Books: The Motormaniacs
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Lloyd Osbourne >> The Motormaniacs
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"Let's try the old hell-wagon," said one.
"If people are only careful," repeated Grace forlornly.
"I dug four automobeelists out of a ditch once," observed the
rural gentleman. "One had his leg broke, and the others were
scratched something awful--but perhaps they weren't careful!"
"Say, we want to see beautiful Stackport," said one of the touts,
clambering into the front seat beside Grace.
"Get out of that and give your place to a handsomer man," cried
another, trying to pull him out by the legs.
The scuffle ended in the triumph of number one, who turned to
Grace and addressed her in a hoarse, ironical voice.
"Never you mind them," he said. "They're only a pair of cheap
skates who've won out a little on the track, and are blowing it
in."
"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" exclaimed another, poking his fingers
through the bars at the rooster.
"Wind her up, young chafer!" exclaimed the third.
"The fare is one dollar in advance," said Grace Sinclair, whose
heart was sinking within her.
Then there ensued a humorous altercation in which they tried to
beat her down to seventy-five cents. But Grace, remaining firm,
finally received her three dollars, though they made it a point
of honor to pay her in the smallest change they could muster.
One fun-maker turned in three post-cards and a two-cent stamp;
while another convulsed the company on the curb, now five deep
and swelling rapidly, by volunteering to give his necktie in lieu
of a quarter. It was no small relief to Grace when at last they
rode out of the depot amid the cheers of the multitude, and took
their swift way down Fairfield Avenue. But the three young
rowdies, far from subsiding, egged one another on to fresh
enormities. They would whoop at every passing automobile, shout
audible remarks about the personal appearance of its occupants,
tell an old gentleman, cautiously picking his way across the
street, to skin out or they'd take his leg off! It was a wild
and mortifying progress, and as the streets gradually gave way to
country roads, and Grace anticipated that the worst was over, the
three young men discovered a new means of making themselves
objectionable. They insisted on stopping at every roadhouse,
tooting loudly for the bartender to come out and serve them, and
tossing off, in the course of a dozen miles, an uncountable
number of glasses of beer.
Had it not been for the presence of the farmer, seated placidly
in the tonneau of the car with the rooster on his lap, Grace
would have been terrified at her predicament. But his large,
friendly bulk, his heavy shoulders, his big hands and honest face
were immensely comforting to her. He resisted all the
importunities of the others to drink with them, refusing with the
greatest good-nature, and maintaining throughout a certain
aloofness and detachment. They called him Judge Hayseed, and
guyed him mercilessly; but his deep, hearty laugh never showed
the least sign of resentment, even when imaginary misadventures,
of the blow-out-the-gas order, were fathered on him.
In the midst of an unceasing and vociferous hilarity, as they
were bowling along at twelve miles an hour, which Grace would
have made twenty if the engine hadn't worked so queerly, she felt
the sharp dig of a finger against her back, and one of the young
men cried out: "Say, young chafer, you've plunked a tire!"
She stopped the car and got out, and there, sure enough, one of
the rear tires presented itself to her view in a state of
melancholy collapse. It had picked up a horseshoe together with
the three jagged nails adhering to it, and was patently,
hopelessly, irretrievably punctured. Grace had seen a hundred
repairs made on the road, but up to now she had never put her
hands to the task herself. She brimmed over with the most
correct theory, but had invariably relegated the practice to a
skilful young man. As she dejectedly scanned the faces of her
passengers, and met nothing in return but blank and dispirited
stares, she manfully got out her little jack and started in on
her own account. But she had hardly raised the wheel free from
the ground, and was in the act of unscrewing the valve, when the
wrench was suddenly taken out of her hand by Judge Hayseed, who
asked in a very businesslike manner if there was an inner tube in
the kit.
"I took notice of a feller doing this on my farm once," he
drawled, "and it's kind of stuck in my head ever since." It had
certainly stuck remarkably well, for the farmer attacked the shoe
with the precision of a veteran. Loosening the lugs, and using
the two strippers against each other with adroitness and
strength, he quickly reached the point where he could easily draw
out the inner tube.
