The mention of the national councilman leads us, by a short cut, to an important event, but in order to get to it we must take a running jump over another one.
It was a great day when a score or more of youthful inventors and a very fair audience of adults besides gathered on the golf links of the Oakwood Field Club to see the trials for the aviation cup which the Oakwood News had offered. The golfers stopped their play in honor of the occasion, and the contestants on the tennis courts laid down their racquets and wandered over to the field. Even so grouchy a character as old Cobb, the club steward, had to leave his accustomed duties and loiter out to the field as if he really didn’t care what was going on, but just happened to be ambling in that direction. His half-interested manner deceived no one, and his arrival was hailed by a score of voices:
“Don’t let yourself get excited, Mr. Cobb.”
“This is what Mr. Cobb has been counting on for a month.”
“Give Mr. Cobb a front seat.”
“Goin’ to have an air race with those things?” Cobb finally condescended to grumble, though he knew perfectly what was afoot.
“No, we’re going to have a swimming match,” said a High School boy.
“Humph,” said Cobb.
Mr. Carson, the manual-training teacher in the High School, was on hand with half a dozen boys whose aeroplanes had been entered, and a good many more, whose aeroplanes were not entered, but whose lungs were in good condition to cheer. Will Garret, son of a local architect, was there with a perfect model of the Van Anden machine. Howard Brent, Matthew Reed, Ben McConnell, and Tom Langford had each entered a model. The local Y. M. C. A. had its aviators too, who had brought their several machines.