"We must tell them how to fill this balloon with hot air," I suggested.
"That's so," said Stevens. "Well, it's very simple. They must dig a trench, in the yard or somewhere, five feet long and one foot deep, with a hole dug at one end for a fire. Then they must cover over the trench with pieces of tin and spread dirt over that, and boards over all; this is for a good draught. Then they must make a fire in the hole at one end of the trench out of barrel-staves or anything that will give a hot flame, and toward the last they might throw on a little kerosene. That's exactly the way we make our fires for big ascensions.
"At the other end of the trench they must fix a length of stove-pipe sticking straight up out of the draught-hole into the mouth of the balloon and four or five boys must stand around on fences and boxes to hold the side of the balloon away from the fire which will shoot high above the chimney. Many a big hot-air balloon has been burned up that way on a windy day, and in our ascensions we have dozens of ropes sewn all over the balloon sides; we call them wind guys, so that men can pull the cloth away from the fire while it's filling. Say, talking about boys getting spanked, I must tell you a story."
The story was from his own boyish experience—how he made his first trip to the clouds at the age of twelve, and set a whole city talking. This was the city of Cleveland, Ohio, where on a certain Sunday afternoon there was to be a balloon ascension at the great pleasure park. Young Stevens, of course, was present, wild with excitement, for balloons had been in his thoughts and dreams ever since he could remember. He pressed forward through the crowd and, with bulging eyes, watched the aëronaut arrange his barrels and pipes for the hydrogen-making, danced with delight as the great bag swelled and struggled, and finally was bitter in disappointment when the police appeared suddenly with orders to prevent the ascension, because the day was Sunday.
Then, while the balloonist was protesting and pleading, Stevens formed his plan. He would go up himself instead of the man. There was the balloon all ready, held by a single rope. There was the basket swinging impatiently, empty, and he more impatient than the basket. Quickly he turned to a boy who was with him. "Say, I'll tell you what. You get a knife and cut that rope, and I'll go up." But the boy demurred. Anyhow, he had no knife. So away dashed Stevens, and returned in a jiffy with a knife, taken from his father's shop. It was a sharp one.
"There," panted the boy. "Now, cut her quick, soon as I climb in."
The people about were so occupied with the parley growing warm between balloonist and police that few paid attention when a little shaver in knickerbockers crept close to the basket and then slipped over its side. But the next minute nine thousand people paid considerable attention and shouted their surprise and delight as the eager balloon suddenly shot skyward, a small white face peering down and trying not to look frightened. The knife had done its work, and the subject of dispute, abruptly removed, was presently soaring half a mile above the city, drifting with the wind.
Meantime little Leo, curled up at the bottom of the car, was saying over to himself a story he had read of two little babies who went up once in a balloon and sailed far, far away and never came back, but they might have come back if only they had been strong enough to pull a string that hung over them. Hello! So there was a string to pull! Well, any boy could pull a string. He wasn't a baby. But where was the old string? He must look about and find it. And sure enough he did find it, only it turned out to be a stout rope, and he tugged at it valiantly until the valve opened and the balloon began to descend, just as the story-book said it would. And so occupied was Leo with keeping this valve open that he never once looked at the wide view spread beneath him, nor knew where he was until he came bumping into a treetop, and found himself upset among the branches, which first tore his clothes to tatters and then dropped him into a muddy canal, whence he emerged a sadly battered and bedraggled aëronaut, yet happy. And even when his mother chastised him that evening with a ram-rod (his father being a gun-maker) he remained serene, for had he not gone up in a balloon, and was not the whole of Cleveland admiring him, and would he not go up again (he knew he would, despite all promises made under ram-rod stress) as soon as the chance presented?
And within a year the chance did present, a bait of fifty dollars per ascension being offered the lad, and the outcome was he ran away from home, and saw no more of his family until years had passed and he had grown accustomed to dangers of the air and diamonds of value in his apparel.
"Isn't it queer," said Stevens, talking it over, "how a fellow will stay away from his people when everything is all right, and get back to them through trouble? After I started in to be a balloonist I never saw my mother for seven years. Then I came once more to Cleveland to give an exhibition at the very park where I first went up—they call it Forest City Park. I was to perform on a slack wire nine hundred feet long, stretched between two towers one hundred and fifty feet high. My wire wasn't long enough to reach all the way, so they spliced on a length of three hundred feet more, and before I began my feats I walked back and forth over the wire to test it. I always do that. Then I walked to the middle of the wire and pretended to slip and fall—that's a regular trick to startle the crowd. You let yourself drop suddenly, catch on the wire, and spring up again. Well, this time when I let myself drop I didn't spring up again, and I didn't know anything more for nineteen days, when I came to myself in the Huron Street Hospital. Somehow that splice in the wire had broken, and I went straight to the ground, breaking one arm, both wrists, and cracking my spinal column in four places. It's a wonder I lived at all, they say, and during that hard time my mother came to me, as mothers do. Oh, she doesn't love the balloon business, I can tell you. But I love it. I've made over a thousand ascensions, and never been badly hurt but once."