Exactly what passed between Uncle Ezra Larabee and his caller, Aunt Samantha never learned. She was so overcome at seeing the parlor opened, that perhaps she did not listen sufficiently careful. She overheard the murmur of voices, and, now and then, such expressions as "above the clouds," "in the air," "twenty thousand dollars, and maybe more."
"Gracious goodness!" she murmured as she hurried out to the kitchen, where she smelled something burning on the stove. "I wonder what it's all about? Can Ezra have lost money on some of his investments? If he has, if it's gone up above the clouds, and in the air, the way he's talking about it things will be terrible; terrible! It will come nigh onto killin' him, I expect!"
She went back to listen again outside the parlor door, but could make out nothing.
She did catch, however, her husband's expression of:
"Twenty thousand dollars! It's a pile of money! A heap!"
"Oh my!" she murmured faintly. "If he's lost that we'll go to the poorhouse, sure!"
But nothing like that happened. As a matter of fact Uncle Ezra could have lost that sum several times over, and not have felt it except in the anguish of his mind.
When the caller had gone, Uncle Ezra seemed rather cheerful, much to the amazement of Aunt Samantha. She could not understand it. At the same time her husband appeared to be worried about something.
"But he doesn't act as though he had lost a lot of money," his wife reasoned. "He certainly acts queer, but not just that way. I wonder what it can be?"
And during the next week Uncle Ezra acted more queerly than ever. He received several other visits from the strange man who had given his name to Aunt Samantha, when first calling, as "Lieutenant Larson." Also, Mr. Larabee went off on several short trips.
"I wonder whatever's got into him?" mused Aunt Samantha. "I never knew him to act this way before. I do hope he isn't doing anything rash!"
If she had only known!
Uncle Ezra became more and more engrossed with his caller who came several days in succession. They were shut up together in the parlor, and one window shutter was opened each time, to the horror of Mrs. Larabee.
"That carpet will be faded all out, and clean ruined," she complained to her husband.
"Well, if it is, maybe I'll get money enough to buy a new one," said Uncle Ezra. "Mind, I'm not saying for sure," he added, cautiously, "but maybe."
"Why, how you talk!" cried Aunt Samantha. "That carpet ought to last us until we die! A new carpet! I never heard tell of such a thing! Never in all my born days! The idea!"
Uncle Ezra chuckled grimly. It was clear that he was acting in a new role, and he was a surprise, even to himself.
At last Aunt Samantha could stand the suspense no longer. One night, after a rather restless period, she awakened Uncle Ezra who had, most unusually, been talking in his sleep.
"Ezra! Ezra! Wake up!" she demanded in a loud whisper, at the same time vigorously shaking him.
"Eh! What is it? Burglars?" he asked, sitting up in bed.
"No, Ezra. Nothin' like that!"
"Oh, cats, eh? Well, if it's only cats go to sleep. I don't mind 'em."
"No, Ezra, I didn't say cats. But you're talkin' in your sleep. That is, you were."
"I was?"
"Yes."
"What'd I say?" and he seemed anxious.
"Why you were talkin' a lot about flyin' in the air, and goin' up to the clouds, and bein' in a race, and winnin' twenty thousand dollars! Oh, Ezra, if you care for me at all, tell me what mystery this is!" she pleaded.
"Did I say all that?" he asked, scratching his head.
"Yes, and a lot more! You said something about an airship."
"Humph! Well, that's it!"
"What is?"
"An airship! I might as well tell you, I reckon. I'm having one of them contraptions made."
"What contraptions? Oh, Ezra!"
"An airship," he answered. "I'm going to have one, and win a twenty thousand dollar prize from the government. Then I'll go into the airship business and sell 'em. I'll get rich, Samantha!"
"Oh Ezra! Do you mean to say you're goin' in for any such foolishness as that?"
"'Tain't 'foolish!"
"'Tis so! And—and are you—are you goin' to go up in one of them things—them airships?"
"Well, I reckon I might. It's my machine, and I'm not going to let them aviary fellers monkey too much with it unless I'm on board. They might bust something, and want me to pay for it. Yes, I reckon I'll do some flying myself."
"Ezra Larabee!" cried his horror-stricken wife. "Be you plumb crazy?"
"I hope not, Samantha."
"But goin' up in an airship! Why it's flyin' in the face of Providence!"
"Well, it'll be flying in the air, at the same time," he chuckled. Clearly this was a different Uncle Ezra than his wife had ever known. She sighed.
"The idea!" Aunt Samantha murmured. "Goin' up in an airship. You'll fall and be killed, as sure as fate."
"That's what I was afraid of first," said Uncle Ezra, "and I didn't want to go into the scheme. But this young feller, Lieutenant Larson, he proved to me different. They can't fall. If your engine stops all you got to do is to come down like a feather. He used some funny word, but I can't think of it now. But it's safe—it's safer than farming, he claims. Most any time on a farm a bull may gore you, or a threshing engine blow up. But there's nothing like that in an airship.
