CHAPTER I
DAVE DASHAWAY’S MODEL
“You don’t mean to say that new-fangled air ship of yours will fly, DaveDashaway?”
“No, it’s only a model, as you see.”
“Would the real one go up, though?”
“It might. I hope so. But this is a start, anyway.”
“Yes, and a fine one,” said Ned Towner, enthusiastically. “You’re asmart boy, Dave, and everybody says so.”
“I wish my dear old father was living,” remarked Dave in a tone ofsadness and regret. “There wasn’t much about sky sailing he didn’t know.In these times, when everybody is so interested in airships, he would bebound to make his mark.”
The two, manly-appearing youths stood in the loft of the dilapidated oldbarn of Silas Warner’s place in Brookville. It held a work bench andsome tools, and on one end of the bench was the model at which they werelooking.
It was neat enough and intricate enough, being made by a mere lad, tohave attracted the attention of any inventor or workman. An outsider,however, would have been puzzled, for while its shape suggested a birdkite with an umbrella top, it had so many rods, joints and levers that acasual observer would have wondered what they were all there for.
Dave showed a good deal of pride in his model. It had cost him all hisloose change to buy the material to construct it, and many a busy hourduring the preceding few weeks. He sighed as he turned from it, with thewords:
“All I need now is some silk to cover those wings. That finishes it.”
“Then what will you do?”
“Well,” replied Dave vaguely, “then I hope I can find some practicalairship man who will tell me if it’s any good.”
“Say, it will be a fortune if it works, won’t it, Dave?” exclaimed Ned.
“Oh, hardly that. They are getting up so many new kinds all of the time.It would get me into the swim, though. All I want is to have a chance tomake the acquaintance of some expert airman. I reckon the flying feverwas born in me, Ned.”
“Well, that’s quite natural,” responded Ned. “Your father must have beenfamous in his line, according to all those scrap-book articles youshowed me the other day.”
“Anyhow, I’m getting tired of the dull life I’m leading here,” went onDave seriously. “I’d like to do something besides slave for a man whodrives me to the limit, and amount to something in the world.”
“Good for you!” cried Ned, giving his friend and chum an encouragingslap on the back. “You’ll get there—you’re the kind of a boy that alwaysdoes.”
“Hey, there! are you ever going to start?” rang out a harsh, complainingvoice in the yard outside.
Dave hurriedly threw an old horse blanket over his model and glanced outof the window.
“It’s Mr. Warner,” he said, while Ned made a wry face. “I’ll have to begoing.”
Old Silas Warner stood switching his cane around and growling outthreats, as Dave reached the yard and crossed it to where a thin bonyhorse and an old rickety wagon stood. The vehicle held a dozen bagsfilled with potatoes, every one of which Dave had planted and dug as hishardened hands bore proof.
“You’ll quit wasting my time, Dave Dashaway,” carped the mean-faced oldman, “or there’s going to be trouble.”
“I was just showing Ned about the loft,” explained Dave.
“Yah! Fine lot of more valuable time you’ve been wasting there, too,”snorted old Warner. “I’ll put a stop to some of it, you mark me. Nowthen, you get those bags of taters down to Swain’s warehouse and backagain afore six o’clock, or you’ll get no supper. There’s a lot more ofthose taters to dig, but an hour or two this evening will finish them.”
Dave’s face was set and indignant, but he passed no more words with theunreasonable old man who called himself, and was in fact, legally hisguardian.
“I’ll keep you company as far as our house,” said Ned, as Dave got upinto the wagon seat, and he climbed up beside his friend, heedless ofthe grumblings of the old man about over loading.
“He’s a pretty mean old fellow,” flared out Ned, as they drove out ofthe yard and into the country road leading towards the town. “It’s thetalk of the neighborhood, the way that old miser makes you work.”
“I wouldn’t mind the work if he would only treat me half human,” repliedDave in a subdued tone.
“It isn’t in him to do it,” scolded Ned. “If I was in your place I’djust cut out, and let him find some other fellow to do his slaving. Why,my folks say your father left enough to take care of you in a good way.And send you to school, and all that. I’d find out my legal rights, if Iwere you, and I’d fetch that old fellow to time.”
“It would be no use, Ned,” declared Dave. “I tried it once. I went overto Brocton, where the lawyer of my father’s estate lives, and had a talkwith him.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that my father had left no property except the old hotel atBrocton. It is old, for a fact, and needs lots of repairs, and thelawyer says that this takes most of the income and makes the rent amountto almost nothing. I found out, though, that the lawyer is a relative ofMr. Warner, and that Warner gives most of the repairing jobs to otherrelatives of his. I went and saw the court judge, and he told me thatMr. Warner’s report, made each year, showed up clear and straight.”
“Judge another relative of old Warner?” insinuated Ned.
“I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Neither would I. It’s strange to me, though, Dave, that your fatherever made such a notorious old skinflint your guardian.”
“He didn’t,” asserted Dave.
“Who did, then?”
