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Linda Carlton's Island Adventure
Chapter I
The "Ladybug"
"There's a young lady here to see you, Linda," announced Miss Emily Carlton, coming into her niece's room the morning after the latter's return from the St. Louis Ground School. The girl had just graduated, winning both commercial and transport licenses, and, besides that, she was registered as the only feminine airplane mechanic in the country.
"Who is she, Auntie?" inquired Linda, rubbing her eyes and peering out the window into the lovely June sunshine. What a wonderful day! Too beautiful to spend on the ground! But she sighed as she recalled that at the moment she did not possess a plane.
"A reporter, I believe," replied the older woman. "Miss Hawkins, from the 'News'."
"But I haven't done anything to get into the newspapers," objected Linda.
"My dear child, you don't have to! Aren't you the only girl who ever flew the Atlantic alone? That's enough to keep you in the spotlight forever."
"But I don't like spot-lights," Linda insisted, starting to dress. "Couldn't you get rid of her, Auntie?"
Miss Carlton shook her head.
"I tried to, dear. But she wouldn't go. She wants to know your summer plans. I told her you'd probably just spend a quiet vacation with me at Green Falls, where we were last year. But she didn't believe me. She said you weren't the type to take your vacations quietly."
Linda laughed.
"I guess she's right, Aunt Emily."
The latter looked troubled. She had been trying for a year – ever since Linda's father had given her an Arrow Pursuit bi-plane for graduation – to keep the girl out of the air as much as possible, but she had not succeeded. The Carltons were comfortably well-off, and it was Miss Carlton's wish that Linda go in for society, and make a good marriage. But though Linda enjoyed occasional parties as much as any normal young person, she had a serious purpose in life, to make flying her career just as a young man would.
"You won't go to Green Falls – with all the rest of the crowd?" asked Miss Carlton, anxiously.
"I can't, Aunt Emily. I – I – can't spare the time. I am trying to get a job."
"A job? But you don't need money. Your father's business is dong nicely – "
"Oh, it isn't the money I want," interrupted the girl. "It's the experience."
Linda finished dressing and came down stairs to meet the young woman who was waiting for her. The latter insisted that she eat her breakfast while they talked.
"Honestly, I haven't done a thing interesting to the world since my ocean flight!" Linda said. "Except win my licenses, and all the graduates' names have already been listed in the papers."
The reporter smiled at her as if she were a child.
"My dear girl," she explained, "you are front-page news now, no matter what you do. You are Queen of the Air, and will be until some other woman does something more daring than your flight to Paris alone. So everything you do interests the public. Naturally they want to know what you are planning for the summer. Flying to South America, or Alaska? And what kind of plane do you intend to buy next, since you sold your Bellanca in Paris?"
Linda yawned, and fingered her mail – a great pile of letters beside her plate. Invitations, mostly from the younger set in Spring City, for she was very popular.
"I'm afraid I don't know yet," she replied, simply.
"Maybe if you read your mail – " suggested the reporter.
"She is to be a bridesmaid at Miss Katherine Clavering's wedding next week," supplied Miss Carlton, entering the dining-room. As usual, social events were all-important to her, especially affairs with the Claverings, the richest people in Spring City. Katherine, or "Kitty," as her friends all called her, was to be married to Lt. Hulbert of the U. S. Flying Corps, and her brother Ralph made no secret of his devotion for Linda. If he had had his way, they would have been married last Christmas, and aviation jobs would be out of the question for Linda Carlton at the present time.
The girl searched through her mail rapidly, and picked out a letter which interested her above all others. It was from the Pitcairn Autogiro Company in the East.
As she read it, her blue eyes lighted up with enthusiasm, and she examined the enclosed circular with excited interest, completely forgetting her visitor.
The reporter waited patiently for a minute or two.
"Well, what's it all about, Miss Carlton?" she finally inquired.
Linda looked up at her as if she were startled, and suddenly remembered her caller. She handed her the circular.
"I am going to buy an autogiro," she announced, with decision.
"A what?" demanded her aunt, thinking Linda referred to some kind of automobile. "A new car?"
The reporter smiled.
"A flying bug?" she demanded.
Miss Carlton gasped in horror. A bug! What would her niece be up to next?
"Linda!" she exclaimed.
"It's a plane, Aunt Emily," the girl explained. "You ought to like it. It's the very safest kind there is. In the eight or nine years since it was invented, nobody has been killed with one."
Miss Carlton looked doubtful.
"No airplane is safe," she remarked.
"This isn't an airplane. It's an autogiro."
"But it flies?"
"Of course."
Linda showed her the picture. It was indeed a queer looking object, with its wind-mill-like arrangement on top, and its absence of big wings. As the reporter had observed, its appearance was very like a huge bug.
"They do say it's unusually safe," corroborated the latter. "You'll have to take a ride in it, Miss Carlton."
"Not I!" protested the older woman. "Firm earth is good enough for me… No, it looks dangerous enough to me."
Linda smiled; she could never convince her aunt of the joy of flying, or of the minimum risk, if one were a careful pilot. She was glad that her father was more broad-minded; if he weren't, she would still be on the ground.
"And where will you go with your Flying Bug, Miss Carlton?" asked the reporter, tapping her pencil on her note-book.
"Not on any long flight," replied the girl, to her aunt's relief. "My aim is to get some sort of aviation job."
"What would you like to do?"
"Anything connected with planes. I prefer flying, but I'd be satisfied at the beginning with ground work… If you will write down your telephone number, Miss Hawkins, I will call you up when I have decided definitely just what my plans will be."
"Thank you very much!" exclaimed the other girl, rising. "I think you are a peach, Miss Carlton. Some celebrities are so mean to us reporters."
"I'm afraid I'm not a real celebrity," laughed Linda. "I'll be forgotten by the public this time next year. I sincerely hope that more and more girls and women will be doing things in aviation, so that my little stunt will seem trivial. That is progress, you know."
Scarcely had the visitor gone before Miss Carlton was begging Linda to open her other letters.
"The Junior League picnic is tomorrow," she said. "And Dot Crowley is giving a luncheon in honor of Kitty Clavering… There are probably a lot more things, too…"
Rather listlessly Linda opened her letters. It was not the same, she thought, without Louise to share everything. Louise Haydock – Louise Mackay now – had been her chum all through school, where they were so inseparable that they were always referred to by their friends as the "double Ls." The other girl's marriage had meant a sharp break to Linda, for the Mackays had moved to Wichita, Kansas, where Ted was employed as a flyer.
As if Miss Carlton understood her niece's thoughts, she remarked that Louise was coming