The Spirit of ST Louis (26 page)

There's no way of telling what lies beyond the rain's gray curtain; but each lake and little pond I pass signals its story of the storm. Waves mark the wind's velocity; ragged streaks of foam point out its direction. From northwest to southwest and up to west again it shifts, veering back and forth with each new squall. Gradually, as I watch, the wind swings southward, until at last it blows southeast, and then begins to die. From northwest to southeast -- it's a good omen; that's the way the wind should veer if the storm area is small.

THE SEVENTH HOUR
Over Nova Scotia

TIME - 1:52 P.M.

Wind Velocity 10 m.p.h Visibility 15 Miles outside of squalls

Wind Direction SSE Altitude 900 feet

True Course 61° Air Speed 100 m.p.h.

Variation 23° W Tachometer 1675 r.p.m.

Magnetic Course 84° Oil Temp. 40°C

Deviation 0° Oil Pressure 58 lbs.

Compass Course 84° Fuel pressure 3.5 lbs.

Drift Angle 5° L Mixture 1.5

Compass heading 89° Fuel tank Fusilage

Ceiling 1500 Feet, broken

Six hundred miles out. Three thousand miles to go. The columns of figures on my log sheet look impressive. When they grow six times that long, I should be over Paris. Squalls are lighter, and patches of blue sky are larger. "Clearing along the North American coast," the weather report stated; and clearing it really seems to be.

But I've got to be cautious about too much optimism. I'm at a point in my flight where I have the feeling of great accomplishment without having experienced the major strain of effort. In multiplying by six what I have done, I neglect the exponent of fatigue, and draw an arithmetical result from what is really a geometrical equation. Fatigue to a body is like air resistance to a plane. If you fly twice as fast (if you continue twice as long), you encounter four times the resistance (you become several times as tired). But elements of mind and body don't follow such clear, sharp curves of physics; they jump erratically to peaks, and back to depths, and then may strike an average for a time. The cool freshness of the rain, the concentration required in flying through the squalls, and the satisfaction of entering the seventh hour of my flight, have brought me to a peak of confidence and hope. Only 3000 miles, now, to Paris; and 40 hours of fuel remain in my tanks.

A wilderness lies beneath my wings -- no road or field or cabin. Valleys are filled with the deep green of virgin timber. Flocks of duck rise out of lakes and marshes. I think of childhood nights on our farm, when I lay awake listening to my father's stories of hunting and trapping around such lakes as these. "There were thousands of duck," he had said, "so many that the sky was blackened." And there are thousands of duck below me, like a cloud's shadow drifting over land and water.

My grandfather must have found a country like this when he immigrated to America from Skåne in the southern part of Sweden. My father was only a few months old then. Traveling westward, the family settled on Sauk River's bank, in the new state of Minnesota. They built a log cabin in territory through which warpaths of the Chippewa and Sioux had run, only a few years before.

As soon as my father was old enough to carry a gun, it had been his job to keep the family supplied with meat. Since ammunition was scarce, his rounds were counted, and a bird demanded in return for each one fired. When he missed a shot, he tried to hit two birds with the next. My father had spoken of it casually, as part of his daily life in boyhood; but to me, it appeared a miraculous accomplishment—getting two duck in line to save one charge. Now, as I look down on this game-filled land, I understand his casualness better. It wouldn't be so difficult to kill two birds with one shot when they're as thick as that.

The rule was only for birds and small animals. On days when he brought back a deer, he wasn't asked to account for his ammunition. The woods here must be full of deer, too -- and probably bear, porcupine, wildcat, and even moose. Envious of my father's boyhood, I often dreamed of such a country, and here it is, just outside my window -- land of the pioneer: forests filled with game; dashing streams of crystal water.

Several small farms line the river ahead -- fields walled in by timber. Cattle wade across the water, their shadows falling sharply on its surface. One of my father's stories was about fishing from a riverbank on the homestead. Sioux massacres in the Minnesota Valley and raids northward had left settlers' nerves highly tensed. It had been several years since the uprising, but fear remained in children's minds. Suddenly, my father saw shadows move along the edge of a pool upstream -- Sioux warriors! He lunged backward into hazel brush as he looked up to see -- no, not warriors, just farm cattle, like those below me now. Everybody feared the Sioux. They'd stretch a man to stakes and build a fire on his belly. They'd cram live children into kitchen ovens and let them roast. So the settlers' stories went.

Once, when my father was very young, a messenger arrived on horseback, warning all farmers to flee for their lives -- Little Crow was on the warpath. Hogs and cattle were turned loose, doors locked, homes abandoned. My grandfather harnessed the oxen, and fled with his family to the fort at St. Cloud, about 40 miles away. It was crowded there, with so many people gathered in. There was little to do, and the men quickly grew restless. Two neighboring farmers decided to return to their homes, against the warning of the soldiers. They said the danger of Indians was exaggerated, and that their animals needed care. They left the town on horseback, and were never seen again -- probably captured and tortured to death by Sioux, the settlers thought.

That made others at the fort more willing to accept the hardships of a refugee. Complaints lessened. The children even enjoyed their experience, my father said. There were new games to play, new sights to see. It was a welcome change from the isolated life on a homestead. Our family stayed on until my Aunt Linda was born. And what a commotion that caused -- men standing around awkwardly outside, women running back and forth, children neglected for the day.

My grandparents were lucky. When they finally returned to their farm, they found everything as they had left it, except for the stock. It was a real job hunting through the woods for pigs and chickens, and rounding up the cows. Grandmother never did get all her chickens back -- wild animals, of course.

The warlike Sioux were driven westward into the Dakotas. Red River oxcart trains creaked by the homestead with greater frequency. Father said you could hear them miles away. And more settlers came to set up farms. Only the friendly Chippewa remained -- Indians of the forest. Their pointed, birchbark teepees often rose on the banks of Sauk River, near my grandfather's cabin. Many of my father's stories were about them. There was one I asked him to tell over and over again as I lay in bed, looking out at the stars.

