Airship Andy: or, The Luck of a Brave Boy

“Oh, that isn’t worth thinking of,” declared Andy. “I’ll be glad to help.”

He quite cheered up the owner of the geese by his willingness and activity. In half an hour’s time they had all the disabled stray fowls in the enclosure. Some dead ones were left where they had fallen by the wayside.

“I reckon the old nag is rested enough to climb up the rest of the hill now,” spoke the man to his companion, who was his son. “Fetch Dobbin along, Silas, and we’ll feed the fowls and get a snack ourselves.”

Andy curiously regarded the poor crowbait of a horse soon driven into view attached to a ramshackly wagon. The horse was put to the grass near the enclosure, and two bags of grain unearthed from a box under the seat of the wagon and fed to the penned-in geese.

Next Silas produced a small oil-stove, a coffee-pot and some packages, and, seated on the grass, Andy partook of a coarse but substantial breakfast with his new friends.

“There’s a town a little ahead, I understand,” spoke the man.

“Yes,” nodded Andy; “Afton.”

“Then we’ve got twenty miles to go yet,” sighed the man. “I don’t know how we’ll ever make it.”

Andy gathered from what the man said that he and his family had gone into the speculation of raising geese that season. The nearest railroad to his farm was twenty miles distant. His market was Wade, sixty miles away. He had decided to drive the geese to destination. Two-thirds of the journey accomplished, a long list of disasters spread out behind, and a dubious prospect ahead.

“It would cost me fifty dollars to wagon what’s left to the nearest railroad station, and as much more for freight,” said the man gloomily.

Andy looked speculative. In his mechanical work his inventive turn of mind always caused him to put on his thinking-cap when he faced an obstacle.

“I’ve got an idea,” declared Andy brightly. “Say, mister, suppose I figure out a way to get your geese the rest of the way to market quite safely and comfortably, and help drive them the balance of the distance, what will you do for me?”

“Eh?” ejaculated the man eagerly. “Why, I’d – I’d do almost anything you ask, youngster.”

“Is it worth a pair of shoes, and a new cap and coat?” asked Andy.

“Yes; a whole suit,” said the man emphatically, “and two good dollars a day on top of it.”

“It’s a bargain!” declared Andy spiritedly. “I think I have guessed a way to get you out of your difficulties.”

“How?”

“I’ll show you when you are ready to start.”

Andy set to work with vigor. He went to the back of the wagon and fitted two boards into a kind of a runway. Then he poured corn into the trough, and hitched up the old horse.

“Now, drive the horse, and I’ll attend to the corn,” he said. “I won’t give them as much as you think,” he added, fearing the farmer would object to the use of so much of his feed.

It was not long before they were on the way. As the corn dropped along the road, the geese ran to pick the kernels up. Andy scattered some by hand. Soon he had the whole line of geese following the wagon.

“Now drive in the best spots,” he said.

“I’ll take to the fields,” answered Mr. Pierce.

He was as good as his word, and traveling became easy for the geese, so that they made rapid progress. They kept on until nightfall, passing through Afton, where Andy bought a postal card and mailed it to Mr. Webb, stating his money had been left with Mr. Dawson. By eight o’clock the next morning they reached Wade, and there, at a place called the Collins’ farm, Andy was paid off and given the clothing and shoes promised. He changed his suit in a shed on the farm, and then the youth bid his new friends good-by and went on his way.

CHAPTER VI – THE SKY RIDER

“Hold on, there!”

“Don’t stop me – out of the way!”

“Why, whatever is the matter with you?”

“The comet has fallen – ”

“What?”

“On our barn.”

“See here – ”

“Run for your life. Let me go, let me go, let me – go!”

The speaker, giving the astonished Andy Nelson a shove, had darted past him down the hill with a wild shriek, eyes bulging and hair flying in the breeze.

It was the afternoon of the day Andy had said good-by to Mr. Pierce and his friends. He was making across country on foot to strike a little railroad town, having now money enough to afford a ride to Springfield.

Ascending a hilly rise, topped with a great grove of nut trees, Andy got a glimpse of a farmhouse. He was anticipating a fine cool draught of well water, when a terrific din sounded out beyond the grove. There were the violent snortings of cattle, the sound of smashing boards, a mixed cackle of all kinds of fowls, and thrilling human yells.

Suddenly rounding the road there dashed straight into Andy’s arms a terror-faced, tow-headed youth, the one who had now put down the hill as if horned demons were after him.

