The Great Balloon Ascension by Keith Robertson

Part I

Tuesday, August 20th

I went to the library today and read everything that I could find on balloons. It seems the Army and Navy and Air Force and the weather service all use a lot of balloons. One of their troubles is that if they send a balloon up with instruments, such as thermometers and barometers, half the time they never get the balloon or the instruments back. Sometimes they send up bigger balloons with all sorts of complicated radio equipment which automatically sends back information. These are very expensive and if there’s much of a wind they often lose these too. Then of course there are the biggest balloons, which go up with a gondola that will carry a man. Naturally they always take a lot of precautions with these because the men who go up want to come back in one piece. They would not like to be lost with the balloon.

I’ve thought quite a bit about it and I’ve decided that I could do everybody a great service if I could develop a medium-size balloon, that would be very cheap but would carry some instrument which would always get back. I have what I think is a brilliant idea. I can send up homing pigeons in the balloon and they can fly back. Of course a pigeon wouldn’t be able to carry a very heavy instrument, so any thermometers or barometers that were sent up with the balloon would have to be small enough to be tied to the pigeon’s leg, but if I can work out all the other details the armed forces must think how to make small instruments.

A real trained homing pigeon would be best, naturally, but all pigeons usually find their way back home. I am not going to waste time finding just the right pigeon because I haven’t got much time. I have to fly back home next week. Uncle Al got the ticket today. There’ll be just time enough for me to finish my experiments in space research with my plastic balloon.

I asked Uncle AI about the pigeons again at dinner tonight. He says they would be able to find their way home from quite a distance. I’m sure they’ll do and I’m going to go as soon as it gets dark and catch a good healthy one.

I told Midge about my idea today and she thinks it sounds wonderful. She was a little doubtful at first that we would be able to work out all the details but before the day was over we had practically everything figured out. In fact, I think we should be able to send up our balloon tomorrow.

We took the pigeon that I caught last night and went down the road with it, carrying it in a basket. Then we let it out. It flew straight back home. I had put a red leg band around it so there wasn’t any mistake. There it was sitting on top of the barn. If I can, I’ll catch the same pigeon again tonight.

We found a round basket in Midge’s basement. I built a small cage for the pigeon. It has a little door that goes up and down. The problem of how to let the pigeon out after he has been up in the air for a while was a difficult one. And for a while I didn’t think we could solve it. Midge gave me the idea.

“We’ll have to put the pigeon to sleep somehow,” she said. “Then we can send an alarm clock up in the basket with him to wake him up after he’s been up for half an hour.”

Of course she was joking but it gave me an idea. Aunt Mabel has an old-fashioned round alarm clock upstairs in the guest room. She didn’t want to part with it at first but I offered to buy it and finally she gave it to me. When the alarm goes off, the little handle on the back that you use to wind the alarm goes around and around. I took a string and tied one end of it to the handle, and the other one to the little door of my pigeon cage. When the alarm goes off it winds up the string and it gradually raises the door. It looks a bit complicated and homemade but it works. Midge and I tried it three or four times and it opened the door every time. We are all ready and tomorrow is the great day.

Thursday, August 22nd

We had the great balloon ascension today. The balloon went up and it came down. I don’t know whether you would call it a success or not because it didn’t work out exactly as Midge and I had planned. I don’t think we will be as famous as I had hoped, but it isn’t really our fault. The best way to explain just why the experiment wasn’t completely successful is to tell everything that happened today.

It took us much longer to get the balloon ready than we had expected. There was a lot of work and also we had some interruptions. We spent a good part of the morning chasing Mr. Baines's sheep. We were busy working on the balloon, when suddenly these sheep walked through the woods and stood there staring at us.

They weren't bothering us so we let them graze, but then they went toward the road. Three of them started across just as a big green car came by. It was moving very fast and the driver didn’t even slow down. The sheep might be killed on the road.

We went across the street and tried to call Mr. Baines but no one answered the phone. I don’t know whether he was away or out in the fields.

We went back to see what had happened to the sheep but when we arrived they had disappeared. We thought they had gone back where they carne from but a few minutes later we heard a “baa”.

“They’re over at Apple’s,” said Midge.

