They climbed into their jointly owned and jointly loved roadster, and started it toward the nearest soda fountain, its fenders flapping, its body squeaking and rattling as though in proud defiance of its softly purring motor—Red’s “favorite child.”
“We have come a good way in the past four years, Red,” David bellowed over the din. “Sometimes the work has seemed pretty stiff, but I’d work twice as hard, if possible, for what I have gained.”
“Yeah!” said Red, nodding his bright head. “And sometimes I feel that it just isn’t so. All this. I’ll wake up, and find myself a kid; in bed listenin’ to a worn awning rope rattlin’, and a freight train grumblin’ on the sidin’ across the street. You know, Dave, even when I was a kid there was something in me pushing up, and reaching out, for something I couldn’t reach or see.” His voice grew bitter. “I knew a fella once who smoked and caroused too much, and one day he went down and out. He’d never taken anybody’s advice about taking care of himself. Well, after his heart cracked on him, the poor devil just went around beggin’ the rest of his gang to lay off, and go to bed once in a while. However, one day his poor old engine stopped, and that was the end of him.
“I was like that about school. Everybody tellin’ me I ought to finish high school, and me knowin’ better than the whole of ’em. I tell you, Dave, I’d give anything for the chance, now. Now I see what I’ve thrown away. And I need it; Lord, how I need it! It means that I’ve got to make it up, sweating and groaning. Night schools, and correspondence schools, and study. Because, so help me, Dave, I won’t disgrace my engines.
“And it’s a fact, Davie, I actually go around stoppin’ kids on the street, and preachin’ school to ’em. I say, ‘Smoke if you like, and drink if you want to be a fool; but lay off long enough to get yourself through high school.’ And I’m like the poor fella in Lawton. I’ve a dark suspicion that I’m wastin’ words.”
CHAPTER V
A STOWAWAY
Day whirled after day, filled with pleasant labor. Each morning the Moonbeam was sent up for a flight which sometimes occupied but a few hours, and sometimes stretched into the night. At first there were many little things to do for her; adjustments, changes, the tightening of a screw here, the tuning up of a brace there. Men watched the propeller shafts, and listened to the smooth roar of the engines in their throbbing “eggs.”
Captain Fraine, with his navigators at his side, tried for altitude and depth; nosed up, swept down, turned the ship in majestic circles. She responded perfectly. Her bulk, so much greater than that of any previous dirigible, seemed to have no effect in the action of her great engines, and she answered the wheel with absolute ease.
At mess one night Red strolled over to David’s table with a letter. “From Padre Ryan,” he said.
David took the sheet. It was brief.