Ethel Morton at Chautauqua Part 27

Mr. Emerson escorted the two girls to the hangar.

"Here are the two young women who suggested the Swallow as the most appropriate name for your big bird," he said, smiling.

Mr. Graham shook hands with them both.

"I know your faces very well," he said. "You've been here every day."

"Yes," they nodded.

"We're so much obliged to you," said Ethel Blue.

"We've been perfectly crazy to go up," said Ethel Brown.

"Which of you suggested _Hirondelle_?" asked the aviator.

"Ethel Blue did"; and

"I did," answered both girls in unison.

"Then I'll ask Miss Ethel Blue to go up first, since it is her choice that I've had painted on my machine's wings."

Sure enough, as the aircraft came trundling out of the tent there were letters to be seen indistinctly on the under side of the lower planes.

Ethel Blue clasped her hands nervously; but Mr. Emerson was speaking calmly to her, and Mr. Graham was taking a last look over the machine so that she felt sure that everything would be secure, and Aunt Marion and the children were smiling just the other side of the ropes, and Ethel Brown was waiting for her to come back so that she could have her turn, and above all, the words of the good Bishop rang through her mind.

"Don't let your imagination run away with you."

Of a sudden she became perfectly cool, and when Mr. Graham helped her into the little seat and fastened a strap around her waist she laughed heartily at his joke about the number of holes difference between the size of her waist and that of the last pa.s.senger.

Then he climbed beside her, and the machine began to move clumsily forward as the men ran it down to the water.

"Hold tight," came a voice that was strong and kind.

The water splashed in her face and she knew that the hydroplane was pretending it was a duck.

Then came the kind voice again.

"We're going to rise now. Open your eyes."

She obeyed and of a sudden there thrilled through her the same delightful sensation she had felt in her dreams when she had been a bird and had soared higher and higher toward the sky. Then she had wept when she wakened to realize that it had not happened at all. Now it was truly happening. She was up, up, up in the air; the water was shining beneath her; the hilly land was growing flatter and flatter as she looked down upon it. Trees seemed like shrubs, boats like water beetles. A motor boat that had tried to race them was left hopelessly behind.

"It's Bemus Point," she screamed into Graham's ear, and he smiled and nodded.

"We're going to turn," he shouted back.

Then they dipped and soared, the aviator always telling her what he was going to do so that she might not be taken by surprise. As they approached Chautauqua again they saw the people on the sh.o.r.e and the dock applauding but the noise of the engine was so great that the sounds did not reach them.

"Down we go," warned Mr. Graham, and in landing they reversed the starting process.

There were smiles and shouts of welcome for both of them as they beached.

"_Hirondelle_ looks bully painted on the wings," called Roger.

Mr. Graham helped Ethel from her seat.

"You're the youngest pa.s.senger I've ever taken up," he said, "but I've never had a pluckier."

"Never a pluckier." Ethel Blue said the words over and over while Ethel Brown took her turn and sailed away toward Mayville and then down the lake for a five mile stretch.

"Never a pluckier."

She knew exactly why she had not been afraid. She had not felt that she was a girl trying to be a swallow; while the flight lasted she really had been the _Hirondelle_ of her dreams.

CHAPTER XIV

NIAGARA FALLS

"HOW would you two Ethels like to go to Niagara Falls?" asked Mrs.

Morton a day or two after the famous flight, as she slipped back into its envelope a letter which she had just read.

"Oh!" cried both girls in long drawn joy.

"This letter is from Mrs. Jackson at Fort Edward in Buffalo," explained Mrs. Morton. "Lieutenant Jackson is your father's best friend, Ethel Blue, and Mrs. Jackson knew your mother and she wants to seize this opportunity of our being near Buffalo this summer to see her friend's little daughter."

"Not--me--and Niagara?" questioned Ethel Brown.

"She has a daughter about your age and she thought it would be a pleasant week-end for all three of you if you two could go to Buffalo on Friday afternoon and stay over Sunday. She will take you on Sat.u.r.day to see the Falls."

"How perfectly magnificent!" exclaimed Ethel Blue.

"How shall we get to Buffalo?" asked Ethel Brown. "We've never been so far alone."

"Roger will put you on the train at Mayville and Mrs. Jackson will meet you at the station at Buffalo."

"All we'll have to do will be to sit still?"

"Between the parting with Roger and the meeting with Mrs. Jackson.

Exactly," returned Mrs. Morton, smiling.

"Are we equal to it?" Ethel Brown demanded of Ethel Blue in the quizzical way that made her so much like Roger.

"We are," returned Ethel Blue promptly, and the two girls marched about the room, their arms over each other's shoulders, with the back-step that they delighted in--one, two, three steps forward, and the fourth step back.

"One, two, three, back; one, two, three, back," they chanted.

"Why this hilarity?" questioned Roger from the threshold.