I wanted to see exactly what Mr. Apple would do when he discovered the sheep and we took time out to go over to Mr. Apple’s house. The sheep weren’t in the front yard so we went on back and saw them in the back yard. There were the sheep, all eight of them, inside the wire fence that Mr. Apple had built. The gate had evidently been left open and they had simply walked in.

“I wonder why he hasn’t noticed them,” I said.

“I know,” said Midge. “They aren’t home. I saw them driving out in their car right after breakfast this morning.”

“If those sheep go into the front yard they’ll eat all the flowers,” I said. “Maybe I ought to close that gate. They can’t do any harm in there.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” said Midge, “I think we ought to do it for Mr. Baines rather than for Mr. Apple. It will keep his sheep from getting killed on the highway.”

I walked across the lawn, and closed the gate. The sheep were busily eating and didn’t look up.

About eleven o’clock Midge went over to her house for something and she called Mr. Baines again. This time Mrs. Baines answered. Mr. Baines had gone and would not be back until later. She said he would get the sheep as soon as he got home. That was settled, so we forgot about the sheep and went back to our balloon.

There’s no use going into all the details with the troubles we had. It took us a lot of time to tie the basket to the balloon, and to put my pigeon cage into the basket just right. We spent most of the morning at it.

Then we had quite a time getting the balloon inflated.

Finally we managed it. About three-thirty we had the balloon inflated just right. Everything looked promising.

I’d caught the same pigeon the night before and I got him and put him in the little cage. I took the alarm clock and set the alarm to go off in about fifteen minutes. The main idea was to prove that the experiment would work.

“What if it goes up too fast?” Midge asked.

“How can it go up too fast?” I said.

“Well, then, too far,” she said. “Supposing it goes up so far that the pigeon can’t breathe. Doesn’t the air get thinner the higher you go?”

I had to admit that it did but I doubted if our balloon would get up that high. However, Midge was worrying about it.

“Well, I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” I said. “We’ll put a couple of bricks in the gondola to add a little weight. We can let it go up a way on a rope to get an idea how far and how fast it will go up.”

The trouble was that we didn’t have a long rope. The balloon was tied with a piece of clothesline and that was only a few feet long.

“A really good strong rope would do the trick,” I said. “Do you suppose you could find one?”

“I think so,” Midge said and started to go across the street to her house. She had gone only a few feet when she turned around and said, “What about witnesses?”

“What do you mean, witnesses?”

“We ought to have someone who sees all this. Even the Wright brothers had a few people watching.”

I had to admit that she was right. The only trouble was that if we invited a lot of people over to see our great experiment and then it flopped, we would feel foolish. I didn’t know what to do.

“I know,” said Midge. “We can take pictures.”

That was a wonderful idea, and we both decided to get our cameras.

It was about twenty minutes to four when I walked into the kitchen. Aunt Mabel had just taken some cookies out of the oven but I was so excited that I didn’t wait to get one of them. I rushed upstairs, got my camera, and hurried back. Midge was crossing the street as I approached and we reached the barn together. Agony, the dog, as usual was running along with me.

We had tied the balloon out in the middle of the place where it would be clear of the trees when it started up.

We took pictures of our balloon and then I found several bricks. Since I had put the pigeon in his cage, all we had to do was put the bricks in the basket and let it make an experimental flight tied to Midge’s rope. We walked up to it, neither of us suspecting anything and so we were both surprised when we looked inside. There sitting in the basket was Siegfried, the Apples’ white cat. He had upset the alarm clock, and the cage, managed to get the door open somehow, and had killed the pigeon. When he saw us he looked at us waving his tail back and forth as though telling us to take the pigeon away from him.

I’ve never seen anybody as mad as Midge was. She was so mad she couldn’t say a word, which means that she was as mad as she can possibly get. She sputtered and stuttered and jumped up and down. I looked around for a stick. In the first place Siegfried is a big cat and I didn’t want to fight with him with my bare hands. And secondly I wanted the stick to give him a couple of good blows, but before I could find one Midge thought of something else.

