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Updated: May 28, 2025
"You come to Aunt Johnnie a minute," said she, "you fat old muggins! Look at him, Shandon. He knows I'm strange. Yes, 'course you do! He wants to go back to you, Shandy. Well, what do you know about that? Say, dearie," continued Mrs. Larabee, in a lower tone, "you've got a terrible handsome boy, and what's more, he's Dan's image." Mrs. Waters gathered the child close to her heart.
The ice is what you might call broken between the whole crowd of us and Shandon Waters. She's sitting there holding Danny and smiling softly at any one who peeks in!" And, her voice thickening suddenly with tears on the last words, Mrs. Larabee burst out crying and fumbled in her unaccustomed grandeur for a handkerchief.
Larabee announced a cut in wages at his factory, and nearly caused a strike. But he was firm, and by reducing the pittance earned by the luckless operatives he managed to save a few hundred dollars which promptly went into the airship that is, what Larson did not keep for himself. But Uncle Ezra's airship was being built, which fact, when it became known, caused much comment.
He had to prove that he was really capable of handling it, and he nearly came to grief in doing this, as many a better youth might have done. Dick's uncle, Ezra Larabee, of Dankville, was a rich man, but a miser. He was not in sympathy with Dick, nor with the plans his sister, Dick's mother, had made for her son.
And there he laid before the miserly man a plan which Uncle Ezra eventually took up, strange as it may seen. It was the bait of the twenty thousand dollar prize that "took," in his case. Larson had some trouble in reaching Mr. Larabee, who was a bit shy of strangers. Larabee asked: "Does he look like an agent?" "No, Ez, I can't say he does." "Does he look like a collector?"
"You can put in a requisition for this, I suppose," suggested the lieutenant. "I don't know whether Uncle Sam ought to reimburse you, or we, personally." "Don't mention it!" exclaimed Dick. "I'm always willing to pay for damages, though I suppose if my Uncle Ezra Larabee was here he'd haggle with that farmer and make him throw in a pig or two for luck."
It conveyed the greeting of the aero-club, and stated that a number of competing craft were on their way west. "The Larabee leads, according to last reports," read Innis. "That must be Uncle Ezra's machine," murmured Dick. "He's right after us. Well, we'd better get on our course again." "I think so," agreed Mr. Vardon.
As he started to enter the part of the factory whither he had been directed, his uncle, plainly much excited, came out. "Stop where you be, Nephew Richard!" he warned. "Don't come in here! Stay back!" "Why, what in the world is the matter?" asked Dick. "Is something going to blow up?" Uncle Ezra Larabee stood fairly glaring at his nephew. The crabbed old man seemed strangely excited.
"Dick, will you forgive me, and shake hands?" "Surely, Uncle Ezra," and as their hands met, Grit, who had been eyeing Mr. Larabee narrowly, uttered a joyful bark, and actually wagged his tail at Uncle Ezra. "Grit, you shake hands, too," ordered Dick, and though Uncle Ezra was a little diffident at first, he grasped the extended paw of the bulldog. They were friends for the first time.
Only Johnnie Larabee, the warm-hearted little wife of the village hotel keeper, persevered and was rewarded by Shandon's bitter confidence, given while they rode up to the ridge to look up some roaming steer, perhaps, or down by the peach-cutting sheds, while Shandon supervised a hundred "hands."
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