CHAPTER XIX.BROTHER AND SISTER.
CHAPTER XIX.
BROTHER AND SISTER.
The first gleam of the summer dawn shining into Roy’s place of imprisonment at the bottom of the old well revealed to him only too clearly into what a trap he had fallen. The well seemed to be about fifty feet or more in depth, and the sides were smooth and slippery.
The chill he had felt spreading through his limbs earlier was gone now, but a numb sensation was setting in which did not leave them even when the boy wriggled his legs about.
“Phew!” thought Roy. “I stand a fair chance of being turned into a pollywog or something if I stay here long enough.”
Somehow, with the coming of daylight, the buoyant spirits of youth had returned to the boy and his predicament did not seem nearly so serious as it had during the dark hours.
But it was bad enough, as Roy realized. From time to time he tried shouting, but no one came to the edge of the well and peered over, although he anxiously kept his eyes riveted on the disc of sky above him. How long this went on Roy had no idea, but he had sunk into a sort of semi-doze when a sudden sound aroused him.
A tinkling, metallic sound, not unlike the rattling of the chain the night before that had, in reality, caused his trouble.
“Help! Help!” shouted Roy.
It was perhaps the five hundredth time he had uttered the cry since he had tumbled into the well. But this time there came a response.
“What is it? What’s the trouble?”
The voice sounded rather shaky, and as if the utterer of the words was somewhat scared.
“It’s a boy who has fallen into the well,” shouted Roy. “I’m almost exhausted. Get me out.”
A face suddenly projected over the well curb—aface which Roy recognized with astonishment as that of old Peter Bell, the hermit.
“Mr. Bell, it’s Roy Prescott,” he shouted; “can you get a rope and get me out?”
“Good heavens!” cried the hermit; “it’s the boy whose sister was so kind to me. However did you—but never mind that now. Can you hold on for a time?”
“Yes, but my strength is almost gone.”
“Well, summon up all your courage. There is a farm house not far off. I’ll go there and get a rope and be back as quick as I can.”
Without wasting more words the old man hastened to his little cart. He had been out since dawn gathering herbs and roots and had taken a short cut home through the field in which the old well was located. Muttering excitedly to himself, he climbed somewhat stiffly into his rickety conveyance and urged his old horse forward with gently spoken commands. As the animal broke into a trot the little bell about its neck began to jangle not unmusically. This was thesound which, fortunately for him, had notified Roy that some human being was at hand.
In the near distance, half hidden in trees, could be seen the red-roofed gable of a farm house. Toward this old Peter Bell directed his way. Farmer Ingalls was only too glad, when he heard of the accident, to secure a long rope, used in hoisting hay to the top of his big barns.
“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed, “a lad tumbled into my well! Mommer,” turning to a motherly-looking, calico-clad woman, “you always told me to cover that well up, and I never did, and now thar’s a poor young chap tumbled into it.”
“Hurry,” urged old Peter Bell; “he was almost exhausted, poor lad. We must get back as quick as possible.”
Summoning his two hired men the farmer set off at a run across the fields, easily keeping pace with old Peter’s decrepit horse. As they neared the well they began shouting, and a feeble cry from the depths answered them.
“Cheer up, my lad, we’ll have you out of that in a brace-of-shakes,” cried Farmer Ingalls encouragingly, as they reached the curb and peered over into the dark hole.
“I hope you will,” cried Roy. “It’s getting pretty monotonous, I can tell you.”
“Don’t know what mon-ount-on-tonous means, but I’d hate to change places with you,” agreed the farmer.
Presently the rope came snaking down, with a loop in its lower end. Roy was directed to place his foot in the loop and hold on tight. When this had been done he shouted up:
“All right! Haul away!”
The stalwart farmer and his two assistants began to heave with all their might, while old Mr. Bell encouraged them. Before long, by dint of hard exertions, they succeeded in dragging Roy to the surface, and dripping and shivering he could stand once more in the blessed air and sunlight.
“But how in the world did you come to getin there?” asked the farmer, as he paced along by the side of the hermit’s little cart, in which the half-exhausted Roy had been placed.
“Well,” said the lad with a rather shamefaced laugh, “I’m really half ashamed to say. But it was this way. Some bad men who have an interest in putting me out of an aeroplane contest, of which Mr. Bell knows, had run off with me in an automobile. It was wrecked, and I escaped. I struck out toward town, as I thought, but as I came through that patch of woods by the wall I saw something that startled me so much that I stepped back and fell down the well.”
“What did you see, my lad?” asked the farmer with half a twinkle in his eye.
“Something like a story-book ghost,” smiled Roy; “it was tall and all in white and clanked a chain.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared the farmer; “I half suspected as much. Why, that ghost was my old white mule Boxer. He managed somehowto snap his chain last night and we found him careening around the fields this morning. Don’t color up, my boy,” for poor Roy’s face had turned very red, as the hired men guffawed loudly; “older men than you have been startled at far less. And now, here’s the farm, and I’ll bet mommer has a fine breakfast all ready for you.”
