The Twenty-One Balloons PMC

by William Pene du Bois

  At this Professor Sherman exploded with anger. “Out of my room, Your Honor!” he shouted. “What matter of bribe is this, trying to buy my loyalty to the Western American Explorers’ Club with the Key to this City? Out of my room, I say, and take your friends, reporters, and photographers with you!”

  The New York Tribune made much of this the next morning, carrying the story on the front page again with a banner headline which read: KEY TO CITY FAILS TO UNLOCK SECRETS OF SHERMAN’S VOYAGE.

  By now the public’s curiosity was at a fever pitch, and the following morning Professor Sherman received a telegram which to a less extraordinary personage would have seemed to deserve far more undivided and humble attention. It was from the Secretary to the President of the United States. It was an invitation to the White House suggesting that this might be the ideal spot from which to reveal to the world the story which it was so impatiently waiting to hear. It requested that the Professor telegraph his reply. Professor Sherman dictated the following message, to be sent to the President’s Secretary, without so much as a moment’s reflection :

  Dear Sir,

  I appreciate the fact that the President’s invitation amounts to what I should consider a Command Performance. However there is a code of ethics among explorers which I find myself at this particular moment unable to break. Had I a less fascinating story to tell, nobody, except my fellow explorers, would care where or when I gave account of it. The very fact that my adventure is so unparalleled multiplies the need that I keep true to my oath of membership and first share the details of my passage with my brothers of the Western American Explorers’ Club in San Francisco.

  Will you please convey to the President this message and my sincere thanks for the honor he has bestowed on me by sending me this gracious invitation.

  William Waterman Sherman

  Instead of being angry at this reply, the President showed that he well appreciated the Professor’s loyalty to his club.

  He had his Secretary send the following unprecedented wire to Professor Sherman:

  Dear Sir,

  The President understands exactly how you feel. However, in view of the fact that the world is waiting impatiently to hear your story, he has instructed me to place the Presidential train at your disposal with instructions to clear the lines between New York and San Francisco so that you may get there with all possible speed. He has been informed that you are resting up after your unfortunate crash into the Atlantic Ocean and do not feel quite well enough to travel at present. He assures you, sir, that you will be as comfortable in his car as you are in your hotel bedroom, and that all possible care and attention will be given you on your trip. If this is convenient, and he believes it surely is, an ambulance will pick you up this evening at eight o’clock to carry you in comfort to the train.

  Please do not bother to convey your thanks to the President. He will eagerly await reports of your trip across the continent as the President and the world breathlessly stand by waiting to hear your story from the auditorium of the Western American Explorers’ Club in San Francisco.

  The Secretary to the President of the United States

  Professor William Waterman Sherman left the Murray Hill Hotel that evening at eight o’clock, San Francisco bound, on the Presidential train.

  II

  A Hero’s Welcome Is Prepared

  WHILE THE REST OF THE WORLD calmed down a bit, knowing that there would be no further news from Professor Sherman until after the full five days it would take him to cross the country by Presidential train, San Francisco became wild with excitement. There have been many instances of a home town giving its returning hero a rousing welcome. But never before had a returning hero placed so much attention on his home town. San Francisco’s reaction to this was to prepare for Professor Sherman the most fabulous celebration imaginable. Professor Sherman was a balloonist. San Francisco went balloon crazy. The railroad station was swathed in bunting, flags, and miniature balloons. The avenue from the railroad station to the Western American Explorers’ Club was lined with triumphant Corinthian columns, each surmounted by a brace of bright-colored miniature balloons. Ladies revived the balloon fashions in dresses which had been popular in France a hundred years before. Fat ladies gave up their diets. Everybody talked about “that round look.”

  Balloons were the decorative scheme in all stores. In a fruit and vegetable store, for example, honeydew melons with a quart box of strawberries hanging from them by numerous strings were made to resemble ascension balloons and hung from the ceiling next to watermelon dirigibles and summer-squash blimps.

