Air pilots -- Juvenile fiction; Mystery and detective stories; Reporters and reporting -- Juvenile fiction
As he approached the island, he saw a group of people clustered about
the bootlegger’s airplane. They were examining it carefully. Evidently
they had been much mystified by what had taken place. They came
thronging eagerly about Jimmy’s plane as he set it down in the snow.
Jimmy stepped from his ship, with the medicines in his hand. “I am from
the New York _Morning Press_,” he said. “We received a despatch a few
hours ago from Smithville, saying that you were cut off here by the ice
and that people were very sick with pneumonia and lacked medicines. My
paper has sent you the drugs you need, and some directions for using
them.”
When Jimmy saw the expressions of gratitude that came on the faces of
the people about him, he felt that he was more than repaid for anything
he had done or could do to help them.
“Come with us,” they said. “We want you to talk to some of the people
that are in trouble.”
Jimmy went with them. Neighbors were caring for the stricken family. One
or two of the ailing ones were too sick to be seen. But Jimmy was able
to talk briefly to the mother of the family and the oldest boy. He got
from them their story, which was a startling tale in itself. The entire
family of seven—father, mother, and five children—had gone, some days
previously, to pay a visit to friends on the mainland. The lake was not
then frozen so solidly. There were wide, open leads of water, which made
it easily possible to reach the mainland. The visit lasted several days.
Just before the return home, the great cold wave came. When they were
half-way to the island, their motor went dead. A storm came up, and they
drifted helplessly before it for twelve hours. The waves washed into
their boat until they were all drenched. They could do nothing but sit
in their boat and pray that the ice would not crush it. Their situation
had finally been discovered, and hardy neighbors, taking their lives in
their hands, had launched the most powerful boat on the island and
fought their way to them. Thus their lives were saved for the time
being, although every one of the seven was stricken with pneumonia, and
it looked as though two of the seven might die. There was just a chance
that the arrival of the medicine might arrest the disease.
Jimmy was powerfully affected by this recital. He had seldom been so
close to human suffering. Never had he been in touch with people so
pitifully situated as these folks had been. Glad, indeed, was he that he
had attempted the journey, and that there were great newspapers like his
own, to take upon themselves the relief of suffering and the righting of
wrong when other agencies failed.
One thing was sure, Jimmy thought. These suffering ones certainly must
have medical treatment. And so, taking a hasty departure, he flew back
to Smithville and got into touch with his chief, setting the story
before him fully.
“Get a doctor and rush him to the island,” Mr. Johnson wired back.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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