there were no dispatches
for the General to read and no classes waiting for the Major--in fact,
as though there was no military discipline at all. But as the General
said, what was the use of being a General, anyway, if it didn't give you
some privileges?

But at last the General jingled away, happy and quite full up with
delicious coffee and things, and thinking Major Sherman was a lucky dog
anyhow to have that little wife and fine boy. Before he left he gave an
order for a guard for the airplane standing so calmly in the small
field.

Close on his departure came the ambulance, and Major Sherman went off
with Ernest to the Hospital for an X-ray of his broken arm.

Bill and his mother were alone.

Together they hustled the dishes into the kitchen and cleared up the
living-room. Then Mrs. Sherman sat down in her favorite corner on the
couch and Bill threw himself beside her with his tousled head in her
lap.

"Goodness, Billy, you certainly _have_ grown!" she said. "Your legs
trail way off the end, and when you went to school you didn't reach to
the edge."

"Oh, come now, mother," said Bill, "quit fooling! I have grown about an
inch."

"More than that," insisted Mrs. Sherman. "You are taller than I am now.
What an awful time I am going to have bossing you around now that you
are so big."

"You never _did_ boss me," boasted Bill. "You just twisted me around
your little finger."

"I won't be slandered!" said Mrs. Sherman, pulling his hair. "You are
tired now and I should think you would like a nice hot bath and a good
long sleep."

"That does sound good, Mummy. We will have to stay here for awhile, you
know, because of the quarantine. But we will get rested up in, a few
hours."

"Yes, you _must_ get rested," said Mrs. Sherman, "because as soon as you
feel right, I want you to take me for a ride in that nice, lovely
airplane."

Bill sat up. "_What!_" he cried. "You--fly!"

Mrs. Sherman nodded, smiling. "Yes, _me_--fly!" she mimicked. "Bill, I
am converted!"

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Battling the Clouds, by Captain Frank Cobb

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