“Like fury. Dad, I want to get a job piloting, and save up for a new machine. Somehow, I can’t see how we can get along without a plane.”
“I will not agree to your giving up your studies, old man. The more you learn while you have the opportunity, the better off you will be later. I’m quite sure that mother will feel the same way about Bob. She has been most happy lately because of his interest in books.” The boy’s face drew down, but he tried to accept the verdict manfully. After a moment, he drew a deep breath.
“All right, Dad,” he agreed. His father smiled.
“Since you two came home this afternoon I have been doing some thinking on the subject. While we had Her Highness, we accepted her rather as a matter of course. One of you would go, at a moment’s notice on an errand which ordinarily would take several times the time it took to go by air.”
“Yes,” Jim nodded his head but he wasn’t following very closely. He was thinking that it would probably be months before he and his Flying Buddy went roaring into the sky again. It wasn’t easy to be cheerful.
“This winter has started out as if it is going to be a very hard one,” the man went on quietly.
“Yes, sir. It’s been a long time since we had so much snow,” Jim replied.
“Years. In fact, I don’t recall one like it since I was a boy, but seasons are always doing the unexpected.”
“Sure,” Jim replied as his father paused.
“To a stock man that means loss in straying cattle and horses. Young stock get lost, sometimes it takes cowboys weeks to locate them, and often only a few can be saved. That’s according to the old method. I’m going to miss getting the mail every day too. It’s quite a novelty reading the newspapers when they are not weeks old, especially in winter,” he rambled on.