Part 13 (1/2)
”Why, Mrs. Gregg's a nice woman. Don't you think that I should have invited her?” asked the Captain, with a twinkle.
”Oh, but you must have some other reason,” said Bob. ”You don't want her to come over just because you want an audience for your story.”
”Well, to tell the truth,” the Captain answered, ”I have a motive. Can I count on you to help me?”
”If it's not murder,” said Bob.
”Nothing like it,” the Captain said. ”This is my plan, Bob. You know that we want Hal to come along with us on our trip, now more than at any other time. If we leave him now, all the good that flying and being with us has done him will be wasted, and Hal will be the same fraid-cat that he was before we began to educate him. Now, I'm going to tell the story of Byrd tonight. Byrd started on his adventures when he was very young.
He had a brave mother, who saw that following his own inclinations was good for her son. That much is for Mrs. Gregg. Second-Byrd had to overcome a great many obstacles before he reached his goal. That part is for young Hal. Now, if the Gregg family takes my story seriously tonight, I think that we may have Hal with us on our flight. And Hal will be a new boy. How about it?”
Bob looked admiringly at his uncle. ”Gee,” he said, ”that's a great idea. But I think that you'll have to tell a pretty convincing story.”
”Don't you think that I can?”
”Golly, I'm not going to worry about that,” said Bob. ”I'm sure you can.”
When they got in, they found Mrs. Martin sewing, and lost no time in telling her first the events of the day, and second, their plans for the evening.
”But why didn't you invite her to dinner?” asked Mrs. Martin. ”I'm sure we'd enjoy having them with us.”
”I didn't think of that,” said the Captain, ”or rather, I thought that I was taking enough liberty in just inviting somebody to your home for the evening.”
”I'll call her,” said Mrs. Martin firmly. A far away look came into her eyes. ”You know,” she said, ”I think that I shall do some talking to Mrs. Gregg myself, I have some things to tell her about raising her own son. I suppose she will resent it, but I shall at least have the satisfaction of getting it off my chest, and perhaps of helping poor Hal.”
”Hal's the one I'm interested in,” said the Captain. ”He acted like a real hero in that plane today. Kept his head, and saved himself and the plane. He's got the stuff, all right, and he can handle a plane.”
”I'm with you, Captain,” said Bob. ”And with you and Mom on the job, I don't see how anybody can possibly get away with anything. You two could convince anybody of anything.”
His mother looked at him speculatively. ”Can I convince you right now that you ought to go up and wash? Believe me, young man, you can't get away with looking that dirty, if that's what you mean.”
Grinning sheepishly, Bob went out of the room. ”You win,” he called.
”And I'm betting on you tonight, too.”
CHAPTER VIII-North Pole and South
Dinner was a jolly affair. Everybody was in excellent humor. Hal had quite recovered from his afternoon's experience; Pat had succeeded in getting the Marianne into perfect shape; Bill looked forward to his evening's plans with relish; and Bob was happy just on general principles, antic.i.p.ating a great evening, and because he was usually happy. Mrs. Gregg, who often became lonely by herself, was glad of being in such pleasant company.
They went into the garden after dinner, and the Captain, after filling up his ever-present pipe, began his story.
”Well,” he said, ”there's only one way to begin the story of anybody's life. That's by telling when he was born, because after all, that's the first thing that happens to a man, isn't it? Well, Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd was born on October 25, 1888, in Winchester, Virginia, where there had been Byrds ever since anybody could remember. In fact, the first Byrd settled in America about 1690, and the name has been a prominent and honored one ever since. There were Byrds fighting in the Revolution and in the Civil War, so it wasn't from nowhere that our Richard Evelyn got his courage and grit that carried him through the dangers of being the first man to cross both the North and the South poles in a plane.
”He had a grandmother, too, who gave him a goodly supply of what it takes to do great deeds. That was Jane Byrd, who was the sort of person around whom legends spring up, and are carried down from generation to generation. In fact, one of them was a famous story of her killing of a huge blacksnake. It was during the Civil War. Her husband and her brother were both fighting for the Confederacy, and Jane Byrd was left alone to manage the great plantation and farm. And manage it she did.
One day she went to gather the eggs in the chicken house, and found a great blacksnake had swallowed twelve prized guinea eggs that had been set under a setting hen. She clubbed the snake to death with a club, taking care not to strike the twelve b.u.mps that showed all down its body the places where the twelve guinea eggs reposed. Then she cut the snake open and took out the eggs and put them back under the hen, without a bit of fuss or excitement. She took seriously the charge that she must take care of the estate while her men were away fighting.
”Richard Byrd couldn't have had better ancestors to back him up in his adventures, but every ounce of courage, every bit of perseverance that he inherited, he needed. He was a man who met with hundreds of disappointments, and innumerable obstacles in carrying out the plans that meant so much to him and to the world. But he was never downed by them. Set-backs that would have made other men, men of lesser caliber turn from their paths and give up their plans, were just so much more of a spur to him.
”d.i.c.k Byrd was never a robust man. He had the physical handicap of a bad ankle to overcome, and his general build has always been slight. He is not the huge, strapping hero of story-book fame; he was the little Napoleon with a great determination that outweighed any physical weakness. A man doesn't have to be big to get places. A little fellow, if he wants to badly enough, can accomplish a lot.