Andy divined that the center of commotion and its cause must focus at the farmhouse. He ran ahead to come in view of the structure.

“I declare!” gasped Andy.

Wherever there was a cow, a horse, or a chicken, the creature was in action. They seemed putting for shelter in a mad flight. Rushing along the path leading to the farmhouse, a gaunt, rawboned farmer was sprinting as for a prize. He cast fearsome glances over his shoulder, and bawled out something to his wife, standing spellbound in the open doorway, bounded past her, sweeping her off her feet, and slammed the door shut with a yell.

And then Andy’s wondering eyes became fixed on an object that quite awed and startled him for the moment. Resting over the roof of the great barn at the rear of the house was a fantastic creation of sea-gull aspect, flapping great wings of snowy whiteness. Spick and span, with graceful outlines, it suggested some great mechanical bird.

“Why,” breathed Andy, lost in wondering yet enchanting amazement, “it’s an airship!”

Andy had never seen a perfect aeroplane before. Small models had been exhibited at the county fair near Princeville, however, and he had studied all kinds of pictures of these remarkable sky-riders. The one on the barn fascinated him. It balanced and fluttered – a dainty creation – so frail and delicately adjusted that his mechanical admiration was aroused to a degree that was almost thrilling.

Blind to jeopardy, it seemed, a man was seated about the middle of the tilting air craft. The barn roof was about twenty-five feet high, but Andy could plainly make out the venturesome pilot, and his mechanical eye ran over the strange machine with interest and delight.

A hand lever seemed to propel the flyer, and this the man aloft grasped while his eyes roved over the scene below.

How the airship had got on the roof of the barn, Andy could only surmise. Either it had made a whimsical dive, or the motive power had failed. The trouble now was, Andy plainly saw, that one set of wings had caught across a tin ornament at the front gable of the barn. This represented a rooster, and had been bent in two by the tugging airship.

“Hey, you!” sang out the man in charge of the airship. “Can you get up here any way?”

“There’s a cleat ladder at the side.”

“All right, come up and bring a rope with you.”

Andy was only too glad to be of service in a new field that fascinated him. The doors of the barn were open. He ran in and looked about busily. At last he discovered a long rope hanging over a harness hook. He took possession of it, hurried again to the outside, and nimbly ascended the cleats.

“Look sharp, now, and follow closely,” spoke the aeronaut. “Creep along the edge, there, and loop the rope under the end of those side wings.”

“I can do that,” declared Andy. He saw what the man wanted, and it was not much of a task to balance on the spout running along the edge of the shingles and then climb to the ridge-pole. Andy looped the end of the rope over an extending bar running out from the remote end of the last paddle.

“Now, then,” called out the aeronaut in a highly-satisfied tone, “if you can get to the seat just behind me, fetching the rope with you, we’ll soon be out of this tangle.”

“All right,” said Andy.

“And I’ll give you the ride of your life.”

“Will you, mister?” cried Andy, with bated breath and sparkling eyes.

The boy began creeping along the slant of the barn roof. It was slow progress, for he saw that he must keep the rope from getting tangled. Another hindrance to rapid progress was the fact that he had to be careful not to graze or disturb the delicate wings of the machine.

About half the directed progress covered, Andy paused and looked down. The door of the farmhouse was in his range of vision, and the farmer had just opened it cautiously.

He stuck out his head, and bobbed it in again. The next minute he ventured out a little farther. Now he came out on the stoop of the house.

“Hey, you!” he yelled, waving his hands up at the aeronaut.

“Well, neighbor?” interrogated the latter.

“What kind of a new-fangled thing is that you’ve stuck on my barn?”

“It’s an airship.”

“Like we read about in the papers?”

“Yes.”

“Sho! and I thought – Who’s afraid?” and he darted back again into the house. Immediately he reappeared. He carried an old-fashioned fowling-piece, and he ran out directly in front of the barn.

Andy read his purpose. He readily guessed that the farmer was one of those miserly individuals who make the most out of a mishap – the kind who think it smart to put a dead calf in the road and make an automobilist think he had killed it. At all events, the farmer looked bold enough now, as he posed in the middle of the road, with the ominous announcement:

“I’ve got a word for you up there.”

“What is it?” inquired the aeronaut.

“Who’s going to settle for this damage?”

“What damage?”

“What damage!” howled the farmer, feigning great rage and indignation; “hosses jumped the fence and smashed down the gate; chickens so scared they won’t lay for a month; wife in a spasm, and that there ornament up there – why, I brought that clear from the city.”

