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and Clayt and Buck and Hattie and Little Buck made up the family. Sam, as usual, dried the dishes and Clayt and Buck romped with Little Buck.

As the evenings were long and dark, the deck of cards was once more resorted to and the chill of outdoors and the world at large was forgotten in the spontaneous wit inspired by [strikethrough] anything but intricate[/strikethrough] reckless building in 500, poker or high low Jack Joker & the same. Buck grew more and more quiet in-stead of his rollicky, roguish come-play-with-me disposition. After scarring his face in the Waco Cootie with its attendant loss of smell, which also meant loss of appetite, these moods were more noticeable. Those who were near and dear to him had learned to leave augmentation of odors, especially pleasant odors, such as food cooking, out of their vocabulary. One evening Buck came home and by his too vivacious mood, Hattie sensed a deep hurt. After Little Buck was in bed, Buck showered her a letter he had written to his mother, asking if they might all come home until he found a job and could support his family. 
Within a few days Buck and Hattie and Little Buck left for Chicago, taking the interurban to Cleveland for their train. Sam and Clayt were at the interurban. Sam had frankly been crying and no doubt had had no rest the night before. Clayt was very white and it was only with a great deal of self control on the part of all, particularly Sam and Buck, that the standersby weren't given a show. By this time evidently Clayt was not only bookkeeper, champion welder, jack-of-all-the-trades, he now could be a test pilot. En route to Chicago, there was no retrospection and Buck rose to then unsuspected, transcendant heights, anticipating the work in aviation he would do next spring after a winter of marking time at any kind of [[strikethrough jc [[/strikethrough]] a job so long as a salary was attached. Little did Hattie know, how crucified Buck felt.
In the summer of 1923 Buck flew for Mr. C. D. Dickenson. Buck had rebuilt a Breguet down at the shop of E. M. Laird, who was "out" of the Laird-Swallow Company at Wichita but in business for himself building Laird Airplanes in Chicago. Using three ply mahogany such as used in building the Waco-Cootie, Buck built a four place cabin where the front seat had been in the Breguet. The following is a report of one of the cross country trips taken that summer as recorded in "Dear Diary," a memoranda kept at different intervals during the life of Hattie up until then and is still being kept at the present day.

See "Dear Diary" enclosed--