"Isn't a parachute pretty long when it hangs down?" I asked.
"Certainly. It's thirty-five feet from where she hitches on t' the balloon to where you sit on the bar. That's length o' ropes and length o' cloth both."
"Then, how can you cut her loose from 'way down on the bar?"
"I'll tell you," put in Mrs. Stevens. "You just pull a tape that hangs down inside the parachute from a cutaway-block at the parachute head. The holding-rope passes through that block, and there's a knife-blade in the block over the rope. The tape pulls the knife-blade down, and away you go. It's one of my husband's inventions." She was plainly very proud of her husband.
Presently entered Leo Stevens himself, a surprisingly young man for such a veteran, scarcely over thirty, the explanation being that he began ballooning as a mere child. Before he was ten he had gained some mastery of slack-wire feats, and at thirteen he was known over the country as Prince Leo, a marvel of the air, in black and gold, making the fortune of some gentlemen who exploited him.
His arrival recalled the object of my visit, which was to get from him some practical ideas for balloon and parachute experiments on a small scale, the sort of thing boys might undertake in their own backyards; and, on learning this, Stevens caught my idea at once. He knew just what I wanted, and was glad to help me. He liked boys himself, and we settled down forthwith to a consideration of segments and materials and dimensions and, after a little planning and measuring, he had the problem solved.
"A hot-air balloon is the easiest and cheapest for boys to make," said Stevens, "and it goes up with more of a rush than a gas balloon. So we'll tell them how to make a hot-air balloon. I remember a boys' balloon picnic that I got up one summer at Chautauqua Lake while I was making ascensions there. What fun those boys did have! We sent up a kitten in a strawberry basket, strapped fast, you know, so she couldn't fall out, and the basket hung from the parachute by a time fuse that burned loose about a thousand feet up, and down came the whole thing, parachute, kitten, and all, sailing beautifully and landing as easily as you please. It never hurt the kitten at all. But the balloon drifted nearly a mile away across a swamp and stuck in a big tree. What a time those boys had chasing it and climbing after it and slopping home with it after dark through the swamp, with lanterns and torches! I suppose they got well spanked, a good many of them, but boys don't mind."
"How big was this balloon?"
"About eleven feet high, inflated; that's a good size. I mean eleven feet high inflated, but the segments must be cut out eighteen feet long to allow for the curve. See," and he made a sketch of a single segment. "There must be fourteen segments like this, each one eighteen feet long and two feet wide at the widest part, then tapering to a point at one end, the top, and to a width of five inches at the other end, the mouth, which must be left open. These segments are made from ordinary sheets of tissue paper, first pasted into long sheets (use ordinary starch paste) and then cut out after the pattern. Then the fourteen segments must be pasted together lengthwise along the edges, and they will form a balloon with enough lifting power to take up a parachute and small passenger, say a kitten or a puppy."