“All right, neighbor; what’s your bill?”

“Two hundred dollars.”

The aeronaut laughed.

“You’re not modest or anything!” he observed. “See here; I’ll toss you a five-dollar bill, and that covers ten times the entire trouble I’ve made you.”

The farmer lifted his gun. He squinted across the long, awkward barrel, and he pointed it straight up at the sky-rider and his craft.

“Mister,” he said fiercely, “my bill is two hundred dollars, just as I said. You pay it, right here, right now, or I’ll blow that giddy-fangled contraption of yours into a thousand pieces!”

CHAPTER VII – JOHN PARKS, AIRSHIP KING

“Keep right on,” ordered the aeronaut to Andy in a low tone.

Andy squeezed under a bulge of muslin and wood and reached what looked like a low, flat-topped stool.

“Do you hear me?” yelled the farmer, brandishing his weapon and trying to look very fierce and dangerous.

The aeronaut, Andy noticed, was reaching in his pocket. He drew out two small bills and some silver. He made a wad of this. Poising it, he gave it a fling.

“There’s five dollars,” he spoke to the farmer.

The wad hit the farmer on the shoulder, opened, and the silver scattered at his feet. He hopped aside.

“I won’t take it; I’ll have my price, or I’ll have the law on you, and I’ll take the law in my own hands!” he shouted.

Snap! – the fowling-piece made a sound, and quick-witted Andy noticed that it was not a click.

“See here,” he whispered quickly to the aeronaut; “that man just snapped the trigger to scare us, and I don’t believe the old blunderbuss is loaded.”

“All ready,” spoke the aeronaut to Andy, as the latter reached the seat.

“Yes, sir,” reported Andy.

“When I back, give the rope a pull and hold taut till we clear the barn.”

“I’ll do it,” said Andy.

“Go!”

There was a whir, a delicious tremulous lifting movement that now made Andy thrill all over, and the biplane backed as the aeronaut pulled a lever.

Andy gave the rope a pull and lifted the entangled wing entirely clear of the weather-vane.

“Now, hold tight and enjoy yourself,” spoke the aeronaut, reversing the machine.

“Oh, my!” breathed Andy rapturously the next moment, and he forgot all about the farmer and nearly everything else mundane in the delight and novelty of a brand-new experience.

Andy had once shot the chutes, and had dreamed about it for a month afterwards. He recalled his first spin in an automobile with a thrill even now. That was nothing to the present sensation. He could not analyze it. He simply sat spellbound. One moment his breath seemed taken away; the next he seemed drawing in an atmosphere that set his nerves tingling and seemed to intoxicate mind and body.

The aeronaut sat grim and watchful in the pilot seat of the glider, never speaking a word. He had skimmed the landscape for quite a reach. Then, where the ground began to slant, he said quickly:

“Notice my left foot?”

“I do,” said Andy.

“Put yours on the stabilizing shaft when I take mine off.”

“Stabilizing shaft,” repeated Andy, memorizing, “and the name of the airship painted on that big paddle is the Eagle. Oh, hurrah for the Eagle!”

“When I whistle once, press down with your foot. Twice, you take your foot off. When I whistle twice, pull over the handle right at your side on the center-drop.”

“‘Center-drop’?” said Andy. “I’m getting it fast.”

Z – zip! Andy fancied that something was wrong, for the machine contorted like a horse raising on his rear feet. Toot! Andy did not lose his nerve. Toot – toot! he grasped the handle at his side and pulled it back.

“Good for you!” commended the aeronaut heartily. “Now, then, for a spin.”

Andy simply looked and felt for the next ten minutes. The pretty, dainty machine made him think of a skylark, an arrow, a rocket. He had a bouyant sensation like a person taking laughing gas.

The lifting planes moved readily under the manipulation of an expert hand. There was one level flight where the airship exceeded any railroad speed Andy had ever noted. Farms, villages, streams, hills, faded behind them in an endless panorama.

Toot! – Andy followed instructions. They slowed up over a town that seemed to be some railroad center. Beyond it the machine skimmed a broad prairie and then gracefully settled down in the center of a fenced-in space.

Its wheels struck the ground. They rolled along for about fifty yards, and halted by the side of a big tent with an open flap at one side.

“This is the stable,” said the aeronaut, showing Andy how to get from his seat on the delicate and complicated apparatus of the flyer. “Dizzy-headed?”

