieutenant looked at him in surprise.
“In the first place,” he replied with a smile, “I imagine your mother would not consent or want you to do it. You are too young.”
“But what if I had her consent?”
“You couldn’t afford to do it. Soldiers don’t live as you live. You’d have to work.”
Morey was silent a few moments. Then, reaching the clubhouse, he asked Lieutenant Purcell if they might not sit down at a table in a corner of the wide gallery. In the next ten minutes the boy frankly told the story of his situation. The officer listened in surprise, but sympathetically. Nothing was omitted from the boy’s story.
“I want to dispose of my father’s idea,” Morey concluded, “and I must make arrangements to see that my mother is not driven from her home by the men she thinks are her best friends. But when those things are accomplished I’ve got to go to work for a living. I’m no farmer and was never meant to be one. If, by joining the army, I can enter the signal corps to study aviation, I’d like to do it. I mean to do it.”
His friend took his hand.
“My boy,” exclaimed Lieutenant Purcell, “you certainly have a task ahead of you. I can see that you mean to accomplish it. But, you’ll need help. I’m going to help you all I can. We’ll begin this evening. Major Squiers will be at my home for dinner. We’ll begin with him so far as your father’s plans are concerned. You’ll stay with me tonight, and tomorrow I’ll take you into the city and will talk with some real estate men I know. Meanwhile, we will think no more of your enlistment. You don’t understand what it means.”
“In the signal corps I’d have a chance to be taught how to handle an aeroplane, wouldn’t I?”
“Yes,” conceded the lieutenant, “and I think you would be our star pupil. But the pay—”
“That isn’t it,” interrupted Morey. “I wouldn’t have to stay in the corps. If I’m a success I could buy out and then—”
The officer laughed.
“Don’t you think you have enough to bother about before that comes up?”
“I certainly have,” answered Morey. “But I’m looking ahead. Anyway, I’m a thousand times grateful to you. I’d like to meet Major Squiers and show him what I have. Then I’d better go on into the city and meet you tomorrow, if you’ll be good enough?”
“You will stay with me tonight. Why not?”
“I’ve got Amos with me,” answered Morey with a knowing smile.
“We’ll take care of Amos, if he is my enemy,” laughed the officer.
Lieutenant Purcell was a bachelor, but his quarters were comfortably furnished. He and Morey had lingered on the club house veranda for some time, talking over Colonel Marshall’s mysterious packet while a corporal went in quest of Amos and Betty. Soon after the officer and his guest reached the former’s house the corporal returned with the report that the horse and surrey had been found and cared for, but that the colored boy could not be found. Morey was alarmed. He proposed an immediate personal search; but at that moment the telephone rang.
After talking for some minutes over the telephone the lieutenant, with much laughing, hung up the receiver.
“He’s found,” he explained, roaring with amusement. “He’s in the guard house.”
Morey sprang up in alarm.
“Yes,” went on his host, “but they are going to bring him here.”
“In the guard house?” exclaimed Morey.
“The secret service men arrested him early this afternoon. He was found prowling about in the rear of the President’s tent with a rock tied up in a red handkerchief.”
“Why, that was for you,” explained Morey nervously, but laughing in spite of himself. “He’s carried that all the way to Washington to get even with you for ducking him.”
“That’s what he finally confessed,” roared Lieutenant Purcell again. “They’ve just had him before Captain Bryant, the officer of the day. When he told who he was and who he was with, Captain Bryant fortunately recalled that you were my guest—I had been telling him about you. So, concluding that Amos and I could settle our own feud, they are bringing him here to turn him over to us.”
Amos’ armed escort arrived at that moment. When Morey and his host stepped out on the piazza two grinning soldiers and a very much alarmed colored boy stood before them. One of the guards held in his hand the incriminating rock, still concealed in its anarchistic covering. The colored boy burst into tears at sight of Morey and sank on his knees.
“I ain’t done no hahm, Mr. Soldier. I don’ mean hahm to no one,” blubbered Amos. “I’s jes’ lookin’ ’bout.”
Lieutenant Purcell took the weighty weapon and dismissed the soldiers.
“Amos,” he said, as severely as he could, “what’s the meaning of this rock? Why are you carrying it with you?”
“Deed, Mr. Soldier, I’s keepin’ dat kaze I’s ’feared o’ robbers.”
“Do you want it again?”
“No, sah, Mr. Soldier, no, sah.”
“They say over at the jail that you said it was for me; that you wanted to break my head with it?”
“Me?” whimpered Amos. “No, sah, Mr. Soldier. Dey’s story-tellers. ’Deed dey is. Please, Marse Morey,” he wailed, “don’ let ’em bring me to de jail agin. I ain’t mad at no one, ’bout nothin’. Please, Mr. Soldier!”
Lieutenant Purcell and Morey could no longer restrain their laughter. Amos was forgiven, assured that he had already been punished for his desperate resolve and turned over to Lieutenant Purcell’s domestics for supper and lodging.