They had been trading skins for firewater, those braves who came up to the log farmhouse and demanded food. My grandfather was away. My grandmother was busy baking bread and caring for the children. She had no use for drunken Indians. "Go away," she told them. "I've got nothing for you. See, the bread isn't baked yet." She opened the oven to show them. They muttered and argued for a time outside the door, while Grandmother went on with her work and the children peeked out at them. Finally, they decided to leave. But as they passed the woodpile, one of the braves grabbed my grandfather's axe and carried it off.

My grandmother took time to change her clothes before she ran after those Indians! She put on a silk dress which she had brought from Sweden, and guarded carefully through hard years of frontier life. She knew the importance of dignity in dealing with Indians; it would be unwise to confront them in soiled kitchen garments. When she caught up to them on the road, the brave refused to give up the axe. He shook it at her, scowled, and kept on walking with the others. She followed, arguing and threatening; until one of the squaws snatched the axe from the drunken warrior and laid it on the ground. My grandmother picked it up and returned to the farmhouse, to her work clothes and children, and to baking bread.

Why take such a chance for an axe? Well, that was another story. Grandfather Lindbergh had held a high position in Sweden. He was a leading member of the Riksdag, and a close friend of the King. But he'd gotten into political and business troubles, lost practically everything he had, and sailed to America to start a new life when he was over fifty years of age. In the small log cabin in Minnesota, our family was so poor that my grandfather sold a gold medal he'd been given in "the old country" to buy a breaking plow. Axes, like plows, couldn't be made on the farm; they cost real money, and real money was awfully hard to get. Besides, it was a special axe, weighted and shaped for my grandfather's single-handed use, for he had lost his left arm at the sawmill. He lost that arm trying to earn a little real money to buy things that couldn't be raised on the farm, such as salt, and kerosene, and tools.

Handling logs and lumber was heavy work for a man of my grandfather's age. But he had great physical endurance, and his services were valued. One day he stumbled, and fell against the spinning saw. Its teeth cut through his arm near the shoulder, and ripped open his back. The belt hurled him half way across the shed. The mill hands claimed that the gash was so deep they could see my grandfather's heart beating. They bound his wounds up crudely and sent for the minister, Reverend C. S. Harrison. Minister Harrison had my grandfather laid on some hay in the bottom of an oxcart and hauled him, bleeding terribly, over the rough roads to the family cabin. A man was started off on the only horse available, with instructions to get relays wherever he could and rush a doctor back. But the nearest doctor lived at St. Cloud—and he was not at home. The messenger eventually found him in a still more distant village, helping a young wife give birth to her child. Meanwhile my grandmother, the minister, and the friends who came to help expected Grandfather to die. They washed his wounds with cold water from a nearby spring, picked out rags and sawdust, and tried to stop the flow of blood.

Three days passed before the doctor arrived. He amputated the arm and stitched together the gaping hole in the back. My grandfather lived despite shock, infection, and loss of blood. Lying on his bed, in great pain, he demanded to see his left arm before it was buried in the garden. It was brought to him in a small, rough-board coffin. Taking the fingers in those of his right hand, he said slowly, in broken English, "You have been a good friend to me for fifty years. But you can't be with me any more. So good-by. Good-by, my friend."

It took months for my grandfather to recover. Then, he had special tools fashioned for his single-handed use. But farming and earning money were more difficult after that, and there were four young children to care for -- my father, Linda, Juno, and Frank. Grandmother had to watch each penny spent. Her family couldn't afford to lose an axe.

Are there Indians in these forests too, here in Nova Scotia —teepees covered by branches? How much lies hidden under that blanket of green boughs. I can only guess as I fly over hills and valleys, now 50 feet, now 500 above the ground. There's no sign of life in the occasional clearings. There are no canoes in sight on the swiftly-flowing rivers. And the wild animals that live here probably took cover at the first terrifying sound of my engine.

In flying, you learn to know the external character, the geographical features of a country; but you have little contact with its inner life. You see the land below you, but you don't feel it around you; until you set foot on ground it remains a foreign soil. Here is a Nova Scotian hilltop, fifty feet away—so close that I can see the twigs on its bushes and the moss on its stones. Yet in another sense, a whole ocean lies between us. I can see pine needles on the boughs, but I can't smell their fragrance or feel them prickle on my skin as I push by. The branches are swaying, but I hear no sound of wind. Even if I were on a local flight, I couldn't land, for there's no level area that's solid, clear, and large enough to hold a plane. At times I feel as separated from the country below me as though I were looking through a giant telescope at the surface of another planet.

THE EIGHTH HOUR
Over Nova Scotia
TIME - 2:52 P.M.

Wind Velocity 15 m.p.h Visibility Unlimited

Wind Direction SSW Altitude 600 feet

True Course 64° Air Speed 96 m.p.h.

Variation 25° W Tachometer 1650 r.p.m.

Magnetic Course 89° Oil Temp. 39°C

Deviation 0° Oil Pressure 58 lbs.

Compass Course 89° Fuel pressure 3.5 lbs.

Drift Angle 5° L Mixture 2

Compass heading 94° Fuel tank Fuselage

Ceiling Unlimited

The edge of the storm recedes gradually toward the north. Huge cumulo-nimbus clouds, billows of white and gray, roll upward for thousands of feet, penetrating the highest stratus layers. On the ground, patches of old snow appear in hollows and on the north side of boulders. I left summer back on Long Island this morning. Only a few minutes ago, I flew through the showers of spring. Now, I'm over a land just emerging from winter. And my route continues to angle northward for more than a thousand miles.