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Page 5
"Why, danger of a wheel collapsing as we were going full speed;
or the steering knuckle breaking and sending us into a tree;
danger of running into a stone wall or a ditch; danger of some
one running into us, or of us running into some one else. There
isn't one of these dangers on a sky ride."
"No," said Mary slowly. "But there's the danger of falling."
"One against twenty. That's the safety margin. And, if we do
fall, it will be like landing in a feather bed! There, don't wait
any longer. Go and get ready."
Mary sighed, and then, seeming to summon her nerve to her aid,
she smiled brightly, waved her hand to Tom, and hastened toward
his home, where Mrs. Baggert the matronly housekeeper, was
waiting to help the girl attire herself in a flying-suit of
leather.
Mary Nestor, who had a very warm place in the heart of Tom
Swift, had, as he stated, some time since promised to take a trip
in the air with the young inventor. But she had kept putting it
off, for one reason or another, until Tom began to despair of
ever getting her to accompany him. To-day, however, when she had
called to inquire about his father, who had been slightly ill,
Tom had, after the social visit, insisted on the promise being
kept.
He had his mechanic get out one of the safest, though a speedy,
double machine, and, with Mary to watch, Tom had taken a trial
flight, just to show her how easy it was. It was not the first
time she had seen him take to the air, but now she watched with
different emotions, for she was vitally interested.
Tom had sailed down from aloft, making a landing in the
aviation field he had constructed near his home, and then he had
insisted that Mary should keep her promise to take a sky ride
with him.
"Don't be too long now!" called Tom to the girl, as she hurried
toward the house. "Never mind about your hair, or whether your
hat's on straight. You're going to wear a cap, anyhow, and tuck
your hair up under that. It's hot down here, but it will be cold
up above; so tell Mrs. Baggert to see that you're warmly
dressed."
"All right," and gaily she waved her hand to him. Now that she
had made her decision, and was really going up, she was not half
so frightened as she had been in the contemplation of it.
As Tom climbed out of the machine, to give it a careful
inspection, though he was certain there was nothing wrong, an
aged colored man shuffled toward him.
"Yo'--yo'll be mighty careful ob Miss Nestor now, won't yo',
Massa Tom?" asked the man.
"Of course I will, Eradicate," was the young inventor's answer.
"Case we ain't got many laik her no mo', an' dat's de truf,
Massa Tom," went on the old man. "So be mighty careful laik!"
"That's what I will, Rad! And, while I'm up in the air, don't
you and Koku have any trouble."
"Ho! Trouble wif dat onery no-'count giant! I guess not!" and
the colored man limped off, highly indignant.
Satisfied, from an inspection of his machine, that it was as
nearly mechanically perfect as it was possible to be, Tom Swift
finished his trip around it and stood near the big propeller,
waiting for Mary Nestor to reappear. Presently she did so, and
Tom gaily waved his hand to her.
"You're a picture!" he cried, as he saw how particularly
"fetching" she looked in the aviator's costume which was like his
own. Because of the danger of entanglement, Miss Nestor had
doffed her skirts, and wore the costume of all aviators--men and
women.
"I wish I had my camera!" cried Tom. "You look--stunning!"
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