telegraph her father and mother in San Antonio for their formal permission. When it came, she was permitted to enroll as a bona fide student. With her were four others to be joined by a fifth later on. Of course, they were men.
The plane the students used had a thirty horse power motor in it and was in several respects different from the other models of the day. However, it was like them in that it was a somewhat delicate creature and could only be flown under the best conditions. Consequently flying instruction was in force at dawn when the weather conditions were likely to be most favorable. Marjorie Stinson writes of these days that she sometimes managed to get in five minutes in the morning and if she was lucky five minutes again in the evening.
At that rate it took her six weeks to master her course well enough to solo. During that period she had many adventures. Apparently the class went out en masse and captured the horses in a neighboring pasture. They fished and flew kites and waited hours around the field for chances to fly.
Katherine Stinson visited her sister several times to be sure she was progressing properly. On the day before her first solo she paid an extra special visit.
Like other flyers of her day whose income came from teaching or giving exhibition flights—Marjorie Stinson spent the next few years flying here and there about the country.
