Linda Carlton's Ocean Flight

"Have you a date for tonight, Lou?" she asked. "Has Ted come yet?"

"No – to both questions," replied Louise. "I promised the family I'd stay home, for some aunts and cousins are coming. Now that I've caught my man, they want to look me over," she added flippantly. "And Ted won't be here till tomorrow. Why? What's on?"

"I – I'd like to have a talk with you about our flight," said Linda. "I was going to ask you to come over to our house and stay all night."

"That's O.K. with me. Only you'll have to come to our house instead."

The conversation was interrupted by Ralph Clavering, who had spied Linda for the first time. He took her hand impulsively, and held it so long that she was forced to pull it away.

"Where have you been?" he demanded, irritably. "I've been home from college for four days, just waiting for you!"

"I stopped at New Castle to see my Bellanca," Linda explained, smiling at his impatience. In spite of everything she did and said to the contrary, he always acted as if he owned her.

"Linda! You're not really counting on that ocean trip?" he demanded, making no effort to hide his disapproval.

(Why, oh why, she wondered, is everybody against me?)

"I am, though," she answered.

"Louise won't go with you now, will she?"

"She fully expected to, when I said good-by to her at school. Of course her family may have changed their minds about letting her."

"I shouldn't think Mackay would permit such a thing!" asserted Ralph, masterfully.

"Pull yourself together, Ralph!" teased Linda. "This isn't Queen Victoria's time – when men say what women can or can't do!"

"Well, if she were my wife – or my fiancée – "

"Which she isn't! Come on, Ralph, let's dance. So you'll get over your grouch."

"It isn't a grouch. It's genuine worry… Listen, Linda: if you're bound to fly to Paris, take me along with you, instead of Louise. Then at least we could die together."

"Don't be so morbid!" cried Linda. "Nobody's going to die. Besides, I couldn't take you. The whole point of the thing would be lost. The prize goes to the _girl_ or _girls_ who fly without a man's help."

"You could explain that I wasn't a help, only a hindrance," he suggested. "That I don't know half so much about piloting a plane as you do, and nothing at all about navigating it."

"No good, Ralph. Come on, let's dance, as I suggested before. And talk about something else. How you're going to entertain me tomorrow night, for instance."

The young man's mood changed instantly, and the rest of the afternoon passed pleasantly. Indeed, it was with difficulty that Linda broke away at six o'clock, in order to have time to dash home to tell her aunt of her plans, and to put some clothing into her over-night bag.

Louise's family were just ready to sit down to dinner when Linda arrived, and as the former had explained, there was an assortment of relatives. But both girls went out of their way to be agreeable, and when they went up to Louise's room a little after ten, they left only the most pleasant impressions.

"Now tell me about the Bellanca," urged Louise, thinking this was Linda's reason for wanting to see her alone.

"Oh, it's marvelous, of course. More wonderful than its pictures." But her tone lacked enthusiasm.

"What's the matter, Linda?" inquired the other girl. "What has gone wrong?"

"Nothing… Only, Aunt Emily thinks I'm selfish to keep you to your promise. She wants me to urge you to give up the flight."

"Don't you just love it the way other people always want to run your life?" remarked Louise. "With all due respect to your Aunt Emily, you can tell her from me, that I'm going! That's all there is to it. If I were married, it would be different. But I'm not!"

"Oh, Lou, you really want to?" cried Linda, hugging her joyfully. "I'm not being selfish – and dragging you with me?"

"Absolutely not. We've set the date, and we're going!"

So Linda Carlton went happily to sleep that night, believing that everything was settled. Little did she think that on the following day two momentous events were to take place that would entirely disrupt her plans.

It all happened at the breakfast table, with the abruptness of an electric storm. Mr. Haydock spied the news first, in the paper which lay at his place. His mouth fell open and he stared at the sheet in dismay.

"'Mabel and Joyce Lightcap take off in tri-motored Ford for Paris!'" he read aloud to Linda and Louise.

"What?" gasped his daughter, jumping up from her chair and staring at the headlines over his shoulder.

"'In quest of the twenty-five-thousand-dollar prize offered by Mrs. Rodman Hallowell to the first girls who successfully fly from New York to Paris without a man,'" he continued.

Linda sat listening, speechless.

Louise went on reading where her father had stopped.

"'The Misses Lightcap, who are sisters, twenty-two and twenty-three years of age, had kept their plans secret until last night, when they arrived at Roosevelt Field in the tri-motored plane. They left at dawn this morning. Weather reports are favorable, and the radio will announce their progress throughout the course of the day and night…'"

Louise dropped back into her chair, not daring to show Linda any sympathy, lest her chum burst out crying. She was probably the only person who realized what that flight meant to Linda Carlton.

"Of course they may not get there," observed Mr. Haydock, soothingly. "You girls may still get your chance."

"Perhaps it's all for the best," observed his wife, unable to conceal her feeling of relief at the knowledge that now Louise probably would not go.

Still Linda said nothing. Silently she ate her grapefruit and drank her coffee. But she believed she would choke if she tried to swallow any toast.

At last the ordeal was over, and she and Louise rose from the table, about to go into the living-room with the newspaper, when a telegram arrived for the latter, containing another startling piece of news, this time from Ted Mackay.

"Transferred to Wichita, Kansas," Louise read aloud. "Beginning May first. Can't we be married now?.. Arriving Spring City tonight."

Louise dropped into a chair and burst out laughing. What a relief from the tension!

"Might as well do it!" she cried. "Now that these girls have stolen the honors!"

"You really would like to be married next week?" inquired her mother.

"Yes, if Ted is going so far away. Of course I'll wait to see if these Lightcap women really arrive, but we ought to hear tonight…" She led Linda up to their bedroom.

"I really didn't want to go back to school anyway," she explained, when the girls were alone. "I've learned all I wanted to."

"You mean you'll always have Ted, in case things go wrong with your plane?" asked Linda. It was the first time she had spoken since she had heard the breath taking news.

"That's about it. I could never hope to learn as much as he knows. Besides, I don't want to. Just have a license to fly – that's my ambition."