  The Mayor of San Francisco ordered and had the City pay for one thousand miniature balloons to be used to decorate the avenue from the station to the Club, and the Municipal Buildings. He gave the contract for this big job to the Higgins Balloon Factory, thus honoring the workshop which built Professor Sherman’s original giant balloon. These miniature balloons were made of silk, filled with hydrogen, and had a lifting pull of sixty pounds each. In an all-out effort of hard day-and-night work, the Higgins Factory finished the balloons in two and one half days. They were beautiful, painted many different colors, and shaped exactly like Professor Sherman’s balloon though considerably smaller. By noon of the third day they were being attached to the various Municipal Buildings and along the avenue and looked very fine indeed.

  The workmen who were attaching the balloons were followed wherever they went by bands of curious children who asked many questions about the balloons, particularly concerning what would be done with them after the parade. When the workmen had finished, one boy carefully watched them walk off down the road, then climbed up on the roof of the Post Office, untied a balloon, and excitedly brought it down to the street. The boy weighed about seventy-five pounds. The balloon had a lifting pull of sixty pounds. He wasn’t strong enough to play around with it very much. As a matter of fact, all he seemed to be able to do was to walk around, stretched quite tall, on his tip-toes with his hands way above his head. Then he got an idea.

  He tied the end of the rope around his waist, ran down the street with the wind, and jumped as high as he could in the air. The balloon carried him about the height of a second-story window and he floated down the street for half a block. This was fun. He tried it again. This time with a little more wind and a slightly bigger jump, he reached the height of a third-story window and flew a whole block. Of course about twenty children chased him down the street, all yelling and wanting to try to make a few leaps. He jumped down a few more blocks and by this time his arms were tired and his waist was sore, so he had to take a rest. He decided to let his younger brother have it next. His younger brother was quite a bit smaller and weighed about fifty-eight pounds. He grabbed the balloon as his brother wrapped the end of the rope around his middle, took a little jump, and sailed off very very slowly down the block. “He’s better than you are,” yelled one of the boys. “Look, he’s four stories high and he’s on his second block.” Fortunately there was a church at the end of the street or the younger brother’s leap might have turned out to be altogether too big. He managed to wrap his legs around the very top of the steeple, untie the balloon which shot upward into the skies, and grab the steeple with his arms and hang on as tightly as he could. He was yelling and screaming for dear life. Ten minutes later the Fire Department rescued the young boy, and the children decided to give up the balloon leap game.

  The Fire Department, by the way, was kept pretty busy all night. Sparks from chimneys would land on the small balloons along the triumphant avenue to the Explorer’s Club causing them to blow up. There were no actual house fires; the balloons would flare up and disappear immediately, leaving no trace or fire. The resulting huge blazing flashes of light scared the people who lived in near-by buildings so much that they complained to the Mayor. The Mayor ordered the entire Fire Department to station all of its trucks and engines along the avenue and keep a sharp lookout all night. This reassured the people who lived near the decorated buildin
gs, and they gradually, family by family, went to bed and eventually to sleep.

  What was in a way the funniest incident resulting from the Mayor’s plan to decorate parts of San Francisco with balloons caused considerable excitement some two hundred miles away. It started in San Francisco. The Mayor ordered workmen to decorate the cupola of the Western American Explorers’ Club with ten alternating red and white balloons around its base, and one larger blue balloon with white stars attached to its very top. The cupola of the Club was an unusual piece of architecture. It wasn’t actually in the original plans for the building. It was shaped like the upper half of the world, from the Equator at its base to the North Pole at its peak. There was a flagpole at this pinnacle from which waved the American Flag above, and the Western American Explorers’ Club banner directly underneath. Maps of North America, Europe, maps of everything north of the Equator, were painted with care in gold and blue paint on the cupola. This unusual cupola was made of wood and had been firmly attached to the building twenty-three years after the building was completed. It was added with reverence and ceremony and it symbolized the Club’s greatest ambition, to furnish the first expedition to plant the American Flag on the heretofore unexplored North Pole.

