“I will,” replied Rosemary. “But now it is almost time for my plane. I’ll hope to be seeing you. I—”
“One moment please!” Bending over, the blonde girl picked up three small sticks. “Wherever I land,” she went on, “I shall put two sticks so, and one stick so, close to the door of the airport depot. If you see it you will know that I have been there and may be there still.”
“I get you,” Rosemary laughed, “but what do you call that?”
“It is our gypsy patteran,” the girl explained soberly. “It is a custom older than any of your country’s laws.”
“Good! I’ll be seeing you!” Rosemary hurried away. She was not soon to forget this blonde-haired Petite Jeanne, whom so many of you already know well. Nor was she to forget that even the gypsies had taken to the air.
After casting a practiced eye over the interior of her ship, adjusting a chair and looking to her supply of newspapers and magazines, Rosemary stepped down from the plane into the sunlight of a glorious day.
A porter was wheeling the baggage cart into position, the chain was being dropped. In an even tone through a microphone the announcer was saying, “Plane No. 56 leaving for Omaha, Cheyenne, Salt Lake City and points west, now loading.”
“We’ll be in the air soon,” Rosemary whispered to herself. The faintest possible thrill ran up her spine. For this very-much-alive girl, even after two years of flying, could never quite still the joy and thrill of flight.
Then the sound of an excited voice reached her ears.
“I must take the bag with me in the cabin,” a woman’s voice was saying.