Linda Carlton, Air Pilot

Her time was so limited – it was a week before Commencement – that she had only chance for a few words with Ted Mackay. She told him that her class-day was the following Friday, and she timidly invited him to a dance which she was giving at her home the night before the event.

"Thanks awfully," he said, more thrilled than he dared tell her at the invitation, "but I couldn't possibly come… You see, Miss Carlton – I wouldn't fit in with your set."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Linda in disappointment, "We're not snobs, just because we go to Miss Graham's school!"

"Well, then, put it this way," he added: "I'm absolutely on my own – and I don't even have evening clothes!"

She smiled at his frankness, but she did not know that he told only part of his story – that he was supporting his mother and helping to put his younger sister through High School.

"All right, then – have it your own way – Ted," she agreed, holding out her hand. "I'll hope to see you some time after class-day."

From that hour on, it seemed as if every moment was filled with more things than she could possibly do. At last Friday came – as hot as any day in mid-summer, though it was still early June.

Soon after two o'clock the audience began to arrive, and at half-past, the twenty-two graduates, in their white dresses, with their large bouquets or American Beauties or pink rose-buds, filed in to take their seats on the flower-decked platform in the garden of the school grounds.

Fans waved, and the flowers wilted visibly, but nobody seemed to notice. For with the exercises the fun began, and everybody listened intently to the jokes and the compliments which came in turn to each and every member of Linda Carlton's class.

After Louise Haydock, the president, made her brief speech of greeting, the presenter took charge, and her remarks and her presents were clever without being cruel. Most of the latter she had purchased from the five-and-ten, but they all carried a point. To Linda Carlton she gave a toy car, because she thought that was what the latter was most interested in, and then she asked her to wait a moment, that she had something else for her.

Linda stood still, smiling shyly, and wondering whether her next gift would have anything to do with airplanes.

"Linda," continued the presenter, "we have this bracelet for you – in token of our affection. You have been voted the most popular girl in the class."

"Oh!" exclaimed Linda, and her eyelids fluttered in embarrassment. She was so surprised that she didn't know what to say. Some of the other girls, who had been secretly hoping for this honor, which was always kept as a surprise until class-day, had even prepared speeches. But Linda had never given the matter a thought.

"I – I – thank you so much," she finally managed to stammer, as she stepped forward to receive the bracelet.

The audience stirred and clapped, for the girl was a favorite with everybody in Spring City.

"She certainly looks sweet today," whispered Mrs. Haydock, the mother of Linda's best friend. "There is nothing so becoming as white."

"Yes," agreed her aunt, who had taken care of Linda ever since her own mother had died when she was only a baby, "but I do wish she hadn't worn those flowers. She had half a dozen bouquets of American Beauties, and she picked out those ordinary pink roses! Sometimes Linda is queer."

"Yes, but who sent them?" inquired the other woman. "Probably the reason lies there! Ralph Clavering?"

"Ralph Clavering wouldn't buy a cheap bouquet like that – with all his father's millions!" exclaimed Miss Carlton. "No; he did send flowers, but Linda didn't wear them. These had no card."

Their conversation stopped abruptly, for the class prophet was being introduced. Twenty-one girls on the platform leaned forward expectantly, anxious to hear what the future held in store for them. Of course nobody actually believed that this girl could foretell their lives, but it was always fascinating to speculate about their fortunes.

She began with the customary jokes.

"Sara Wheeler" (the thinnest girl in the class), "is going into the food business, but will eat up the profits. However, she'll weigh two hundred pounds before she goes bankrupt…

"Sue Emery, on the contrary, will finally succeed in reducing her weight – when she gets away from these girls and stops talking about it, instead of doing it – until she becomes Hollywood's star dancer…

"Linda Carlton and Louise Haydock – the double l's, we call them, because they are always together – will both marry wealthy men and become the society leaders of Spring City…"

At these words, Linda's Aunt Emily nudged Louise's mother, and smiled.

"That would suit us, wouldn't it, Mrs. Haydock?" she asked.

"Just what we want for our girls!" nodded her companion, in satisfaction.