The half-famished boy ate hungrily of the substantial farmhouse fare Mrs. Ingalls provided for him, and as he ate he made inquiries about the distance to the aviation grounds, which, he found to his dismay, were further distant than he had imagined.
“I’ll never be able to make it in time without an automobile,” moaned Roy to himself; “what shall I do?”
He cast about in his mind for some way out of his difficulty, but he could find none. Nor could the farmer help him. There were no automobiles in that part of the country, and in ahorse-drawn vehicle he would never be able to make it in time.
All at once a queer sound filled the air. The atmosphere seemed to vibrate with it as it does on a still summer day when a threshing machine is buzzing away in a distant field.
“Land o’ Goshen, what’s that?” cried Mrs. Ingalls running to the door.
“Lish! Lish! come here quick!” she shouted the next instant.
Followed by the old hermit and Roy, Mr. Ingalls ran to the door. But his exclamations at the sight he saw were drowned by Roy’s amazed cry:
“It’s the Golden Butterfly!”
“An aeroplane!” shouted the farmer. “By gosh, she’s like a pretty bird.”
“It’s my—our aeroplane,” went on Roy; “who can be in it? Oh, if it’s only Peggy I may not be too late after all.”
He ran out into the door yard of the farm house and, snatching off his coat, began wavingit desperately. Would the occupant of the aeroplane see his frantic signals? With a beating heart Roy watched the winged machine as it droned far above him.
All at once he gave a delighted shout. The aeroplane was beginning to descend. Down it came in big circles, while the farmer, his wife and the old hermit gazed open mouthed at it, as if half inclined to run.
But as it drew closer to the ground Roy noted a puzzling thing. A helmeted and goggled person was driving it, evidently a boy or man and not Peggy at all. Who could it be? For an instant a queer thought flashed through his head. Possibly somebody had stolen it and was making off across country with it so as to put it out of the race.
More and more rapidly the aeroplane began to drop as it neared the ground, and before many minutes it alighted in the patch of meadow in front of the farm house, gliding gracefully for several feet before it stopped.
But the rubber-tired landing wheels had not ceased revolving before Roy was at its side.
“Say, who are you, and what are you doing with my aeroplane?” he demanded in heated tones, for the helmeted aviator had not yet even deigned to notice him, but seemed to be busy with various levers and valves.
“Well, are you going to answer me?” sputtered Roy, while the farmer, his wife, the old hermit and the hired men gazed on curiously.
For answer the mysterious aviator raised his helmet and a cloud of golden curls fell about a milk-and-roses face.
“By gum, a gal and a purty one!” cried the farmer capering about.
“Peggy!” shouted Roy.
“Yes, Peggy,” cried the girl. “Oh, Roy, what has happened to you? When you didn’t come back Jess and Jimsy persuaded me to put on your clothes and at least try the Butterfly out. But I was so miserable that I could not try herout on the track, so I flew off across country. I saw you waving far below me and—oh, Roy!”
Peggy could go no further and half collapsed in Roy’s arms as he tenderly lifted her out.
“Great hopping water millions!” cried the farmer, “if this ain’t a day of wonders. This must be ther lad’s sister he told us about, and ter think she come flopping down out of ther sky like a seventeen-y’ar locust.”
Peggy was quickly her usual strong, self-reliant self again. With indignation blazing in her kind eyes she heard Roy’s account of the happenings of the night. At its conclusion she announced with decision:
“We must defeat them, Roy.”
“Yes, but how? There’s only a scant half hour before starting time if you said they’d changed it.”
“Even so you can make it. You must take these clothes, get into the aeroplane and fly back to the track. If you go alone the ’plane will be light and you can make it in time.”
“But you, Peggy?”
“I guess I can borrow a dress from Mrs. Ingalls here,” said the girl briskly.
“Of course, you kin,” put in Mrs. Ingalls, but surveying her own ample form rather doubtfully the while.
“You kin give her one of daughter Jenny’s dresses,” said the farmer.
“Then that is settled, thanks to you,” said Peggy with characteristic decision.
They all entered the farm house, from which, a few seconds later, Roy emerged, clad in the garments his sister had donned a short time before. He climbed into the aeroplane amid the admiring comments of the farm hands, who, by this time, had come in from the fields, drawn by the wonderful airship, and stood all about it gaping and wondering.
Peggy, in a dress belonging to the farmer’s daughter, who was away on a visit, stepped quickly to Roy’s side as, after glancing at theclock attached to the front of the aeroplane, he started the engine.
As it started its uproarious song, the farm hands jumped back in affright. But Peggy clasped her brother’s hand.
“Win that prize, Roy,” she said.
“I’ll do my best, little sister.”
And that was all, but as Peggy Prescott gazed a few minutes later at the fast diminishing form of the speeding aeroplane she felt that all she had braved and dared that day had not been in vain.