Page:Air Service Boys Flying for France.djvu/9

4 When the Wrights were starting on their wonderful experiments with a heavier-than-air flying-machine Tom began to lose interest in his school studies, for his brain was filled with the amazing possibilities that awaited a successful termination of their work and that of the French experimenters who were working along similar lines.

Time passed on, and with the breaking out of the European conflict the race to utilize this discovery led to rapid rivalry in the field of aviation. Things were becoming of everyday occurrence that but three years back would have been considered utterly impossible.

The fever continued to burn with ever-increasing strength in Tom Raymond's veins until he could be restrained no longer. His father, realizing that it was of no use to try to deny him his one consuming wish, made arrangements for him to go to the nearest Government aviation field where a school for novices who aspired to learn how to fly was being organized. This was located in Virginia.

Jack Parmly had anticipated this action, and somehow had managed to influence his widowed mother to allow him to accompany his chum. Mrs. Parmly was of long American lineage and intensely patriotic. Though it grieved her sorely to give up her only son, she