"That's what I was afraid of first," said Uncle Ezra, "and I didn't want to go into the scheme. But this young feller, Lieutenant Larson, he proved to me different. They can't fall. If your engine stops all you got to do is to come down like a feather. He used some funny word, but I can't think of it now. But it's safe--it's safer than farming, he claims. Most any time on a farm a bull may gore you, or a threshing engine blow up. But there's nothing like that in an airship. "Besides, think of the twenty thousand dollars I'm going to get," he added as a final argument. "You're not sure of it," objected his wife. "Oh, yes I be!" he boasted. "Then I'm going into the airship business. Well, now I've told you, I'm going to sleep again." "As if anyone could sleep after hearin' such news," she sighed. "I jest know suthin' will happen! And think what everybody will say about you! They'll say you're crazy!" "Let 'em!" he replied, tranquilly. "They won't say so when I get that twenty thousand dollars!" "But can't you get the money any easier way?" she wanted to know. "How, I'd like to know? All I got to do to get this, is to get an airship to fly from New York to San Francisco." "Why Ezra Larabee!" she exclaimed. "Now I'm sure you're not right in your head. You'll have the doctor in the mornin'." "Oh, no, I won't!" he declared. "Don't catch me wasting any money on doctors. I'm all right." How Aunt Samantha managed to get to sleep again she never knew. But she did, though her rest was marred by visions of airships and balloons turning upside down and spilling Mr. Larabee all over the landscape. Mrs. Larabee renewed her objections in the morning, but her husband was firm. He had decided to have an airship built to compete for the big prize, and Larson was going to do the work. Just what arguments the aviator had used to win over Uncle Ezra none but he himself knew. I rather think it was the harping constantly on the twenty thousand dollar prize. That Mr. Larabee was hard to convince may easily be imagined. In fact it was learned, afterward, that the lieutenant almost gave up the attempt at one time. But he was persistent, to gain his own ends at least, and talked earnestly. Finally Uncle Ezra gave a rather grudging consent to the scheme, but he stipulated that only a certain sum be spent, and that a comparatively small one. To this the lieutenant agreed, but I fancy with a mental reservation which meant that he would get more if he could. At any rate preparations for building the craft, in an unused part of Uncle Ezra's woolen mill at Dankville, went on apace. I say apace, and yet I must change that. Uncle Ezra, with his usual "closeness" regarding money, rather hampered Larson's plans. "What do you reckon an airship ought to cost?" Mr. Larabee had asked when he first decided he would undertake it. "Oh, I can make a good one for three thousand dollars," had been the answer of the former lieutenant.