Chicago, Late Autumn, 1936
Barbara intended to keep Chet Armstrong's attempted violation of her a secret and not even tell Gail. But she was unable to conceal her emotions upon returning to the sorority house to wait on tables at dinnertime. All during the meal, Gail sensed something was very wrong. She whispered to Barbara as her table was being served. "After work, in my room."
Barbara still did not want to tell her great friend what had happened on her horse ride that afternoon with Chet. But Gail simply had to know.
"If we're truly going to be best friends, we have to share both the good and the bad."
Barbara reluctantly agreed. She told her everything, though in the telling she became almost as upset as she had been during the attempted violation.
Hugging her, Gail made a confession.
"He tried the same on me. Shortly after I was introduced to him by a mutual friend. He nearly did take me, but someone came by and scared him off. I hardly ever saw him after that, but once in a while he would crop up, like he did yesterday while we were riding. I doubt there's a good-looking girl on the North Shore he hasn't seduced, or tried to."
"I'll just do what you've done. I'll stay clear of him."
Barbara kept busy as usual over the following weeks, studying, taking exams, working in the sorority house cafeteria, and helping her mother in the apartment they shared not far from the college. By then her mother was working as a telephone switchboard operator, making better money than she did ironing shirts, but not much. Besides being with Gail, the two things that gave Barbara the most pleasure were horseback riding, when she could, and learning to fly an airplane.
Red Olafson became her flying mentor. The Swede who had become an American citizen had the background for it, having flown with the Lafayette Escadrille in the Great War and then becoming a barnstorming pilot afterward in the rural Midwest. He bought a war surplus Flying Jenny for $600 and flew it into a nest egg of several thousand dollars.
At first, he got $25 for a five-minute ride in his plane. Farmers and their wives and sons and daughters were eager to see what the world looked like from the sky, looking down on their farm and town. As competition grew and the novelty began to wear off after five years, Olafson got only $5 for a ride. But by then he had saved enough to open his own small airport outside Chicago, buy a few more planes, hire some other ex-war pilots, and start his own air delivery service as well as fly mail for the U.S. Postal Service. On the side, he still offered rides in his planes and gave flying lessons.