“Andy.”
A few minutes later the boy had the tarpaulin off the engine. There was a close examination of the motor, oil cups were newly filled, and a can of lubricator was tied to one of the stanchions. An empty gasoline tank was made fast in the passenger seat, and in a light basket attached to a second stanchion, the busy lad deposited his sweater, water bottle, luncheon, a hatchet, a box of matches, a small hank of seine cord, some screws, wire, and a screw-driver. Then he lashed to the middle-section lower struts a bundle of spruce strips suitable for repairing the frame of the car.
“Yo’ gwine fly away?” asked Ba, when Andy’s preparations finally suggested this to the dull-witted black.
“See this, Ba?” answered the boy, touching the empty gasoline tin. “I’m goin’ up to my uncle’s place to fill this tank.”
This was true, but only in part. The moment Andy had found his mother and his hosts absent, he had instantly conceived the idea of making a flight to the shop on the hill to secure more gasoline. When his face whitened out on the gallery, this idea had given birth to another one—he would do this, and if all seemed well, he would steel himself to take the great chance of his life. If ever, this was the time to tempt fate with his big idea. It might even mean death, but Andy put that possibility aside. He saw only the opportunity to win fame and reputation; to become a Roy Osborne or a Walter Brookins.
With the help of the colored man, Andy got the aeroplane out on the sand beach and persuaded his assistant to become his human anchor. At his uncle’s house he would have a hill on which to pick up his momentum. The boy looked at his watch—it was three minutes after one o’clock.
There was another delay while the vigilant would-be aviator made further preparations. With a cord, he tied his watch, facing him, on the nearest stanchion, and with four long screws made a little pocket on the lower beam of the car beneath his legs, in which he deposited his compass.
“Good-bye, Ba,” he exclaimed, these details completed, as he held out his hand.