“The contest, Roy! The contest!” she was exclaiming. “We must write this very day for particulars. If the Golden Butterfly can win that prize––”
“By Jove, sis, it’s five thousand dollars, isn’t it?” burst out Roy, almost equally excited. “I’d forgotten all about it up till now. What an idiot I am. If only––”
He stopped short suddenly, struck by a depressing thought. Probably there were plenty of machines, most of them far better than the Golden Butterfly, entered in the contest which they had read about. His enthusiasm died away—as was the way with Roy—almost as quickly as it had flamed up.
But Peggy would not hear of hesitation. She made Roy sit down that very night and write to the committee in charge of the Higgins’ prize. Under her brave, independent urgings things began to look brighter. It was a fairly cheerful party that sat down to a simple supper that evening.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Peggy, in the course of the meal, “if only I knew some one who needed a bright young woman to run an aeroplane, how I’d jump at the job.”
“You ought to get a high salary at it anyhow,” rather dolefully joked Roy.
“And make a high jump, too,” laughed Peggy; “but seriously, auntie, I can run the Butterfly almost as well as Roy. Mr. Homer said so before he left. He said: ‘Well, Miss Prescott, I’ve taught you all I know about an aeroplane. The rest lies with you, of course.’” Peggy went on modestly: “I could run an auto before. I learned on the one that Jess had at school, so it really wasn’t hard to get to understand the engine. Don’t you think I’m almost as good a—” Peggy paused for a word—“a—sky pilot!” she cried triumphantly, “as good a sky pilot as you are, Roy?”
“Almost,” modestly admitted Roy, his mouth full of strawberry shortcake, “but never mind about that now, sis. There are more important things to be thought of than that. I’m going into town to-morrow for two things. One is to see Mr. Harding myself. It takes a man to tackle these things––”
“Oh, dear!” sniffed Peggy.
“The other bit of business I have to attend to,” went on Roy, “is to get a position. It’s time I was a breadwinner.” Roy thought that sounded rather well and went on—“a breadwinner.”