SANTOS-DUMONT AND HIS AIR-SHIP


There was a boy in far-away Brazil who played with his friends the game
of "Pigeon Flies."

In this pastime the boy who is "it" calls out "pigeon flies," or "bat
flies," and the others raise their fingers; but if he should call "fox
flies," and one of his mates should raise his hand, that boy would have
to pay a forfeit.

The Brazilian boy, however, insisted on raising his finger when the
catchwords "man flies" were called, and firmly protested against paying
a forfeit.

Alberto Santos-Dumont, even in those early days, was sure that if man
did not fly then he would some day.

Many an imaginative boy with a mechanical turn of mind has dreamed and
planned wonderful machines that would carry him triumphantly over the
tree-tops, and when the tug of the kite-string has been felt has wished
that it would pull him up in the air and carry him soaring among the
clouds. Santos-Dumont was just such a boy, and he spent much time in
setting miniature balloons afloat, and in launching tiny air-ships
actuated by twisted rubber bands. But he never outgrew this interest in
overhead sailing, and his dreams turned into practical working
inventions that enabled him to do what never a mortal man had done
before--that is, move about at will in the air.