“Listen. I’ll tell you about it. Then you tell me what to do. I’d thought about giving part of it to that truck farmer who gambled and lost, but I’ll follow your advice.”
When Johnny had finished the story of his adventures on the carnival grounds, Curlie sat for a time in a brown study. “Of course,” he said at last, “you could give it back to that gambling truck farmer, if you succeeded in finding him. Fine chance, though. May have come twenty miles to that carnival.
“Besides, what’s the good? The poor goof would just throw up his hands and shout: ‘Boy, I’m lucky! I’ll say I’m lucky!’ Then he’d go somewhere else and lose it gambling. The real gambling habit is an incurable disease.
“On the other hand—” His face lit up with a kindly smile. “I know another farmer who never gambles, except as everyone does who plants a crop. He has a little girl, a cripple; but the cutest, most cheerful cripple in the world.
“You know—the one I was going to send a doll and doll buggy by parachute.
“Tell you what!” He sprang to his feet. “If you really must get rid of that money, give it to them. They need it. Crops have been bad; burned out. I’ll take you along in the plane and drop you off in a parachute, you and the money, just as I planned to throw over the doll.”
“Mebby you will!” Johnny’s tone was doubtful. “How far do you drop?”
“Far as you like, two thousand, three, five, ten thousand feet. It’s all the same to me.”
“‘And he probably was dead long before he touched the ground.’” Johnny groaned as he quoted an oft repeated expression.
“That,” said Curlie in disgust, “is all rot! I’ve dropped eight thousand feet straight down, then opened my parachute. Felt fine all the way down. Breath normal, hearing, eyesight, everything just as now. I tell you it was swell! Like diving off a high board into water, only there was no splash, and no chill. You don’t know what I’m offering you. It will give you a fresh glimpse of life.
“Besides,” he added after a moment, “you have been hanging around this dirty, noisy, crime-ridden city too long. You need a glimpse of the way life may be lived in plain comfort and peace.”
There was more talk and still more explaining. But in the end it was agreed that Johnny was to accompany Curlie on his flight and that, weather permitting, there should be a parachute jump with Johnny in the harness the very next day.