"Besides, think of the twenty thousand dollars I'm going to get," he added as a final argument.
"You're not sure of it," objected his wife.
"Oh, yes I be!" he boasted. "Then I'm going into the airship business. Well, now I've told you, I'm going to sleep again."
"As if anyone could sleep after hearin' such news," she sighed. "I jest know suthin' will happen! And think what everybody will say about you! They'll say you're crazy!"
"Let 'em!" he replied, tranquilly. "They won't say so when I get that twenty thousand dollars!"
"But can't you get the money any easier way?" she wanted to know.
"How, I'd like to know? All I got to do to get this, is to get an airship to fly from New York to San Francisco."
"Why Ezra Larabee!" she exclaimed. "Now I'm sure you're not right in your head. You'll have the doctor in the mornin'."
"Oh, no, I won't!" he declared. "Don't catch me wasting any money on doctors. I'm all right."
How Aunt Samantha managed to get to sleep again she never knew. But she did, though her rest was marred by visions of airships and balloons turning upside down and spilling Mr. Larabee all over the landscape.
Mrs. Larabee renewed her objections in the morning, but her husband was firm. He had decided to have an airship built to compete for the big prize, and Larson was going to do the work.
Just what arguments the aviator had used to win over Uncle Ezra none but he himself knew. I rather think it was the harping constantly on the twenty thousand dollar prize.
That Mr. Larabee was hard to convince may easily be imagined. In fact it was learned, afterward, that the lieutenant almost gave up the attempt at one time. But he was persistent, to gain his own ends at least, and talked earnestly. Finally Uncle Ezra gave a rather grudging consent to the scheme, but he stipulated that only a certain sum be spent, and that a comparatively small one.
To this the lieutenant agreed, but I fancy with a mental reservation which meant that he would get more if he could.
At any rate preparations for building the craft, in an unused part of Uncle Ezra's woolen mill at Dankville, went on apace.
I say apace, and yet I must change that. Uncle Ezra, with his usual "closeness" regarding money, rather hampered Larson's plans.
"What do you reckon an airship ought to cost?" Mr. Larabee had asked when he first decided he would undertake it.
"Oh, I can make a good one for three thousand dollars," had been the answer of the former lieutenant.
"Three thousand dollars!" whistled Uncle Ezra. "That's a pot of money!"
"But you'll get twenty thousand dollars in return."
"That's so. Well, go ahead. I guess I can stand it." But it was not without many a sigh that the crabbed old man drew out the money from the bank, in small installments.
The work was started, but almost at once Larson demanded more than the original three thousand. Uncle Ezra "went up in the air," so to speak.
"More money!" he cried. "I shan't spend another cent!"
"But you'll have to. We want this airship to win the prize, and get ahead of the one your nephew is building. I have decided on some changes, and they will cost money."
Uncle Ezra sighed—and gave in. The truth was that Larson was little better than a sharper, and, though he did know something about aeroplanes, he knew more about how to fleece his victims.
And though Uncle Ezra furnished more money he tried to save it in other ways. He skimped on his table, until even Aunt Samantha, used as she was to "closeness," objected. Then Mr. Larabee announced a cut in wages at his factory, and nearly caused a strike.
But he was firm, and by reducing the pittance earned by the luckless operatives he managed to save a few hundred dollars which promptly went into the airship—that is, what Larson did not keep for himself.
But Uncle Ezra's airship was being built, which fact, when it became known, caused much comment. No one save Uncle Ezra and the lieutenant and his workmen, were allowed in the factory where the machine was being constructed. It was to be kept a secret as to the form of construction.
Meanwhile, having committed himself to becoming an aviator, Mr. Larabee began to study the methods of birdmen. He obtained several volumes (second hand, of course) on the history of navigating the air, and on the advance in the construction of aeroplanes. These he read diligently.
He could also have been observed going about, gazing up into the clouds, as though he was calculating from how great a height a man could fall with safety. In reality he imagined he was studying air currents.
Uncle Ezra Larabee was certainly acting most queerly, and his friends, or, rather, his acquaintances, for he had no real friends, did not know what to make of him. He did not give up his idea, however, not even when Larson raised his original estimate to five thousand dollars.
"Petrified polecats!" cried Uncle Ezra. "You'll bankrupt me, man!"
"Oh, no," answered Larson, with a winning smile. "This is getting off cheap. I want to increase the size of my mercury stabilizer to render the airship more safe for you when you go after that twenty thousand dollars."
"Well, I s'pose I've got to," sighed Uncle Ezra, and he made a careful note of how much had already been spent. "There's three thousand, nine hundred twenty-eight dollars and fourteen cents you've had so far," he reminded the lieutenant. "Don't be wasteful!"
"I won't," was the promise, easily given at least.
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