When the tire was pumped up, and Grace was again about to take
her place at the steering-wheel, the farmer sprang a fresh
surprise.
"Hold on a minute," he said. "What's been making you miss so
horribly on the off cylinder?"
"Oh, the whole engine has been acting like the dickens," she
returned distressfully. "It hasn't been developing half its
power. It's in one of its mean humors to-day, and behaving like
a pig."
"Couldn't you take off that front thing and let's see what's the
trouble?" said the countryman, jumping back into his drawl.
And then, wrench in hand, he made a prolonged examination of the
machinery. Then he turned over the engine and listened; then he
turned over the engine again and listened some more. Then he
crawled in under the wagon, reappearing with a lick of grease
over one eye.
"It gets me," he said. "I ran a little oil out of the crank-case
on general principles, and chased up the magnets--but
everything's tip-top as far as I can see!"
"Suppose you crank up and let's try again," said the girl.
But the car went worse than ever. Instead of missing
occasionally the engine began to run now in gasps. Just when
Grace waited for it to die altogether it would give another cough
and take another spurt ahead, progressing the car in a series of
agonizing little rushes, every one promising to be the last. To
add to Grace's discomfiture there was a fairly steep hill looming
in front of them, and she foresaw their being stalled at the
bottom. They made another stop. A pair of new spark-plugs was
put in, but, instead of improving, the gasping got gaspier than
ever. Still another stop, to replace the high tension wires.
But no improvement was effected. A weird, whizzling sound added
itself to the other noises. Every gasp brought them nearer the
hill, where, at the foot, the engine gave one awful hiccough and
died dead.
"We might manage to crawl home the way we came," said Grace, at
her wits' end.
"No, there's only one thing to do," said the farmer decisively,
"and that's to start all over again and ferret out the trouble."
He got out again. So did Grace. So did the three touts. So did
the rooster. It was a depressing moment.
Grace took off her long coat, laid it on one side of the road,
and deposited her cap, mask and gauntlets. It would take time to
put the car to rights, and she didn't wish to be hampered. Her
dark, glowing, girlish face came as a revelation to the three
sports. She had been hidden behind so much glass and leather
that the transformation was startling. The horsy gentlemen
uttered murmurs of surprise and gratification. One of them
sidled up to her with a leer.
"We've had a bum ride in your bum wagon," he said, "and now you've
stuck us down here nine miles from the nearest beer! You've a
lot to answer for, you have."
"I shall certainly return your money," returned Grace coldly. "I
can't do more than that, can I?"
"Oh, yes, you can, you wicked little chafer," he said, giving a
wink over his shoulder to his companions. "What's the matter
with a kiss?" And with that he passed his arm around her waist.
What happened next happened quicker than it takes to write it.
The farmer's right hand descended on the young man's collar, and
his left executed a succession of slaps on the young man's
countenance, which, for vigor and swiftness, could not have been
done better by machinery. Then he trailed him to one side of the
road, still shaking him in an iron grasp, and kicked him into the
ditch.
"Help!" roared the young man repeatedly in the course of these
proceedings. "Help!"
This brought to the rescue his two friends, who, for the last
instant, had been too spellbound to move. The farmer squared his
fists and received the newcomers on his knuckles. He was a clean
hitter, and from the way he pirouetted and skipped you would have
said he could dance, too. The three young sports, considerably
the worse for wear, fled pell-mell for the barbed-wire fence that
bordered the road, and went over it in the twinkling of an eye.
Only a few bits of what they would probably have called "nobby
pants," speckled here and there on the barbs, betrayed to later
wayfarers this new instance of man's inhumanity to man.
"Do you know, we have never looked at the contact-box," said the
farmer, returning to the car quite calmly to take up the
interrupted thread of his conversation.
The tears were streaming down Grace's face, and her voice was
scarcely controllable.