“Why, no,” replied Andy.

“Wasn’t frightened a bit?”

“Not with you at the helm,” declared Andy. “Mister, if I could do that, I’d live up in the air all the time.”

“You only think so,” said the aeronaut, the smile of experience upon his practical but good-humored face. “When you’ve been at it as long as I have, you’ll feel different. What’s your name?”

“Andy Nelson.”

“Out of a job?”

“Yes, sir.”

The aeronaut looked Andy over critically,

“That little frame building at the end of the tent is where we keep house,” he explained. “The big rambling barracks, once a coal-shed, is my shop. I’m John Parks. Ever hear of me?”

“No, sir,” said Andy.

“I’m known all over the country as the Airship King.”

“I can believe that,” said Andy, “but, you see, I have never traveled far.”

“I’ve made it a business giving exhibitions at fairs and aero meets with this glider and with a dirigible balloon. Just now I’m drilling for a prize race – five thousand dollars.”

“That’s some money,” observed Andy, “and I guess you’ll win it.”

“I see you like me, and I like you,” said John Parks. “Suppose you help me win that prize? I need good loyal help around me, and the way you obey orders pleases me. I’ll make you an offer – your keep and ten dollars.”

“And I’ll be near the airship?” asked Andy eagerly. “And learn to run it?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my!” cried the boy, almost lifted off his feet. “Mr. Parks, I can’t realize such good luck.”

“It’s yours for the choosing,” said the aeronaut.

“Ten dollars a month and my board for helping run an airship!” said Andy breathlessly. “Oh, of course I’ll take it – gladly.”

“No,” corrected John Parks, “ten dollars a week.”

CHAPTER VIII – THE AERO FIELD

“That’s settled,” said the Airship King. “Come, Andy, and I’ll introduce you to our living quarters.”

Andy felt as if he was treading on air. He was too overcome to speak intelligently. Clear of the spiteful Talbot brood, the proud possessor of a new suit, a watch, five dollars, and the prospect of a princely salary, he felt that life had indeed begun all over for him in golden numbers. He caught at the sleeve of his generous employer.

“Mr. Parks,” he said with emotion, “it’s like a dream.”

“That’s all right, Andy,” laughed the aeronaut. “I’m pretty liberal, they say – that is, when I’ve got the money. I’ve seen my hard times, though. All I ask is to have a man stick to me through thick and thin and I’ll bring him out all right.”

“I’ll stick to you as long as you’ll let me,” declared Andy.

“Yes, you’re true blue, Andy, I honestly believe. I’ve staked a good deal on the aero meet next month. I’ve just got to get that five-thousand-dollar prize to make good, for I’ve invested a good deal here.”

“I hope I can help you do it,” said Andy fervently.

“The Eagle is only a trial craft. Over in the workshop yonder, I’ve got a genius of a fellow, named Morse, working for me, who is turning out the latest thing in airships. Here’s our living quarters.”

Mr. Parks led Andy into the shed-like structure that formed the back of the tent which sheltered the aeroplane and also a dirigible balloon. They passed through several partitioned-off spaces holding cots. Then there was a comfortable sitting room. Next to it was a kitchen.

This room was sizzling hot, for it held a big cooking-range, before which an aproned cook stood with an immense basting spoon in his hand. He was the blackest, fattest cook Andy had ever seen. His eyes were big with jolly fun, and his teeth gleamed white and full as he grinned and nodded.

“I’ve brought you a new boarder, Scipio,” said Mr. Parks. “His name is Andy Nelson. You’ll have to set another place.”

Then he stepped through a doorway outside, and Scipio took a critical look at Andy.

“’Nother plate, eh?” he chuckled. “Dat’s motion easy, but what about de contents of dat plate? Fohteen biscuit do de roun’s now. Yo’ look like a likely healthy boy. I reckon I have to double up on de rations.”

It was a royally good meal that was spread out on the table in the sitting room about four o’clock in the afternoon.

“Where’s Mr. Morse, Scipio?” inquired Mr. Parks, as the cook brought in a smoking roast.

“Mistah Morse have to be excused dis reflection, sah, I believe,” responded Scipio. “I ask him ’bout noon what he like foh dinnah. He dat sorbed in his work he muttah something bout fractions, quations and dirigible expulsions; I hab none ob dose to cook. Jus’ now I go to call him to dinnah, an’ I find him deeper than ever poring over dose wheels an’ jimdracks ob machinery, and when I say de meal was ready, he observe dat de quintessimal prefix ob de cylinder was X. O. plus de jibboom ob de hobolinks. It sounded like dat, anyhow. Berry profound man, dat, sah. I take him in his meal later, specially, sah.”

