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.
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