“Only two? I have five. That’s quite a houseful to bring up and dress and feed, even in Oklahoma. No wonder we boys worked. But it did us good, at that. I don’t begrudge any of it, except I was sorry that I never could get the hang of my lessons. Some of us is smart, though. My oldest brother was a chaplain in the army through the war. I wanted to enlist last year, and told him so; and he said, ‘Red Ryan, you no-account, if you go enlistin’ in the army for thirty a month and found, I’ll find ye and I’ll not leave one strip of skin on your back, and the Pope and me will excommunicate you beside.’ He’s a murderin’ cuss. I’m not one to butt into your affairs, Mr. Ellison, but don’t you give Wally one worrisome thought. You’ll pass. I like your straight-looking eyes, and so will they.”
David laughed. “Why, you fuss me, Ryan,” he said, “but I am going to get in. I have got to pass; and if I fail this time, I’ll get work with you, and study nights, and try for the next class.”
“That’s the stuff, me lad!” cried the redhead. “Not climbing up on nobody’s shoulders. And Red Ryan’s the lad that’s going to stand by and hurray when you’ve got where you’re goin’.”
But five days later, at the Goodlow Plant in Ayre, David did pass. As anticipated, there was a mob of applicants. Scores of them, who saw in flying an easy way of escaping the grind of ordinary toil. These soon faded out of the picture, when they found out a little of the requirements and routine of the strenuous years ahead, and left a few real enthusiasts, boys who realized that aviation is humanity’s dream come true.
How can we guess what hours the cave man spent, after a kill and its resultant feast, lying on some mossy bank, watching the swift and glorious flight of great birds, and longing to be as they? Then, ages passing, the vision persisted with the winged beasts of the Apocalypse; the flying steeds of Zeus; Pegasus, beautiful and free, winging his glorious way toward the dawn, outracing the Flying Carpet; eager young Icarus, his wings of wax melting in the sun. Ever aspiring, the dreamers passed, laughing at Darius Green as he tumbled, and watching with bated breath as the first hot-air balloons lumbered clumsily into the air! An age-old dream that has never grown less alluring, never less lovely, but depends at last on man’s own knowledge and desperate endeavor.
So, in the big austere room, where the Board of Judges met, the stream of applicants slowly divided, one part to be absorbed again into the arteries of the cities, the other part to face the final questions and scrutiny of men well able to judge men’s capabilities, and read their secret ambitions.
They were questioned in small groups; and David, when dismissed with a number of others with the welcome assurance that they would be enrolled as student apprentices, was unaware of the good impression he had made on the examining board. As he was about to leave the room, someone at his elbow called his name. A tall gray-haired man stood beside him.
“Are you Rick Ellison’s son?”
“Why, yes, sir,” said David.
“I am Colonel Porter. I am very proud to have known your father. He was an ace of aces. His death, coming at that last moment of the war, was doubly a tragedy and a great loss to the air service. You have something to live up to, young man.”