“You couldn’t afford to do it. Soldiers don’t live as you live. You’d have to work.”
Morey was silent a few moments. Then, reaching the clubhouse, he asked Lieutenant Purcell if they might not sit down at a table in a corner of the wide gallery. In the next ten minutes the boy frankly told the story of his situation. The officer listened in surprise, but sympathetically. Nothing was omitted from the boy’s story.
“I want to dispose of my father’s idea,” Morey concluded, “and I must make arrangements to see that my mother is not driven from her home by the men she thinks are her best friends. But when those things are accomplished I’ve got to go to work for a living. I’m no farmer and was never meant to be one. If, by joining the army, I can enter the signal corps to study aviation, I’d like to do it. I mean to do it.”
His friend took his hand.
“My boy,” exclaimed Lieutenant Purcell, “you certainly have a task ahead of you. I can see that you mean to accomplish it. But, you’ll need help. I’m going to help you all I can. We’ll begin this evening. Major Squiers will be at my home for dinner. We’ll begin with him so far as your father’s plans are concerned. You’ll stay with me tonight, and tomorrow I’ll take you into the city and will talk with some real estate men I know. Meanwhile, we will think no more of your enlistment. You don’t understand what it means.”
“In the signal corps I’d have a chance to be taught how to handle an aeroplane, wouldn’t I?”
“Yes,” conceded the lieutenant, “and I think you would be our star pupil. But the pay—”
“That isn’t it,” interrupted Morey. “I wouldn’t have to stay in the corps. If I’m a success I could buy out and then—”
The officer laughed.