Another bright young newspaperman in that vicinity didn’t grasp quite the full significance of what the Wrights were doing. The Dayton _Journal_ had a branch office at Xenia, about eleven miles from where the Wrights did their flying. The reporter in charge of that branch office was an enterprising lad, just out of college, who answered to the name of Fred C. Kelly. His eagle eye spotted an item about the Wrights and their flying-machine in a country weekly, the Osborn _Local_, published in a village a mile or two from the Huffman field. Did he investigate the story? No, he didn’t need to investigate it to feel sure it must be nonsense. The fact of human flight was still unacceptable and ridiculous even to professional humorists. The humorous weekly, _Puck_, in its issue of October 19, 1904--nearly a month after that first circular flight--published a joke, inspired presumably by absurd reports about two young men at Dayton: “When,” inquired the friend, “will you wing your first flight?” “Just as soon,” replied the flying-machine inventor, “as I can get the laws of gravitation repealed.” The significance of the first complete circular flight, on September 20, 1904, was not overlooked, however, by one man who witnessed it. That was A. I. Root, the Medina bee man. He had traveled by automobile the day before to Xenia, where he had a relative, and then went to the Huffman field, only a few miles away, to become better acquainted with the Wrights. His trip of 175 miles from Medina without serious difficulty with his machine was then almost a feat in itself. He had not needed any repairs until he reached Xenia. (Incidentally, he had remonstrated with the repair man he dealt with there, Mr. Baldner, for his frequent use of profanity; and he was impressed by the fact that no matter how puzzling or discouraging the problem, the Wrights never uttered a profane word.) After going to Huffman field, Root became more than ever interested in the Wrights and as he wished to see all he could of their work for a few days, he arranged for board and lodging at the Beard home across the road. (A little later he even offered to pay the Wrights $100 for material he had obtained from them for articles about their work--but they refused to accept any payment.) Root knew that the circular flight he had just witnessed was of prime importance, for it demonstrated that the airplane would have practical use. He wrote an eye-witness account of what the Wrights had done for the January 1 (1905) issue of his magazine, _Gleanings in Bee Culture_, and sent a marked copy to the editor of the _Scientific American_, with a letter telling the editor he was free to reprint the article. The editor wrote back that he had not received the marked copy. So Root sent another. But when the editor of the _Scientific American_ saw what Root had printed he paid no attention to it.