It was over at last, the fun and the excitement, the class-day that the girls would keep in their memories for the rest of their lives. Hot, but happy, the graduates came down from the platform to find their friends and their families. Some of them wanted to linger, to talk things over, but Linda Carlton was anxious to get away. It had been wonderful to receive that beautiful bracelet, but somehow it would spoil it to talk about it.

And, in spite of all her happiness, there was a little hurt in her heart. Her father hadn't come home for his only child's graduation!

She came to where her aunt was standing, and put her arm through hers.

"Are you ready, Aunt Emily?" she asked.

"Of course, dear – if you want to go so soon. But wouldn't you like to stay and see your friends, and thank them?"

"Oh, I'll write notes," replied Linda.

"There's Ralph Clavering over there," remarked Miss Carlton, nodding in the direction of a tall, well-dressed young man on the other side of the lawn. "You could thank him for his flowers. He'll probably think it queer if you don't, especially since you didn't wear them."

Linda smiled carelessly.

"Ralph Clavering probably sent roses to half a dozen girls today," she said lightly. "It's his boast that he's in love with the whole class!.. No, I want to go home, Auntie. I'm tired."

"Certainly, dear. We'll go right away."

Nodding to friends as they walked across the beautiful garden where the out-door exercises had been held, they came to Linda's shining sports roadster, parked just outside the gate. It had been her father's present to her on the day that she was sixteen, and she had taken such care of it that even now, after a year and a half, it looked almost new.

"I think it was wonderful for you to receive the bracelet as the most popular girl," Miss Carlton said, as she got into the car. "Everything was really perfect – even the prophecy about your future."

Linda frowned at the recollection of those words; she hadn't liked that prophecy at all. As perhaps only Ted Mackay realized, her ambition was to fly, to fly so expertly that she could go to strange lands, do a man's work perhaps, carry out missions of importance. She wanted to be known as one of the best – if not the best – aviatrix in America!

Ever since she was a child she had had some such longing. Perhaps it was her father who had been responsible for it. Restless and unhappy after her mother's death, he had given his baby to his sister to take care of, and had wandered from one place to another, only coming home every year or so, to see how Linda was growing. As if to make up to her for his absences, he brought her marvelous presents – presents that were intended rather for a boy than for a girl. Early in life she had learned to shoot a gun, ride a horse, and drive a car. No wonder that she dreamed of airplanes!

Her aunt, on the other hand, disapproved of this way of bringing up a girl. She wanted Linda to be just like the other fashionable wealthy young ladies in Spring City, to spend her time at parties and at the Country Club, and later to marry a rich man – like Ralph Clavering. Naturally the words of the class prophet pleased her.

Nor had she any idea that Linda did not agree with her, for her niece had always kept her dreams to herself. There was no use talking about them, Linda thought, for her aunt would never understand.

"And I guess the prophet was about right," continued Miss Carlton. "Any girl that gets seven bunches of flowers from seven different boys, won't have any difficulty getting married."

"But I don't want to get married, Aunt Emily!" protested Linda.

"Not yet, dear – of course. Why, you're only seventeen! I couldn't spare you now – just when you're free to be at home with me. Besides, I think every girl should have two years at least to do exactly as she pleases!"

Exactly as she pleases! Why, that would mean learning to fly! Oh, if Aunt Emily could know the fierce longing in her heart to become a really fine pilot, to train herself to make her mark in the world!

"So I want you to have a happy, care-free summer," continued the other, totally unaware of her niece's thoughts. "At first I thought we would go abroad, but on the whole that would be too strenuous, after this hectic year. The other girls' mothers agree with me. Mrs. Haydock and I were talking about it today, and we've practically decided to go to a charming resort on Lake Michigan that she says is most exclusive. There you can be with all your best friends."

Linda said nothing; she just couldn't be enthusiastic about wasting three months in that fashion. When she had been hoping to stay at home and enroll for a course at the Spring City Flying School!

"You'd like that, wouldn't you, dear?" persisted Miss Carlton, as Linda steered her car through the wide gates of their spacious estate. "You could swim and drive and play tennis and dance to your heart's content! With Louise – and – and – the Claverings! Mrs. Haydock told me they are going there too. Why, you'd meet all the right people!"