when the coming night fairly forced the enthusiastic boy from the shop, which he closed and made secure by driving the lock staple into the door jam again, andy was a curious sight. with his coat on his arm, his shirt wet with perspiration, his hat and trousers smeared with dust, oil, and rust, his hands black and his knuckles bleeding from handling iron, wood, and tools—all of which he inspected, felt of, and stowed away again—he looked more like a helper in a machine shop than a newly-arrived florida tourist.
by the time he reached the railroad on his way home, it was dark. the sight of an approaching lantern did not reassure him. when he saw that it was captain anderson, he broke out at once:
“it’s all settled! i don’t care about that gas accumulator or compressor, or whatever it is—we’ve got her tail!”
[76]
“her tail?” queried the captain. “whose tail?”
“why, the airship,” sang out andy. “we’re goin’ to have the best one ever made. we’ve got a tail for it—a guider. did you read the book?”
“never mind about that now,” admonished the captain. “you’d better be thinkin’ of some good reason why you stayed so long. your mother’s a good deal put out.”
“i’ve been a lookin’ over things,” explained the boy. “my uncle must ’a been a wonder. that little model is the greatest invention of the age—”
“you’d better invent a model of an excuse for your mother.”
“what’s the matter?”
“your mother had an idea that an alligator might have eaten you.”
but andy’s look of disgust disappeared in the other things he had on his mind.
“how about it?” he persisted. “are we goin’ to make the flyin’ machine?”
“that’s quite a job,” answered the captain. “but i’ve been reading your book.”
“couldn’t you do it?” exclaimed andy.
“i reckon i could,” conceded captain anderson.
[77]
“we won’t need the rudder that you see in the book,” broke in the boy. “the thing i’m tellin’ you about is goin’ to take its place. i’ll make it up there in my uncle’s shop.”
“if—?” said the captain, with a smile.
“if what?” asked andy, alarmed.
“if your mother’ll let you,” was his friend’s reply.
andy was silent a moment as the two hurried forward toward the house. finally, with decision, he exclaimed:
“well, she will. it’ll be a shame if she don’t.”
captain anderson seemed amused, but not wholly convinced.
“i kind o’ glanced through the book, and i was sort o’ plannin’ if i had the stuff—”
“and haven’t you?”
“pretty much all, i guess.”
“then you are goin’ to do it; you will, won’t you?” pleaded the lad.
“are you certain that engine’s all right?”
“sure,” shouted the boy; “why not? and i’ll make the tail rudder! hurrah!”
the captain laid his hand on andy’s arm.
“don’t get excited. i don’t want to do anything your mother might not like—”
[78]
“you leave that to me,” said the boy. “she’ll agree—in the end.”
but it looked as if andy might have a pretty hard time placating his parent, judging by his reception. mrs. leighton was genuinely alarmed, but supper being ready and it being apparent to the eye that her son was uninjured by alligators, her pent-up lecture gradually lessened into a mild criticism. when the boy, with clean face and plastered hair, joined the others at the table, mrs. leighton postponed further admonition.
mrs. anderson’s indian river oysters baked in the shell were sufficient to put everyone in a good humor. to andy’s great relief, his mother announced that she had devoted the afternoon to writing letters: one to mr. leighton; another to the bank in melbourne, in relation to her late brother’s affairs; and a third to a man in the same town who, her host had informed her, was a possible purchaser.
“until i hear from your father,” she informed her son, “we will do nothing.”
andy nodded approvingly, but there was much secret joy that he did not have to return at once; that he was free, for a time, to get his great project under way. the next thing was[79] to acquaint his mother with the aeroplane idea and to work himself into the scheme without arousing his mother’s objection. as he ate, his brain was busy with a dozen ideas. they were rejected one after another, because each called for deception.
finally, with no definite idea in mind, he repeated the story of the rudder model. with a wealth of detail and a dramatic climax, the boy worked his narrative up to the unmailed letter.
“and what makes me sorry,” he concluded, “is that there it is, the very thing all flyin’ machines need most. and nothin’ to come of it.”
“why, that ought to be a patent,” suggested mrs. anderson.
“a patent?” repeated mrs. leighton. “maybe there’s a fortune in it.”
“yes,” remarked andy. “but maybe it won’t do what uncle figured it will. a thing that won’t work ain’t much good if it is patented.”
“we ought to try it,” declared captain anderson earnestly. then he added: “let me have the model, mrs. leighton, and i’ll make a full-sized working copy.”
“i’m sure that would be putting you to a lot of trouble,” replied that lady.
[80]
“besides,” interposed mrs. anderson, “how are you going to test it after you get it?”
“well,” captain anderson answered at last, “it looks to me as if it might be worth the trouble of a real test, even if i had to make a machine to test it.”
“you don’t mean an aeroplane?” broke in mrs. leighton.