  The ten miniature balloons around the base of the cupola had a combined lifting pull of six hundred pounds. The larger balloon attached to its top had a lifting pull of three hundred pounds. This made a total strain of nine hundred pounds. The cupola weighed a little over four hundred. Nothing unusual happened at first, but during the night, as the winds gently tossed the balloons back and forth, the cupola started to loosen somewhat like a tooth does. As night wore on, it became looser and looser. At one-twenty-nine o’clock in the morning, it gently rose from its perch on the Explorers’ Club and, dropping bits of plaster, spikes, and rivets, flew off eastward over the city. It gained altitude and crossed mountain-tops without incident. It started losing altitude only after having had a nice flight of four and a half hours and landed silently and gracefully in a peaceful little Indian Reservation which was situated in a snug valley between two huge mountains.

  As dawn came up and daylight began to appear in this valley, the Indians arose, walked out of their tents, and, beating their chests, took deep breaths of fresh air. But what was this! Right in the middle of the Reservation, lined up with the other tents, was what appeared to be a small planet sunk in the ground and surrounded by smaller planets.

  Now what do you suppose the Indians did?

  Did they back away trembling with fear?

  No.

  Did they shriek with fright?

  No.

  Did they beat up the Medicine Man?

  No. They gave the cupola an appraising look, then one of them said, “Huh! Dumb white man decorate Explorers’ Club of San Francisco with too many balloons. Get hatchet. Cut door in United States between New York and San Francisco. This make good new house for Chief.”

  When the Mayor gave the miniature balloon contract to the Higgins Balloon Factory, he was rewarding a company which was near to Professor Sherman’s heart. This was a nice idea. However, the Tomes Aeronautical Studios which were the San Francisco rivals to the Higgins Factory weren’t at all pleased by his decision. At a time when San Francisco was balloon crazy, they found themselves to be sadly neglected. “Something has to be done, something unusual in the balloon line,” said Joseph Tomes, the company’s President. He immediately called a conference. The Directors thought hard, did much scratching of their heads and made many ridiculous suggestions, but were unable to think of any satisfactory ideas on such short notice. Somebody suggested that they look through their file of patents for some discarded invention of an earlier day. This seemed a good idea at such a pressing moment. After much study of all sorts of rare balloon inventions they found a suggestion in a pocket of the files marked “Ideas to be Considered.” It quoted Benjamin Franklin in 1789, a year before he died. He was too sick at the time to stand the shocks and bumps of any form of travel. “I wish I had brought with me from France,” Benjamin Franklin said, “a balloon sufficiently large to raise me from the ground. In my malady it would be the most easy carriage for me, being led by a string held by a man walking on the ground.”

  “That’s it!” shouted Joseph Tomes. “Professor Sherman is sick. We shall build him a balloon carriage to carry him in comfort from the railroad station to the Explorers’ Club.” The Directors agreed that here was a wonderful idea.

  “But it lacks grace and isn’t imposing enough,” suggested one of the Directors, “and besides, the Mayor would never approve of a carriage in which there was no seat for him.”

  “The Mayor could be the man who walks on the ground and pulls the string,” said Joseph Tomes, President of Tomes Aeronautical Studios.

  “I do believe,” the other Director argued, “that if we are to put on any sort of a show in this balloon-conscious parade, we shall have to do something more spectacular than that. I am only thinking out loud,” he said in the manner of a man who is afraid of his own ideas, “but what do you think of this? We’ll take a large, deep leather couch big enough to accommodate both the Professor and the Mayor. We will raise this just off the ground with two of our Number 3B Touring Balloons. To this comfortable floating couch we will harness three horses in single file. A postillion in a balloonist’s suit will ride the front horse, thus directing our balloon buggy down the boulevard to the Explorers’ Club.”

