Skyrider | Page 7

sight of you, you great bully!" Mary V ducked past him and ran.
"I'll help you look it up in the dictionary if you don't know how," Johnny called after her maliciously, not at all minding the epithet she had hurled at him. He went on more cheerfully, telling himself unchivalrously that he had got Mary V's goat, all right. He began to whistle under his breath, until he discovered that he was whistling "Auld Lang Syne," and was mentally fitting to the tune the words: "_Before I die, I'll ride the sky. I'll part the clouds like foam!_"
He stopped whistling then, but the words went on repeating themselves over and over in his mind. "And by gosh, I will too," he stated defiantly. "I'll show 'em, the darned mutts! They can yawp and chortle and call me Skyrider as if it was a joke. That's as much as they know, the ignorant boobs. Why, they couldn't tell an aileron from an elevator if it was to save their lives!--and still they think I'm crazy and don't know anything. Why, darn 'em, they'll pay money some day to see me fly! Boy, I'd like to circle over this ranch at about three or four thousand feet, and then do a loop or two and volplane right down at 'em! Gosh, they'd be hunting holes to crawl into before I was through with 'em! I will, too--"
Johnny went off into a pet daydream and was almost happy for a little while. Some day the Rolling R boys would be telling with pride how they used to know Johnny Jewel, the wonderful birdman that had his picture in all the papers and was getting thousands of dollars for exhibition flights. Tex, Aleck, Bud, Bill--Mary V, too, gol darn her!--would go around bragging just because they used to know him! And right then he'd sure play even for some of the insults they were handing him now.
"Mary V Selmer? Let's see--the name sounds familiar, somehow. O-oh! You mean that little red-headed ranch girl from Arizona? Oh-h, yes! Well, give her a free pass--but I mustn't be bothered personally with her. The girl's all right, but no training, no manners. Hick stuff; no class, you understand. But give her a good seat, where she can view the getaway."
Tex, Aleck, Bud, and Bill--little Curley was all right; Curley could have a job as watchman at the hangar. But the rest of the bunch could goggle at him from a distance and be darned to them. Old Sudden too. He'd be kind of nice to old Sudden--nice in an offhand, indifferent kind of way. But Mary V could get down on her knees, and he wouldn't be nice to her. He should say not!
So dreamed Johnny Jewel, all the way to the mail box out by the main road, and nearly all the way back again. But then his ears were assailed with lugubrious singing:
"An' dlead the Great Bear ho-o-ome, An' dlead the Great Bear hoo-me, I'll brand each star with the Rollin' R, An-n dlead the Great Bear home!"
That was Bud's contribution.
"Aw, for gosh sake, shut up!" yelled Johnny, his temper rising again.
From the bungalow, when he passed it on his way to the bunk house, came the measured thump-thump of a piano playing the same old tune with a stress meant to mock him and madden him.
"Then if she'll smile I'll stop awhile, And kiss her snow-white hand."
That was Mary V, singing at the top of her voice, and Johnny walked stiff-backed down the path. He wanted to turn and repeat to Mary V what he had shouted to Bud, but he refrained, though not from any chivalry, I am sorry to say. Johnny feared that it would be playing into her hand too much if he took that much notice of her. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing he heard her.
"It would be grand to kiss 'er hand, Her-rr snow-white hand if I had the sand,"
Bud finished unctuously, adjusting the tune to fit the words.
Johnny swore, flung open the low door of the bunk house, went in, and slammed it shut after him, and began to pack his personal belongings. Presently Tex came in, warbling like a lovesick crow:
"I'll cir-cle high 's if pass-in' by, Then vol-lup bank-an' la-a-and--"
"So will this la-and," Johnny said viciously and threw one of his new riding boots straight at the warbler. "For gosh sake, lay off that stuff!"
Tex caught the boot dexterously without interrupting his song, except that he forgot the words and sang ta-da-da-da to the end of the verse.
"Po'try was wrote to be read," he replied sententiously when he had finished. "And tunes was made to be sung. And yo' all oughta be proud to death at the way yo' all made a hit