“Yes! I wouldn’t swap them for a General’s stars.” His white teeth flashed boyishly. “They represent my commission as an R. M. A.--Reserve Military Aviator. When I was a humble cadet my breast-wings were stiffer,” laughingly.
“How--how do you mean?” came from a dozen enthralled girls.
“Why! they were of metal--silver--three inches across; not limply wrought upon black velvet; that was when I was in training on the flying-fields, where I went, from Aviation Ground School, where--where the dinners--were--so good,” naïvely.
“Mercy! I’m just dying to fly,” came breathlessly from one fluttering feminine throat--Little Owl’s. “According to my symbolic name, I’m a bird, anyway!”
“Well, don’t die--flying. Probably after the war is over--no doubt before very many years have flown ahead of you--your Camp Fire Group will have a Bird Corps of its own,” encouragingly.
“And win honor-beads for parading in the air--sky-blue and cloud-barred, I suppose!” burst ecstatically from one or two of the other girls whose symbolic names were also derived from the feathered tribe, with which, in a dazzling skyscape vision, they saw themselves competing.
“Now, perhaps, you’d like to know a little more about the wings that will support you.” The R. M. A., otherwise Tailspin Ned--a nickname he had acquired upon the training-fields--flashed his torch again over the aëroplane--the mammoth gaping red fish. “Well, the wing-ribs--spars--are of light wood, covered with fine linen, doped with a preparation to make it durable; so is the fuselage, body of the machine. The props connecting the two planes are the struts whose flying wires sang their jolly little earth-song--whistled, you know--as we came down. When we land for the night on a lonely spot, we have to guard the aëroplane, so we bunk out on our wings; if it rains, we bunk under them.”
“Tuck your little head under your wing, like a real bird-man,” laughed Sybil.
“While the Witch watches over your slumbers,” supplemented Sul-sul-sul-i--Victoria Glenn, the Victory girl. “Mercy! What a bloodthirsty red-eyed old witch!... Girls, do look! She’s stenciled on cloth, broomstick and all, just as we have our Camp Fire emblem stenciled upon our dresses.” Victoria, a Fire Maker, glanced down at the dusky crossed logs and tongue of flame upon the skirt of her own ceremonial gown.
“She’s the emblem of our flying squadron; we chose her as soldiers choose a mascot,” answered the R. M. A. “The cloth on which she rides rampant is glued to the side of the fuselage, just beneath my cock-pit. This is the stabilizer which preserves our equilibrium in the air; all this rear part is the tail mechanism.”