Jimmy was a favorite among the other pilots at Pacific Field. They liked his sunny disposition and his hearty laugh. But business was business, and he had invited competition by trying to break into their established commercial traffic. They dubbed his plane the “Calico Peacock,” and kidded him unmercifully about his inability to get any passengers into it. Jimmy did not mind their fun, but the situation began to get desperate. He would have moved to some roadside cow pasture and tried to pick up passengers from the highway, but he owed the field a forty-dollar hangar bill and had nothing with which to pay it. He was considering putting the Calico Peacock on the auction block and knocking it off to the highest bidder when he had his first lucky break.
It happened early one Saturday morning. Jimmy’s Calico Peacock was one of the first aeroplanes on the starting line. After he had made sure that enough gasoline remained in the tanks to accommodate a passenger if some miracle should happen and one should appear, Jimmy wandered over to the field headquarters and stretched his lean, lanky frame against the side of the Administration Building to soak up some of the warmth of the morning sun.
Sunshine was not a very satisfactory substitute for a hearty breakfast, but Jimmy couldn’t afford the breakfast, and the sun was free. He had not been there long when the field superintendent came out of his office and looked questioningly down the field toward the spot where the commercial passenger planes were being trundled out onto the field. It was so early that none of the flying salesmen had appeared.
“Got a job for somebody, Cap?” Jimmy asked eagerly.
The field superintendent looked at Jimmy for a moment and then grinned.
“Made to order for you,” he chuckled. “But don’t blame me; you asked for it.”
A stoop-shouldered old man with thin, straggly white hair came timidly from the Administration Building and stood at the field superintendent’s side.
“Am I too early?” he asked timidly, his mild blue eyes apologizing silently for his temerity in addressing such a magnificent personage as the field superintendent, resplendent in correct cut flying togs and polished riding boots.
“Here’s one of the best pilots on the field.” The field superintendent turned to Jimmy. “His plane’s one of the fastest ships on the ground.”