CHAPTER XI
THE DART
“Well, Ben, how is your airship work coming on?”
“Famously, father.”
“That’s good. Here is a drawing of the new curve planes we talked about last night. We have a whole afternoon before us, and I would like to look over things.”
“I will be glad to have you,” declared Ben. “I know you can make some valuable suggestions.”
Bright and early the Monday morning after his return from the aero meet, Ben had set at work to build his airship. He was not daunted by the thought that the same was a big undertaking for a boy. Mr. Davis told him that it was an easy thing to do, if a person knew how to do it and started about it right.
In his father Ben found a skilled and willing helper. Mr. Hardy was slow and cautious about entering upon any work he did not thoroughly understand. He was more at home with automobiles than airships, and not inclined to move from a groove with which he was thoroughly familiar into one that was so far purely speculative for him. His desire to encourage Ben, however, impelled him to take a deep interest in the efforts of his son. Before he had given his thoughts two days to the fascinating new field, the expert mechanician found himself quite as enthusiastic as his son over the proposition, although he was not as demonstrative as Ben.
A large shed on the Hardy property had always been a home workshop for the master machinist. It was well stored with tools, and it was here that Mr. Hardy had produced many of his automobile inventions. During the absence of Ben at the aero meet, he had fenced in with a screen wire a space over fifty feet wide adjoining the shed. Here a scaffolding, a light lifting crane, and work horses had been set to accommodate the worker. Ben started in at his experimental task with all necessary accessories for prosecuting his labors.
The Saturday afternoon of that week his father had come home from work at one o’clock. He looked and felt as brisk and lively as a boy just out of school as he joined Ben in the work yard.
Ben’s airship had begun to assume definite form and substance. The motor part of the machine did not trouble our hero at all. He knew that appurtenance when it was needed would be the latest and best devised that his father could select. The framework of wood and canvas was what tested Ben’s skill.
Mr. Hardy had helped him in making the drawings of the machine before he had commenced work on it. Every morning he laid out specific work for the day and every evening he critically inspected it.
“Well, father,” observed Ben, after studying over the new drawings, “the Dart begins to look like something, doesn’t it?”
“The Dart, eh?” smiled Mr. Hardy, “so you have chosen that name?”
“Yes, I thought it quite appropriate. My first ambition is high sailing. Mr. Davis won on that, and even the Flyer did not make such a very high flight. I believe with a fair machine specially built I can beat his record.”
“All right, Ben,” remarked Mr. Hardy, “we will continue on our model. If I had foreseen how this line of work was going to interest me, however, and had realized the practical possibilities of the construction, I should have recommended a larger model.”
“We will try the Dart first. If she makes a go of it, we can try something more ambitious.”
Father and son were employed in the congenial work in a pleasant progressive way all the afternoon. Ben had never been so happy in his life, and the novel labor acted as a restful variation for his father.
“BUILDING AN AIRSHIP, ARE YOU, HARDY”
It was about five o’clock when Ben, holding a skeleton frame on a curving slant while Mr. Hardy covered it with canvas, chanced to glance towards the street.
“Father, some one is coming,” he said in a significant tone.
“Who is it, Ben?”
“Mr. Saxton.”
“Indeed,” observed Mr. Hardy. He did not discontinue his work, but securing it so the canvas would not give, then looked up to greet his unexpected visitor.
The proprietor of the automobile works, portly, overdressed, and swelling with a sense of his own importance, did not look pleased or agreeable as he approached the work yard and passed in through its open gateway.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Saxton,” observed Ben, while his father bowed courteously.
“H’m,” observed Jasper Saxton in a dry non-committal tone, curiously scanning the skeleton of the monoplane, “building an airship, are you, Hardy?”
“Trying to,” answered Ben’s father.
“Something new?”
“Father couldn’t make anything without striking some improvements,” remarked Ben.
He spoke pleasantly, but all the same to give the wealthy manufacturer a hint along the line of his notorious indifference to the past valuable services of his head machinist.
“Think there’s something to it, do you, Hardy?” inquired Saxton.
“How do you mean?” asked Mr. Hardy.
“Well, along practical lines. Is the aviation fever only a spurt, or is it going to be a real feature?”
“In the manufacturing line, you mean.” inquired Mr. Hardy.
“That’s it.”
“Well, the Diebold people over at Martinville are making and selling some machines. They are thinking of stocking up with duplicate parts. There will of course be a good deal of supply trade, even if the thing runs only as a fad.”
“I hadn’t heard of that,” remarked Mr. Saxton in a thoughtful, speculative way. “Something to it, is there?”
“I think so.”
“Worth specializing as a department?”
“You would have to decide that, Mr. Saxton,” replied Mr. Hardy. “I couldn’t venture an opinion.”
“You appear to think enough of it to give your time to experimenting, it seems,” said the manufacturer. “I don’t want to get behind in the procession, you know. If we could work into the airship business in our dull months, it might become quite a profitable feature of the business.”
Mr. Saxton went all around the framework on the wooden horses, and inspected every part of the skeleton machine. He asked many questions. Especially was he interested, when Mr. Hardy with the natural eloquence of an inventor explained some new features of the Dart.
Then the manufacturer strolled to one side in a thoughtful way. He took out a pencil and a card and did some figuring.
“See here, Hardy,” he said at length, “I’ve decided to give this airship business a try. We’ll just move this model down to the plant where we’ll have everything handy, and you can put in a week or two seeing how the proposition pans out.”