The Little Nassau was already filled and straining at the guys. The parachute lay
flat along the ground and beyond it the trapeze. I tossed aside my overcoat, took
my position, and gave the signal to let go. As you know, the first rush upward
from the earth is very sudden, and this time the balloon, when it first caught the
wind, heeled violently over and was longer than usual in righting. I looked down
at the old familiar sight of the world rushing away from me. And there were the
thousands of people, every face silently upturned. And the silence startled me, for,
as crowds went, this was the time for them to catch their first breath and send up a
roar of applause. But there was no hand-clapping, whistling, cheering-only
silence. And instead, clear as a bell and distinct, without the slightest shake or
quaver, came George’s voice through the megaphone:
“Ride her down, Charley! Ride the balloon down!”
What had happened? I waved my hand to show that I had heard, and began to
think. Had something gone wrong with the parachute? Why should I ride the
balloon down instead of making the jump which thousands were waiting to see?
What was the matter? And as I puzzled, I received another start. The earth was a
thousand feet beneath, and yet I heard a child crying softly, and seemingly very
DUTCH COURAGE AND OTHER STORIES
47
close to hand. And though the Little Nassau
was shooting skyward like a rocket, the
crying did not grow fainter and fainter and
die away. I confess I was almost on the
edge of a funk, when, unconsciously
following up the noise with my eyes, I
looked above me and saw a boy astride the
sandbag which was to bring the Little
Nassau to earth. And it was the same little
boy I had seen struggling with the two
girls—his sisters, as I afterward learned.
There he was, astride the sandbag and
holding on to the rope for dear life. A puff
of wind heeled the balloon slightly, and he
swung out into space for ten or a dozen feet,
and back again, fetching up against the tight
canvas with a thud which even shook me,
thirty feet or more beneath. I thought to see
him dashed loose, but he clung on and
whimpered. They told me afterward, how,
at the moment they were casting off the
balloon, the little fellow had torn away from
his sisters, ducked under the rope, and
deliberately jumped astride the sandbag. It
has always been a wonder to me that he was
not jerked off in the first rush.
Well, I felt sick all over as I looked at him there, and I understood why the
balloon had taken longer to right itself, and why George had called after me to
ride her down. Should I cut loose with the parachute, the bag would at once turn
upside down, empty itself, and begin its swift descent. The only hope lay in my
riding her down and in the boy holding on. There was no possible way for me to
reach him. No man could climb the slim, closed parachute; and even if a man
could, and made the mouth of the balloon, what could he do? Straight out, and
fifteen feet away, trailed the boy on his ticklish perch, and those fifteen feet were
empty space.
I thought far more quickly than it takes to tell all this, and realized on the instant
that the boy’s attention must be called away from his terrible danger. Exercising
all the self-control I possessed, and striving to make myself very calm, I said
cheerily:
“Hello, up there, who are you?”
DUTCH COURAGE AND OTHER STORIES
48
He looked down at me, choking back his tears and brightening up, but just then
the balloon ran into a cross-current, turned half around and lay over. This set him
swinging back and forth, and he fetched the canvas another bump. Then he began
to cry again.
“Isn’t it great?” I asked heartily, as though it was the most enjoyable thing in the
world; and, without waiting for him to answer: “What’s your name?”
“Tommy Dermott,” he answered.
“Glad to make your acquaintance, Tommy Dermott,” I went on. “But I’d like to
know who said you could ride up with me?”
He laughed and said he just thought he’d ride up for the fun of it. And so we went
on, I sick with fear for him, and cudgeling my brains to keep up the conversation.
I knew that it was all I could do, and that his life depended upon my ability to
keep his mind off his danger. I pointed out to him the great panorama spreading
away to the horizon and four thousand feet beneath us. There lay San Francisco
Bay like a great placid lake, the haze of smoke over the city, the Golden Gate, the
ocean fog-rim beyond, and Mount Tamalpais over all, clear-cut and sharp against
the sky. Directly below us I could see a buggy, apparently crawling, but I knew
from experience that the men in it were lashing the horses on our trail.
But he grew tired of looking around, and I could see he was beginning to get
frightened.
“How would you like to go in for the business?” I asked.
He cheered up at once and asked “Do you get good pay?”
But the Little Nassau, beginning to cool, had started on its long descent, and ran
into counter currents which bobbed it roughly about. This swung the boy around
pretty lively, smashing him into the bag once quite severely. His lip began to
tremble at this, and he was crying again. I tried to joke and laugh, but it was no
use. His pluck was oozing out, and at any moment I was prepared to see him go
shooting past me.
I was in despair. Then, suddenly, I remembered how one fright could destroy
another fright, and I frowned up at him and shouted sternly:
“You just hold on to that rope! If you don’t I’ll thrash you within an inch of your
life when I get you down on the ground! Understand?”
“Ye-ye-yes, sir,” he whimpered, and I saw that the thing had worked. I was nearer
to him than the earth, and he was more afraid of me than of falling.
DUTCH COURAGE AND OTHER STORIES
49
“Why, you’ve got a snap up there on that soft bag,” I rattled on.
“Yes;” I assured him, “this bar down here is hard and narrow, and it hurts to sit on
it.”
Then a thought struck him, and he forgot all about his aching fingers.
“When are you going to jump?” he asked. “That’s what I came up to see.”
I was sorry to disappoint him, but I wasn’t going to make any jump.
But he objected to that. “It said so in the papers,” he said.
“I don’t care,” I answered. “I’m feeling sort of lazy today, and I’m just going to
ride down the balloon. It’s my balloon and I guess I can do as I please about it.
And, anyway, we’re almost down now.”
And we were, too, and sinking fast. And right there and then that youngster began
to argue with me as to whether it was right for me to disappoint the people, and to
urge their claims upon me. And it was with a happy heart that I held up my end of
it, justifying myself in a thousand different ways, till we shot over a grove of
eucalyptus trees and dipped to meet the earth.
“Hold on tight!” I shouted, swinging down from the trapeze by my hands in order
to make a landing on my feet.
We skimmed past a barn, missed a mesh of clothesline, frightened the barnyard
chickens into a panic, and rose up again clear over a haystack-all this almost
quicker than it takes to tell. Then we came down in an orchard, and when my feet
had touched the ground I fetched up the balloon by a couple of turns of the
trapeze around an apple tree.
I have had my balloon catch fire in mid air, I have hung on the cornice of a tenstory
house, I have dropped like a bullet for six hundred feet when a parachute
was slow in opening; but never have I felt so weak and faint and sick as when I
staggered toward the unscratched boy and gripped him by the arm.
“Tommy Dermott,” I said, when I had got my nerves back somewhat. “Tommy
Dermott, I’m going to lay you across my knee and give you the greatest thrashing
a boy ever got in the world’s history.”
“No, you don’t,” he answered, squirming around. “You said you wouldn’t if I held
on tight.”
“That’s all right,” I said, “but I’m going to, just the same. The fellows who go up
in balloons are bad, unprincipled men, and I’m going