The condition of the field together with the fact that after a heavy rain it was often necessary to carry gasoline in five gallon cans a mile and a half over the railroad tracks by hand forced me to leave Maben and a large number of would-be passengers behind, and early one morning I took-off for the last time and again headed for Texas.
III
BARNSTORMING EXPERIENCES
I HAD strayed over a hundred miles off my course and experienced a minor crack-up, but I departed with two hundred and fifty more dollars in my pocket than I had arrived with, besides confidence in my ability to make at least a little more than expenses by barnstorming.
The constant rains had filled the rivers to overflowing, and after leaving Maben I flew over flooded territory nearly all the way to Lake Village, Arkansas. Often the water was up to the second story windows of the farmhouses, and a forced landing at any time would have at least meant nosing over.
I had installed the compass while waiting for the new propeller at Maben, and experienced no further difficulty in holding my course.
After circling Lake Village I landed in a field several miles north of town. The nearest building was a clubhouse and soon the keeper and his family had arrived beside the plane. They invited me to stay with them as long as I wished, but the keeper persistently refused to accept a flight in return for his hospitality. I carried only a handful of passengers that afternoon. The flying territory around that part of the country was fairly good and there were a number of fields available for planes to land in. Consequently an airplane was no longer the drawing attraction that it was farther in the interior.
I staked the plane down much earlier than usual and went over to the clubhouse.
Evening came on with the clearness of a full moon and open sky. The landscape was illuminated with a soft yellow light; an ideal night for flying. I decided to see what the country looked like from the air at night and jokingly asked my host to accompany me. To my surprise he willingly agreed. For some reason he had no fear of a night flight although I had been unable to persuade him to go up with me in the daytime. What his reaction would have been, had he known that I had never flown after dark before, is a matter of speculation.
We untied the plane, removed the canvases from engine and cockpit, and after a few minutes spent in warming up the motor, taxied down the field and took-off for a moonlight flight down the Mississippi and over Lake Village.
Later in the evening after the ship was again securely staked to the ground and we were sitting quietly in the clubhouse, my host stated that he had never spent a more enjoyable quarter of an hour in his life.