“The court, and I had no voice in it. Mr. Warner let me stay at theschool I was attending when my father died, for about a year. Then heclaimed the estate couldn’t bear the expense, and he has had me homeever since.”
“Why don’t they sell the old hotel, and give you a chance to live likeother boys who are heirs?” demanded Ned, in his ardent, innocent way.
“Mr. Warner says the property can’t be sold till I am of age,” explainedDave. “That time I went away and got work in the city, I even sent Mr.Warner half of what I earned, but he sent the sheriff after me, made mecome home, and said if I tried it again he would send me to areformatory till I was twenty-one.”
“Say that’s terrible!” cried Ned, rousing up in his honest wrath. “Oh,say—look there!”
“Whoa!” shouted Dave, but there was no need of the mandate. In suddenexcitement and surprise he had pulled old Dobbin up dead short. Then hefollowed the direction indicated by the pointing finger of hiscompanion. Both sat staring fixedly over their heads. The air was filledwith a faint whizzing sound, and the object that made it came withintheir view for just a minute. Then it passed swiftly beyond their rangeof vision where the high trees lining the road intervened.
“An airship—a real airship!” cried Ned with bated breath.
“Yes. It must have come from the big aero meet at Fairfield,” said Dave.
“Is there one there?”
“Yes. I read about it in the paper.”
Both Dave and Ned had seen an airship before. Besides two that hadpassed over the town the day previous, they had once witnessed an ascentat a circus at Brocton.
Every nerve in Dave’s body was thrilling with animation. He had droppedthe lines, and Dobbin had wandered to the side of the road seeking forgrass, nearly tipping over the load. Dave righted the wagon.
“Say,” spoke Ned, “stop at the house, will you?”
“What for?” inquired Dave.
“I want to ask the folks to let me go to town with you.”
“I’ll be glad to have you, Ned.”
“All right. You know the common is right on top of the hill, and one ofthe fellows said they could watch the airships yesterday for miles andmiles.”
A turn in the highway brought the boys to the Towner place. Ned ran intothe house and soo
n returned all satisfaction and excitement, his pocketsfilled with cookies and apples.
“Mother says I can go with you, Dave,” he said. “I can help you unload,and we can drive over to the town common and join the crowds.”
Dave’s head was full of airships, and the incident of the hour made himforget his troubles. He and Ned chatted and lunched animatedly all theway to Brookville.
The business part of the little town was located on a hill, as Ned hadsaid, but they did not go there at once. The warehouse where Dave was todeliver his load of potatoes was near the railroad, and there theydrove.
They found no one in charge of the office, and had to wait till theproprietor arrived, which was nearly an hour later. It was quite sixo’clock before they got the potatoes unloaded. Then Dave drove up thehill.
Quite a crowd was gathered in the public square. The boys hitched oldDobbin near the post office and joined the throng.
Everybody was talking airships. It seemed that half-a-dozen had passedin full sight. Three of them had sailed directly over the town. One ofthem had dropped about a hundred printed dodgers, telling about the aeromeet at Fairfield, and Dave was glad to get hold of one of these.
The excited throng was in great expectation of the appearance of anotherairship. It was getting on towards meal time, and quite a number hadleft the common, when a chorus of sound echoed out:
“A—ah!”
“There’s another one.”
“Hurrah—look! look!”
“A—a—ah!”
The last utterance expressed disappointment. A swift sailing aeroplanehad come into view, circled, and was lost to sight over the crest of adistant hill.
There was a great attraction for the chums in the crowd and bustle aboutthe common. It was quite dusk before they started away. Dave realizedthat he would have to account for every minute of his time, and expecteda scene when he got back home. He had seen so much, however, and heardso much talk on his favorite theme, airships, that a glimmering ideacame to him that he was soon to know more of them.
Dave kept up his spirits bravely, and he and Ned chatted over dreams andplans to find a chance to get over to Fairfield some day soon, and viewall the glories of the great aero meet close at hand.
It had become quite dark by the time they neared the turn in the roadleading to the Towner place. Old Dobbin was plodding along the dustyroad at his usual leisurely gait, when suddenly Ned stretched out hishand and caught the arm of his comrade in a great state of excitement.
“Whoa!” he cried. “Do you hear that, Dave?”
“Sure enough,” responded Dave, checking the horse, and both of them satrigid on the wagon seat and stared up into the sky.
“It’s another one of them,” said Ned. “Listen.”
There was a quick snappy sound, like the sharp popping of an exhaust.
There was a flashing streamer of light, outlining a dark object thatboth the entranced lads knew to be a belated airship making its wayhomeward.
At that moment something swished through the air. Dave did not see it,he rather felt it. Before his senses had fairly taken it in, however,old Dobbin made a jump.
Ten feet ahead the slow going animal plunged, as Dave had never seen himdo before. Then he made an affrighted veer. Over into the ditch went thecrazy old vehicle with a crash. Dave, clinging to the seat, was simplyflung sideways, but his companion was lifted bodily. Head over heels outof the wagon went Ned, landing sprawling in the mud.
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