“I hope you go up so high you never come back,” she said, and she took the rope. Just at that moment Agony either smelled the cat, or saw him, or heard him, or found out somehow what was going on. He came rushing up from behind me and made a leap. He landed in the basket, just as Midge pulled the rope. Midge said later that she was so angry she didn’t realize for a minute that Agony had jumped into the basket. By the time she did it was too late.

With both the cat and the dog, and of course the dead pigeon, in the basket, the balloon didn’t go up very fast. I did not try to catch the rope. I guess I didn’t understand what Midge had done for a minute. By this time the balloon was quite a way up in the air. I rushed over and made a leap for the end of the rope but just missed it.

“Agony’s in there!” I said to Midge.

Midge nodded. “Yes I know he is,” she said.

We both stood there like fools while the balloon kept getting higher and higher. We stood watching as it kept moving on towards the tops of the trees.

Part II

I doubt if either Agony or Siegfried knew what was happening for the first minute or two. The balloon moved upward. There was a scream from Agony. I suppose Siegfried scratched him. Then Siegfried’s head appeared above the edge of the basket. I think he was about to jump out but suddenly he saw he was up in the air and couldn’t, and after that I guess he was just too terrified to fight Agony any more.

“What are we going to do?” Midge asked in a scared voice.

“I don’t know,” I said.

The balloon was as high as the treetops and began drifting slowly over toward the Apple’s. Midge and I ran along after it. I don’t know what we planned to do but I felt I had to follow that balloon and get Agony down somehow.

The balloon just passed the big oak tree and then went over above Mr. Apple’s lawn. Midge and I followed as far as the Apples’ house. There was no wind and the balloon moved very slowly. If Agony hadn’t been in the basket it would have been a beautiful sight and I would have been proud of it. As it was I was just seared.

The balloon passed directly over the Apples’ house. As it did Siegfried raised his head over the edge of the basket and saw his chance. I’ll have to admit that he is a pretty smart cat. He didn’t hesitate but jumped. The basket was about eight feet above the roof but of course that was no jump at all for Siegfried. The roof is certainly not a very good place for a landing field. Only a cat could have done it with-out falling down. Somehow Siegfried was hanging up there. He man-aged to get one paw over the peak of the roof, pulled himself up and settled there. He was too scared to move.

I suppose Agony wondered what had become of the cat and he raised his head over the edge. It was the first time I’d seen him since he’d jumped in the basket and I imagine it was the first time he realized that he was up in the air. At the time, all I was worried about was that he might become panicky and jump.

“Stay in there, Agony,” I shouted. “We’ll get you down.”

I didn’t know how I was going to get him down but I was hoping. Up until this time Midge and I were fascinated by that sight of that balloon up in the air, and not really thinking at all. Slowly we began to come out of it.

“Well, I might as well take some pictures,” Midge said."Maybe I can win a prize with my picture."

“I’m going to go see if somebody can’t help us,” I said.

For the first time I halfway wished that Agony’s owner would appear and want his dog. I wished to see anyone who would help me get Agony back down to earth again. But no one did appear and I started running for home. At least I could ask Aunt Mabel for advice.

About halfway home I saw Mr. Ainsworth standing in his yard, looking up in the sky with a puzzled expression on his face,

“Is that contraption something of yours?” he asked.

I nodded. “It’s a balloon, but my dog got in the basket by mistake and I’ve got to get him down! Who do you think I should call? The state police? Do you suppose they could help me?”

“Maybe you’d better call out the Army and they could shoot it down.” Then suddenly he grinned. “That’s it,” he said. “That isn’t up so high. Maybe I can shoot it down for you. Come on.”

We hurried to his house where he got out his gun. Then we got in his car and drove down the road. Midge was back by the road by this time and we picked her up too.

The balloon had drifted on and was over the middle of a big lawn beyond the Apples’. We got out of the car and hurried into the lawn. Mr. Ainsworth looked around carefully and then up at the balloon.

I didn’t like the idea of his firing his gun in Agony’s direction. “Are you sure you can hit the balloon without hitting the basket?” I asked.

Mr. Ainsworth looked at me. “Son, I’ve hunted ducks for forty-five years. I may be sixty-seven years old but my hand’s still pretty steady. If I can’t hit that balloon without killing your dog, then I’ll take up knitting.”

He raised his gun and fired. He waited a second and fired twice more.

