day. I wrote
mother this morning, telling her about our trip and all, and I asked her
if she thought she would sometime feel like letting me fly. I didn't
_ask_ her to let me, you know, but I have a hunch that something might
happen sometime and I might almost have to fly. So I told her just how
I felt about it. Whatever she says goes."

"That's a good sport!" said Ernest, smiling. "It seems to me that I
would be willing to give up anything in the world if I could have my
mother alive to make sacrifices for. Of course I have dad, and he is a
corking pal and just an all-round dear, but a chap's mother is
different, somehow. I think you were wise to write that letter, for you
never know what might come up. If your mother is what I should think she
is, she will understand that you are not trying to fix a loophole for
yourself or tying a string to your word of honor."

"No, she won't think that," said Bill positively. "Mother and I
understand each other. I can trust her and she knows she can trust me.
It makes things nice all around. She will be _crazy_ about this machine
of yours. Perhaps she will take a little glide with you, if she doesn't
feel like actually going up. She has promised to come on and spend the
Thanksgiving vacation with me."

"Good work! That makes me feel glad that I can't go home. I am going to
stay right through the whole year and put in some extra work during the
vacations."

"Mom will like you too," said Bill. "She will want to know all about the
plane, and when she gets through listening she will know 'most as much
as you do. There is one thing I am afraid of, if I should fly, and that
is spinning. Now if you begin to side-slip, either outward or inward,
you are apt to commence to spin, and--well, there is usually a speedy
and more or less painless end to you and your hopes."

"I think, Bill, that you will have no trouble in learning to control a
machine when your mother feels like releasing you from your promise. I
knew of a fellow once who made a long and successful flight with no
preparation at all other than what he had learned from books and
observation."

"I don't believe I would want to try anything like that," laughed Bill,
"but I am stowing away all I can gather here and there."

"The thing for you to do," said Ernest, "is to roll around the fields
every chance you get. I will be glad to take you with me any day or
every day that you feel like going. Of course you won't have very mu