From this and other references to the man in the shop, Andy decided that Mr. Morse must be quite a proficient mechanician. He longed to get a peep into his workshop. After dinner, however, Mr. Parks said:

“Would you like to stroll over to the big aero practice field, Andy?”

“I should, indeed,” responded Andy.

He found the aviation field to be a more or less shrouded locality. It was reached only by crossing myriad railroad tracks, dodging oft-shunted freight-cars, scaling embankments and crossing ditches. The field was dotted with shelter tents for the various air machines, trial chutes and perfecting shops.

There were any number of monoplanes, biplanes and dirigible balloons. On the different tents was painted the name of the machine housed therein. There was the Montgo, Glider, the Flying Dutchman, the Lady Killer, and numerous other novelties with fanciful names.

“Every professional seems to be getting up the oddest freak he can think of,” explained Parks. “Do you see that new-fangled affair with the round discs? That is called the helicopotol. That two-winged, one-hundred-bladed freak just beyond is the gyropter. Watch that fellow just going up with the tandem rig. That’s a new thing, too. It’s of the collapsible type, made for quick transportation, but not worth a cent as a racer.”

Andy was in a realm of rare delight. He passed the happiest and most interesting hour of his life looking over and studying all these wonderful aerial marvels about him.

When they got back to camp, the aeronaut showed Andy where he would sleep, and told him something about the routine.

“I am making test runs with the Eagle,” he explained, “and will want you to sail with me for a day or two. Then you may try a grasshopper run or two yourself.”

“I shall like it immensely,” declared Andy with enthusiasm.

When Mr. Parks had left him, Andy wandered outside. The sound of a twanging banjo led him to the front of the kitchen quarters.

Seated on a box, his eyes closed, his face wearing an expression of supreme felicity, was Scipio. Strains of “My Old Kentucky Home” floated on the air. The musician, opening his eyes, happened to spy Andy.

“Tell you, chile,” declared the portly old cook, with a rare sigh of longing, “des yar Scip could play dat tune all night long.”

“Keep right at it, Scipio,” smiled Andy. “You go on enjoying your music, while I do up any little chores you have to attend to.”

“If it wouldn’t be a deposition on yo’,” remarked Scipio thoughtfully, “dar’s de suppah dishes I’d like brung back from Mistah Morse’s quarters.”

“Can I find them?” inquired Andy.

“Yo’ jess follow yo’ nose down through the big shed,” directed Scipio. “Mistah Morse nevah notice yo’. He’s dat substracted he work all night.”

Andy proceeded on his mission. Passing through one shed, he saw a light at the end of one adjoining. In the second shed he came to a halt with sparkling eyes and bated breath.

Across a light platform lay the skeleton of an airship. Its airy elegance and fine mechanism appealed to Andy intensely. He went clear around it, wishing he had the inventive faculty to construct some like masterpiece in its line.

Just beyond the machine was a small apartment where a light was burning. Near its doorway was a table upon which Andy observed a tray of dishes and the remnants of a meal.

He moved forward carefully to remove them, for seated at a work-bench and deeply engrossed in some work at a small lathe, was a man wearing great goggles on his eyes.

“It must be Mr. Morse, the airship inventor,” thought Andy.

Just then the inventor removed his goggles, rubbed his eyes and turned his face towards Andy.

With a crash the boy dropped a plate, and with a profound start he drew back, staring blankly at the man at the bench.

“Oh, my!” said Andy breathlessly.

CHAPTER IX – THE AIRSHIP INVENTOR

Morse, the inventor, made a grab for his eye-goggles. He had become a shade paler. He did not take up the goggles, however. Instead, he turned his back on Andy.

Our hero had a right to be startled. He stood staring and spellbound, for he had recognized the inventor in an instant. He was the handcuffed man he had poled down the river from Princeville the night of the flight from the Talbots, and who had given him the very watch he now carried in his pocket with such pride and satisfaction.

The man had shaved off his full beard since Andy had first met him. This made him look different. It was the large, restless eyes, however, that had betrayed his identity. Andy would know them anywhere. He at once realized that the inventor had sought to disguise himself. Probably, Andy reasoned, he had caught him off his guard with the goggles off his eyes.