“they’re very simple,” answered the captain, shrugging his shoulders.
“all that work to test a little model!” ejaculated andy’s mother. “all that trouble to see if an idea is worth anything!”
“it would be some trouble,” explained the captain, “but you don’t get anything without some trouble—”
“i can help him, mother,” interrupted andy, trying to suppress his eagerness.
but mrs. leighton shook her head, and the boy’s hopes died. then his mother turned to the captain with a suggestion.
“i couldn’t consent to that,” she began, “because andy is too young to give much assistance. but, if you’ll let mr. leighton pay you—”
“i’ll tell you what we can do,” exclaimed the boy, with new hope. “let’s go havers. if[81] captain anderson can make a thing out of that model that will guide an aeroplane, it’ll surely be worth something. let’s all go partners: we’ll take half because it’s uncle’s idea, and captain anderson’ll take half because he works it out.”
mrs. leighton looked questioningly at her host.
“that’s fair enough,” answered the captain. “but there’s one objection. i don’t know much about engines. andy knows all about ’em—”
“he knows a lot about one that won’t run,” recalled his mother with a smile.
“he knows enough,” observed captain anderson significantly. “if you can spare andy for a week or so to help me, i’ll go partners, and we’ll see what we can do.”
“i’m sure that is awfully good of you,” exclaimed mrs. leighton, “and if you really think andy can be of assistance, why, of course—”
“but who’s going to fly the thing?” broke in mrs. anderson. “not you,” she added, nodding toward her husband.
andy’s heart sank.
“it’ll be time enough to bother about that when we need an operator,” laughed her[82] husband. “what’s the matter with ba? he’s afraid of nothing.”
“and sail away to the bahamas, maybe,” replied mrs. anderson.
the possibility of andy becoming the aviator seemed not to have occurred to mrs. leighton. at her silence, the boy could hardly restrain a yell of delight over the adroit way in which captain anderson had managed the thing. as he half rose from the table, mrs. anderson’s words fell on his ears.
“sail away to the bahamas!”
he dropped back into his chair, his mouth open.
“what’s the matter, andy?” asked his mother.
“matter?” repeated the boy absently.
“yes. what is the matter with you? are you ill?”
“ill?” repeated andy with a smile. “no. i was just thinkin’.”
“thinking? about what?”
“just thinkin’ how funny that’d be—old ba asailin’ back to his home in the bahamas in an aeroplane.”
mrs. leighton, with a curious look at andy, at last turned to captain anderson and said:
[83]
“it will be awfully good of you to do that, and i’ll make andy do all he can to help you. only,” and she smiled, “i hope, if you make an aeroplane, you’ll promise you won’t try to sail it and that you won’t let mr. ba risk himself in it.”
“i’ll promise,” replied captain anderson with a laugh. “and now, if the ladies will excuse us, i think i’ll go over to the boathouse and have a pipe, and andy can come along to talk over the project. you aren’t too sleepy, are you?” he added mischievously.
“i am pretty tired,” answered andy, with a yawn, “but i’d like to come for a little while.”
when the man and the boy had left the house, andy, instead of shouting for joy, said to his companion very soberly:
“captain anderson, do you think i’ll ever get a chance to sail that aeroplane?”
“what else are we makin’ it for?” grunted the elder.
about half past ten, mrs. leighton and mrs. anderson appeared at the door of the boathouse. captain anderson and andy, coatless, the former with his exhausted pipe in his mouth, were leaning over a drawing board and talking in low tones.
[84]
“i thought you only wanted a pipe,” began mrs. anderson.
“and i thought you were tired,” added mrs. leighton.
“here she is,” exclaimed captain anderson, rising and exhibiting the drawing board on which andy had roughly drawn the model of his uncle’s rudder, “the celebrated ‘aeroplane bird-tail rudder, patent applied for, manufactured by leighton & anderson, valkaria, florida.’”
“i hope it isn’t another aero-catamaran,” commented mrs. anderson, with a smile.
as the ladies returned to the house and andy prepared to close the boathouse, he paused a moment.
“do you think he could, captain anderson?”
“who could what?”
“do you think ba, or anyone else, could fly to the bahamas in an aeroplane?”
“i don’t know whether they could or not,” answered the captain, blowing out the light, “but i do know that’d be my idea of a real fool trick.”
“captain anderson,” continued andy, as they walked slowly toward the house, “i’ve just been tryin’ to figure out all that’s happened[85] since we saw your lantern comin’ to meet us last night. our engine may not go, and the bird-tail rudder may not work, and the aeroplane we’re goin’ to make may not fly, but i reckon i’ve found one thing in the time we’ve been here that there ain’t agoin’ to be anything wrong about.”
“what’s that?” asked the good-natured boat builder.
“you,” answered andy promptly.
