We meet their younger sister, Katherine, and she tells a little about their early years and their Christian background. The other characters in the scene are fictional. This is also a scene from the play, “A Nation Of Ordinary People.”
3 men and 3 women. About 9-10 minutes.
Excerpt:
PAULINE
Oh, Mr. Wright! I just loved watching you land. It was breathtaking.
SUSANNE
Yes! We just love your airship!
WILBUR WRIGHT
Airship! An airship is a big balloon filled with gas! Ours in a flying machine!
ORVILLE WRIGHT
We like to call it a flyer for short.
CHARLES
A flyer. I think I have heard the term, aeroplane.
ORVILLE WRIGHT
Flyer.
KATHARINE WRIGHT
I have been telling them all about you. I don’t know what there is left to talk about!
CHARLES
The flight! We want to know about the flight!
WILBUR WRIGHT
Today’s or the first one?
CHARLES
The first one!
WILBUR WRIGHT
Well, it was Dec. 17th, 1903. A very cold and rather windy day. The puddles on the ground were covered with ice.
ORVILLE WRIGHT
You should tell them why we chose the Outer Banks of North Carolina, rather than our home in Ohio.
WILBUR WRIGHT
Oh, I thought that was obvious. The wind and the beach area here looked good for taking off and landing. It had the right amount of hills and level land.
ORVILLE WRIGHT
But we probably shouldn’t have been trying to fly that day. The wind was too strong and it was so cold. We had to keep running inside the building to warm up between tries.
PAULINE
Did you have an audience?
ORVILLE WRIGHT
Just a few friends. They really helped us and also, they were witnesses to the fact that the flyer flew on that day.
CHARLES
So who flew that first flight?
ORVILLE WRIGHT
I did. It was 10:35 in the morning. The wind was at 27 miles per hour. My flight lasted 12 seconds and I reached a distance of 120 feet.
WILBUR WRIGHT
I flew next.
ORVILLE WRIGHT
Yes… but before that, we went in and got warm. With the assistance of our visitors we carried the machine back to the track and the cold wind had chilled us all through, so we went inside. Johnny Ward, saw a box filled with eggs and asked one of the Station men where we got so many. The people around here eke out a bare existence by catching fish and their supplies of other articles of food are limited. He had probably never seen so many eggs at one time in his whole life. The other guy jokingly asked him whether he hadn’t noticed the small hen running about the outside of the building. He said, “That chicken lays eight to ten eggs a day!” Ward, having just seen a piece of machinery lift itself from the ground and fly, a thing at that time considered as impossible as perpetual motion, was ready to believe nearly anything. But after going out and having a good look at the wonderful fowl, he returned with the remark, “It’s only a common looking chicken!”
WILBUR WRIGHT
I didn’t know we were telling little anecdotes. I thought they wanted to hear about the flight.
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