I dreamed the awfulest dreams, and thought I saw Pa, in another balloon, with a rawhide in his hand, chasing me, and the great bear in the heavens seemed to be getting up on his hind legs, with his mouth open, ready to hug me to his hairy chest.
It was a terrible night, and at daylight the boss man woke me up and I looked over the side of the basket and we were going across a piece of water where there were battle ships lined up like they were at San Diego, when Cevera’s fleet was smashed, and the men said now was the time to demonstrate whether balloons would be serviceable in case of war, and told me to take a bundle of malted milk advertisements, and imagine it was a dynamite bomb, and see if I could land it on the deck of a big white battleship. I took a good aim and let the bundle go and it struck on deck just in front of a cross looking man in a white uniform, and scattered all over the deck and the sailors and marines came up on deck in a wild stampede, and threw the malted milk advertisements overboard, and as we sailed on there was an explosion of red hot language from the cross looking man in the white uniform, and the boss balloon man said, “That is a good shot, Bub, for you landed that bundle of alleged dynamite square on the deck of Admiral Bob Evans’ flagship. Didn’t you hear him swear?” and then we went on, and the man in the white uniform was shaking his fists and his mouth was working overtime, but we couldn’t hear the brand of profanity he was emitting, but we knew he was going some, for before we got out of hearing the bugles were sounding on more than a dozen battleships, the men came up from below and took positions in the rigging and everywhere, and all was live with action, and the boss balloon man said the fleet was preparing for its trip around the horn, to San Francisco, and then I told the balloon man that he couldn’t land me a minute too quick, because I was going to join that fleet and go with Bob Evans, if I never did another thing in my life.
Hit the Chief of Police with a Bottle.
The inspiration came to me up there in the rarefied air, and I was as sure I was going around the Horn as though I was already on one of the ships.
We sailed along part of the day and the gas began to give out, and I had to throw over ballast, and open cans of food, and bottles of stuff to drink, and I made some good shots with the sand bags and the bottles. Once I hit right in front of a brakeman on a freight train with a bottle of soda water, and again I hit an oyster schooner with a sand bag and must have chuckled at least a barrel of oysters. The gas kept escaping, and presently we came down in a field in Delaware, after I had hit a chief of police in Wilmington with a bottle of beer, which is a crime in a prohibition country, and after we landed the police arrested the two balloon men, and tied up the balloon. They paid me thirty dollars for my services, and I took a train for Fortress Monroe to join the fleet, and left the two balloon men on the way to a whipping post.
CHAPTER VI.
The Balloon Lands in Delaware—The Boy Visits the Battleships—They Scour the Boy With a Piece of Brick and Some Laundry Soap—The Boy Investigates the Mechanism of the Battleships—The Boy Goes With the Ships as a Mascot.
When our balloon that sailed from St. Louis came down in Delaware, and I had bid good bye to the two men whom I sailed with, and they had paid me good money for my services and keeping them awake, I thought of that fleet we had passed over at Fortress Monroe, the beautiful white battle ships, and I was afraid I could not get there before it sailed, and secure my berth, as I had made up my mind to go with it around the horn, and help fight Japan or mosquitoes, or any old thing that came in the way, so I took the first train to Fortress Monroe, and found that the whole population of several near by states were going too, as the President was going to review the fleet before it sailed.