“I think I've hit that bag but I’ll give it a couple of more shots and then we’ll wait and see what happens.”

The balloon was still rising slowly. We followed a short distance behind. Mr. Ainsworth fired three times more.

“That’s got at least four or five holes in it,” he said. “The trouble is that there isn’t much pressure inside the bag to force the gas out.”

“If the holes are up near the top, the gas will go out,” I said. “Of course it may take some time.”

“All right, we’ll make sure there’s some near the top,” he said, and he fired another three shots.

We all stood at the fence for several minutes, watching the balloon closely.

“I think it’s settling a little,” said Mr. Ainsworth. “It’s certainly not rising any more, You go on ahead and follow it. I’ll go get in the car and drive around and down the road.”

Mr. Ainsworth was right. It was fifteen minutes later before we saw the balloon was settling, and I had to follow it about half a mile beyond the road, but it did settle. It came down rather fast and for a few minutes I was scared it would come down too fast and that Agony would be hurt. The basket landed with a bump but Agony jumped out safe and sound. He was really glad to see me.

Mr. Ainsworth came up and together we examined the plastic bag. It was full of holes.

“I’m certainly glad I found you,” I said. “You saved Agony’s life.”

“I enjoyed doing it,” said Mr. Ainsworth. “It isn’t every day that a man gets to shoot down a balloon carrying a dog.”

Mr. Ainsworth left us at the barn. There wasn’t much left of all our equipment. The balloon was full of holes, the pigeon was dead, the alarm clock didn’t seem to work any more, and the basket hadn’t been much good to begin with. Both Midge and I felt pretty discouraged.

“Some day I’ll kill that cat,” Midge said.

“Hey, what about the cat?” I asked. “Do you suppose he’s still up there on the roof?”

We hurried over to the Apples’ house. Siegfried was still hanging high up on the roof. He knew better than to move because the roof was slippery.

“How do you suppose the Apples are going to get him down from there?”

“I think they should get him down the same way we got Agony down,” Midge said. “Shoot him down.”

“The Apples still aren’t home,” I said, looking at their empty garage.

“They’ll have a nice pleasant surprise when they do get back,” Midge said and started laughing. “I’ll bet that will keep Mr. Apple busy for a while — figuring out how that cat got up there.”

It was a funny idea and we both sat down and laughed about it for a while. There just wasn’t any possible way that cat could have got up there except by being dropped from an airplane or balloon.

“Don’t worry,” said Midge. “They’ll blame us anyhow. Mrs. Apple will say that you picked up the cat by the tail and threw him up there.”

“I wonder how soon they’ll be back,” I said. “Sooner or later that cat will either try to make a move or he’ll get so tired he can’t hang on any longer. If he falls he’ll be killed.”

“I don’t feel a bit sorry for him,” Midge said.

She did though, and we both got more and more worried.

“They might stay out to dinner,” I said. “They’ve been gone since early this morning.”

“All right,” Midge said finally. “I suppose we’d better call the Fire Department. I’ll do it but I’m not going to say who I am, because whatever happens the Apples are going to be awfully angry.”

The ladder truck arrived at about quarter to five, just when people began returning from work. Everyone thought there was a fire and stopped. People are naturally curious and I guess they would as soon see a cat rescued as watch a fire. Anyhow, fifteen minutes later there were about thirty cars parked beside the road and there was a whole group gathered on Mr. Apple’s lawn, but Midge and I stayed very carefully aside. We didn’t see how anyone could connect us with that cat on the roof, and we wanted to keep it that way.

The firemen got the ladder up and a man was halfway up to the edge of the roof when the Apples came home. Mr. Apple was too scared to be angry first. I suppose he thought his house was on fire. They got out of the car and one of the firemen told Mrs. Apple the cause of all the excitement. She looked up, and when she saw Siegfried on the peak of the roof she very nearly fainted. Mr. Apple and a fireman helped her over to a garden bench where she sat down.

“How do you suppose that cat got up there?” one of the firemen asked.

Mr. Apple just shook his head. We could hear everyone talking from where we stood and they all seemed to be puzzled.

