"All right," replied Bill, tuning up the engine. He skimmed along the field while a wild, shrill shout went up from the observers. They commenced to trail excitedly after, and stood hopping up and down and tossing their hats in excitement as the graceful car left the ground and sailed smoothly into the air. Bill found that flying, rising and lighting the second time was much easier than the first. He had lost what little awkwardness he had had in the beginning, and the machine moved with a smooth freedom. He wished that he had eyes in the back of his head so he could see Webby. But if he had seen Webby, he would not have laughed. Webby, watching the old familiar earth drop away, felt exalted; he felt as though he had suddenly become a creature of some finer, rarer place. When Webby told about it next day, he said, "I felt like I was a chicken just hatched fum out an aig," but Webby said that because words were hard things and difficult to handle. He really thought of angels and made up his mind then and there to be a great man.
Bill made the landing on the other side of the field as Ernest had suggested, and he and Webby sat in the car and laughed as the audience streaked across to them. Webby shook just a little when he stood once more on solid earth, and he was more silent than ever. But when Ernest came up he said in a low tone: "Say, ain't there books about this here?"
"What you want is a magazine," said Ernest, "and I will send you mine as soon as I have read it."
"Every time it comes?" asked Webby. "Say, you are good!"
"That's all right," said Ernest, "only take one piece of advice. The flying will keep. Just you keep on going to school. You will need all sorts of learning, especially mathematics."
"Ho; I kin eat figgers!" boasted the boy.
"That's good," said Ernest, shaking his hand. "Now, good-bye. I have left my address with your mother. If you will write me next week, I will send you that magazine."
They said good-bye to the kindly farmers, having filled up with gas, settled Frank in his seat, and arose just as a great white moon showed itself over the trees.
Once more they were off. With good luck they would reach their destination early the following day. Bill was tired, deadly tired; but he thought of the pain Ernest must be suffering from his wounded arm and settled himself to his task with dogged determination. He had never been up after dark, and the sensation was a new one. He was glad to have Ernest beside him. As they rose, a couple of enormous birds sailed out of their way. Eagles or buzzards; he did not know enough of the country to be able to tell which. He was conscious of a feeling of dizziness and fatigue. Everything he had ever heard about side slipping, tail spins, nose dives—in fact, all the accidents that might befall an aviator passed through his mind in gruesome procession. He looked down at the compass, now beginning to show its luminous dial, and saw that they were really going in the right direction. As he looked down, he commenced to feel a stranger to the many levers and knobs before him. He knew them all, knew them like a book; at least he had. Now they were slipping, slipping away from him. He could not remember what they were for.
He felt rather than saw Ernest motion him upward. As he climbed through the cutting air, he plunged into a dense bank of cloud. The thought flashed over him that if the plane turned over there in unlighted space, he would not be able to right it again. As they passed once more into the clear air, it was as though they were plunged into a bath of liquid silver. The moon, immense and coldly luminous, had risen and hung in the sky huge and pale. If the morning sun had turned every wire and blade to gold, the moon silvered the whole plane. Space about them stretched off dim and threatening. Bill shivered. His clutch on the wheel loosened and the engine coughed twice.