  “That’s it!” shouted Joseph Tomes again. “A wonderful idea and it won’t take any time to build. We have the balloons in stock. The couch in my office will do nicely.” He then instructed one of the Directors to hire the horses and arrange some sort of steady harnessing so that the couch wouldn’t tip. He instructed another to have two of the

  Number 3B Touring Balloons filled with hydrogen and have the words, “WELL DONE, PROFESSOR SHERMAN” painted on them. “This fabulous balloon buggy,” said Joseph Tomes, “should be ready by four this afternoon and I shall drive in it at that time with the Director who invented it to the City Hall where we will demonstrate it to the Mayor. Good day, Gentlemen.”

  The meeting thus came to an end.

  While this excitement and hard work was going on at the Tomes Studios, the rest of San Francisco was beginning to calm down. This was September 22nd, the day be-before Professor Sherman was expected. San Francisco was all ready, the decorations were installed, the cupola of the Explorers’ Club had mysteriously disappeared, and the Fire Department was getting ready to begin its second sleepless night protecting the houses along the avenue from exploding balloons. The people were getting quite restless and impatient. Their first enthusiasm was wearing off. They began wondering whether or not Professor Sherman was really worth all this bother and excitement. All they actually knew about him was that he wouldn’t tell his story anywhere except in San Francisco. This was enough to make the world extremely curious, but was it enough to make Professor Sherman a hero? The people were beginning to lose interest. Some even decided they wouldn’t bother to push their way through the crowds on the avenue to see him as he drove from the station to the Club. Then a young boy came to the Professor’s rescue. He had just finished reading an extraordinary account of a trip by some intrepid adventurers. This trip had caused considerable stir, so much so that a well-known author of the times had written a book about it, calling the book Around the World in Eighty Days. This young boy started thinking about Professor Sherman’s voyage. He had left San Francisco at three o‘clock August 15th. He was later picked up with twenty balloons in the Atlantic. This meant he must have flown over parts of Asia and most of Europe too. He was rescued by a freighter and taken to New York. He was now being rushed from New York to his starting point, San Francisco, in the Presidential train. “If he arrives at three o’clock, on time, at the station in San Francisco,” the young boy reasoned, “he will have traveled around the world in forty days and cut the old record in half.” Everybody recognized the logic in this and new intere
st in the Professor spread all over San Francisco. Whatever other secrets he was saving for San Francisco, the fact remained that that record of long standing, around the world in eighty days, was to be decisively beaten by Professor William Waterman Sherman of the Western American Explorers’ Club when he arrived the following day.

  At four o’clock, back in the Tomes Balloon Studios, the “balloon buggy” was completed and Joseph Tomes and his enterprising Director climbed into the leather couch. A messenger boy was sent ahead to tell the Mayor to stand on his balcony at City Hall to see the arrival of this magnificent and most comfortable carriage. Joseph Tomes told the postillion to drive on. “We’re off!” he shouted, and nervously sat back. This invention worked like a dream. The usual bumps you feel in carriages just didn’t exist. Joseph Tomes and the Director took turns at patting each other on the back. “We’ll sell a million of these,” said Joseph Tomes. As they approached City Hall, Joseph Tomes and the Director leaned way back in the couch and crossed their legs. To show how completely at ease and comfortable they were, Joseph Tomes lit a cigar. This was a great mistake. As the balloon buggy floated up in front of City Hall, a spark from Joseph Tomes’ cigar lit on one of the balloons. There was a tremendous explosion, a blinding flash, and Joseph Tomes and the Director fell rudely on their behinds and did backward somersaults on the pavement.

  “Please, Gentlemen!” said the Mayor angrily. “On this, of all days, I cannot waste my time with acrobatics.”

  Joseph Tomes and the Director sadly walked back to the balloon factory as the three horses, scared by the explosion carried the postillion and dragged the couch on a wild three-mile gallop through the city’s streets.