After the fireman reached the edge of the roof he still had to put up another short ladder to get to Siegfried. He finally did it, and Siegfried was so glad to get down that he didn’t scratch the fireman.

Everything had gone very well up to this point. The Apples were acting almost human. Mrs. Apple was full of thanks to the fireman and Mr. Apple hadn’t screamed at anybody for being on his lawn. A tall, sandy-haired man who had appeared with the Apples stood over watching everything and saying nothing. Just when all the excitement was over there were a couple of loud baas from the big back yard. Midge and I looked at each other in surprise. Mr. Baines still hadn’t come for his sheep.

Mr. Apple was surprised too, and then he was suspicious. He hurried over to the back yard. If you saw him you would have thought he was being murdered. He jumped up and down and shouted something that I couldn’t understand. I guess everybody else thought the same thing and they all hurried over to find out what was the matter. Of course none of them understood why he was so mad. Midge and I hurried back to see what he would do. We arrived just in time to see him open the gate and rush inside this wire fence. He screamed and shouted and waved his arms. The sheep rushed through the gate and went running out into the front yard.

There wasn’t much left of the grass inside the fence. After all, eight sheep had been there all day and they had had nothing to do but eat. It was cropped down almost to the roots. They had made a very thorough and very clean job of it. It wouldn’t need mowing for a long time. Mr. Apple pointed at the ground, dancing up and down, and I wasn’t certain whether he was going to cry or blow up. The sandy-haired man walked over, went through the gate, and stood talking with Apple for several minutes. Mr. Apple calmed down a little bit but he was still quite excited. The sheep went baaing off down the road but, as I said to Midge, I thought we had done our duty by them.

Some of the people stood around a few minutes longer, wondering what in the world had happened to Mr. Apple. However, there wasn’t anything else to see. The fire truck drove away and soon everyone had gone home, It was dinner time so Midge and I went home too.

Aunt Mabel was home when I got there but she had been at the Apples’ watching the firemen getting the cat down. Uncle Al didn’t appear for another ten minutes.

“Well, that was quite a lot of excitement,” Aunt Mabel said as we sat down to dinner. “How on earth do you suppose that cat got up there?”

“No one seems to know,” Uncle Al said, looking at me. “However I was talking to Mr. Ainsworth just before I came in.”

I could tell from Uncle Al’s expression that he suspected something. After all it wasn’t my fault that Siegfried had jumped in the basket and there was no reason why I shouldn’t tell them, so I did.

“What on earth was Mr. Apple screaming about there at the last?” Aunt Mabel asked.

“Oh, that,” Uncle Al said. “That tall fellow in the brown suit was Jim Weber. He’s with a seed company of Philadelphia. I thought I recognized him and I went over and talked to him. That’s why I was a little late getting back. It seems that Mr. Apple has developed some new kind of grass. Or at least he thinks he has. It’s curly grass and doesn’t need mowing very often. He’s got some idea that it’s extremely valuable and it may be, although Weber says that such discoveries or developments never make a great deal of money. Anyhow, Apple has been working on four or five kinds of grass and this is the final answer. He thinks it will make him famous. He planted it in the back yard and put up a wire fence around it. According to Weber he’s been so secretive and mysterious about it that it’s ridiculous. I guess he was afraid someone would steal his secret. Anyhow, after a lot of negotiations he arranged for a seed company to send a representative up to see this great discovery. Jim Weber was the man they sent. The trouble is that when he got out to look at it they found that some sheep had been locked up inside the fence and had eaten practically all the grass.”

Uncle Al paused and looked at me. “How did those sheep get in there?” he asked. “They got through a hole in the fence,” I explained. “Midge and I chased them and they went through into Mr. Apple’s place. I guess that grass must be good. The sheep went right in there and started eating it. I went over and closed the gate and Midge called Mr. Baines. We forgot all about them until we heard Mr. Apple scream. Besides we didn’t know that was special grass.”

“Well, Mr. Apple is very disappointed,” said Uncle Al, “and I can’t say that I blame him, but after all if he hadn’t been so mysterious you’d have known that he was anxious to protect that grass and would have chased the sheep out instead of locking them in. Anyhow, Jim Weber told him this would be a good test of the grass. If it comes back it will be proof that it’s tough.”