"Father, this is Mr. Bel--Smith. He flew over here this morning," and
Nan suddenly remembered that she was not a wood nymph and that this
mountain in Albemarle was not Helicon. Also that it was not a very usual
thing for well-brought-up young ladies to go flying with strange young
men before breakfast, even if strange young men did almost have Greek
profiles. For the first time that morning Nan blushed. Her shyness
returned. She could hardly believe that it was she, Nan Carter, who had
been so bold. Her Bellerophon was plain Tom Smith and Pegasus was a very
modern flying machine lying up in Josephus's pasture, that pasture on
top of a prosaic mountain in Albemarle County and not Mount Helicon.
The fountain of Pirene was nothing but the spring that fed the
reservoir from which they got the water supply for the shower bath
where those boys were making such an unearthly racket. She was not a
wood nymph--there were no wood nymphs--but just a sentimental little
girl of sixteen who no doubt needed a good talking to and a reprimand
for being so very imprudent. What would her mother say to such an
escapade?
With all of Mrs. Carter's delicate spirituelle appearance there was
nothing poetical in her make-up. She would never understand this talk of
forgetting that one was not a wood nymph. There was more chance of the
father's sympathy. Nan took the bull by the horns and plunged into her
confession.
"Father, I have been up in Mr. Bel--Smith's flying machine. I don't know
what made me do it except I just--it was so early--I--I forgot it wasn't
a flying horse."
Mr. Carter looked at his little daughter with a smile of extreme
tenderness. He had taken flights on Pegasus himself in days gone by. He
seldom mounted him now--the burden of making a living had almost made
him forget that Pegasus was not a plough horse--not quite, however, and
now as his little girl stood in front of him, her hair all ruffled by
her flight, her cheeks flushed and in her great brown eyes the shadow of
her dream, he understood.
"It is still early in the morning, honey, for you--no doubt the
aeroplane is Pegasus. I envy you the experience. Everyone might not
see it as I do, however, so you and Mr. Belsmith and I had better keep
it to ourselves," and he shook the birdman's hand.
"Smith is my name--Tom Smith," and the young man smiled into the eyes of
the older man.
"I am very glad to see you, and just as soon as I take this coffee to
my wife, I will come and do the honors of the camp," and Robert Carter
hastened off, thinking what a boon it would be to be young again in
this day of flying machines.
Nan found her tent about as she had left it. The inmates were still
asleep. "How strange," she said to herself, "that I should have been to
the top of Helicon and taken flight with Bellerophon on Pegasus while
these girls have slept on not knowing a thing about it! I wonder where
their astral bodies have been! Douglas looks so happy, poor dear, I
fancy hers has been in heaven."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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