“He raced his motor a little bit. She must have sounded pretty sweet to him, because he gave her the gun, and off he went. That start must have been one of the hardest parts of the whole trip. The Spirit of St. Louis bumped along that muddy runway, and the people watching thought she’d go over on her nose any moment. She was over-loaded. Her motor was pulling for all she was worth, but it didn’t seem as though they’d ever make it. She went off the ground a few feet, and bounced down again. But then the crowd held its breath. She was leaving the ground. They were up about fifteen feet. And there were telegraph wires in their path. If they hit those, the trip to Paris was over right then. But they didn’t. The landing gear cleared by a few inches. That crowd simply roared. But Slim didn’t hear them. He was on his way to Paris.”
Bob paused for breath. He had been talking very fast, carried away by his story. The others did not speak, but sat waiting for him to go on. They had all heard the story before, but as the Captain had said, it bore repeating, and they could hear it again and again. There was something agelessly appealing in the tale of that young man’s feat.
Bob was talking again. “I’m not much at poetry,” he said.
“You bet you’re not,” said Captain Bill. “I’ve read some of yours.”
Bob glared at him. “I never wrote a poem!” he said defensively.
The Captain looked contrite. “It must have been Hal,” he said. “I beg your pardon. Go on with your story. Where does the poetry come in?”
“I was going to tell you, before you interrupted, so rudely, that there’s somebody who’s written a poem—a lot of poetry, to music—a cantata I think they call it. It’s about Lindy’s flight, and it tells the story of the flight across the Atlantic. I guess it’s pretty thrilling. Maybe that’s the only way the story can be told—in poetry and music, because it always sounds pretty flat when you just say Lindy flew across the Atlantic in a monoplane. It needs music, with a lot of trumpets—”
“Go on, go on, my lad. More words, less music.” Pat seemed to be getting impatient. The sun was pretty high over their heads now, and bees were buzzing drowsily in the tall grass all around them. Hal had stretched out on his stomach, facing the little group, which was seated now in a semi-circle. “I’ll be falling asleep if you don’t get on.”
Bob laughed embarrassedly. “All right, you just stop me if I get to rambling. You keep me straight, Irish.”
Captain Bill leaned back on a hummock of earth, his arms folded behind his head. “I’m so comfortable, I could listen to anything, even to Bob telling a story. Go on, Bob.”