"It's a b-brush s-s-system," she said, "and it has always worked
b-b-beautifully, and I never could have f-f-forgiven myself if
they had h-h-hurt you!"
The farmer did not hear more than half the sentence. He was on
his knees peering down into the works. Suddenly he raised his
head with an expression of triumph.
Bing! A stone struck one of the kerosene lamps with a vicious
crash.
Bing! Another just missed the countryman's rumpled hair.
Bing! A mud-guard shook with a loud and tinny reverberation.
The enemy, lined up in the neighboring field, and yelling
shrilly, were opening up a rear-guard action with artillery.
"The contact-box is upside down," cried the farmer. "I can't see
how it ever worked at all. Yank me out a screw-driver quick!"
The contact-box was on the exposed side. The farmer tried to
hunch himself into the least compass possible, but his broad back
and powerful frame interfered with his efforts to make a human
hedgehog of himself. He was hit twice, once by a grazing shot
that brought out blood on his cheek, the other a stinger on the
hand.
"Scratch up a few rocks," he called to Grace, doggedly continuing
his work, and keeping a careful eye on the screws he was taking
out.
She got a dozen or so, and passed them over to him in a piece of
chamois leather taken from the tool kit. He caught it up and ran
for the fence, the enemy retiring precipitately out of range.
But if he made no bull's-eyes he had a pleasant sense, for a
moment or two, of dominating the situation. Then he returned
hurriedly to the car.
"I wonder if you and I couldn't push her around," he said to
Grace. "They'll be back again in a minute, and then it will be
altogether too sunny on this side." The pair of them laid on to
the spokes of the driving-wheels, and with a yeo-heave-yeo
managed to head the Despardoux in the direction of its native
Stackport. Then the farmer settled to work again, Grace scurried
about searching for ammunition, and the three young touts rained
shower on shower of stones. If ever delicate adjustments were
made under difficulties, it was on that Despardoux on that
fateful occasion. The only alleviation of an otherwise
intolerable situation was the magnificent behavior of the
contact-box, which now, right side up and readjusted, showed
every symptom of meaning to do its duty.
It was anxiously put to the test, and, on the engine being
started, the farmer and Grace were rewarded by the chippetty,
chippetty, chippetty, chippetty of perfect sparking and
combustion.
The farmer rolled back the enemy, recovered Grace's coat and his
own rooster, seated himself at the wheel, gave the girl a hand
in, threw in his clutches and speeded up.
"Slow down!" cried Grace. "Slow down, please. I want to leave
their horrid money on the road."
"Not on your life," said the farmer. "That three dollars belongs
to the St. John's Home for Incurable Children!"
"You oughtn't to know anything about the St. John's Home," said
Grace.
"Oh, I forgot--I don't," he retorted brazenly. "Only that three
dollars is going to stay on board this car. If anybody ever
earned three dollars by the sweat of their brow I guess it was
you and me!"
Grace put her hands up to his head and deliberately drew off his
hat, drew off his red wig, drew off his red whiskers, and tossed
them all back into the tonneau.
"Are you sorry I came?" said Coal Oil Johnny.
"There are some emotions that can not be put into words," she
answered. "I won't try to say anything. I can't. But if I
should ever seem unkind, or distant, or forgetful, or anything
but the joy of your whole future existence--just you say
contact-box, and I'll melt!"
JONES
I
I could have taken "No" like a man, and would have gone away
decently and never bothered her again. I told her so straight
out in the first angry flush of my rejection--but this string
business, with everything left hanging in the air, so to speak,
made a fellow feel like thirty cents.
"It simply means that I'm engaged and you are not," I said.
"It's nothing of the kind," she returned tearfully. "You're as
free as free, Ezra. You can go away this moment, and never
write, or anything!"
Her lips trembled as she said this, and I confess it gave me a
kind of savage pleasure to feel that it was still in my power to
hurt her.
It may sound unkind, but still you must admit that the whole
situation was exasperating. Here was five-foot-five of
exquisite, blooming, twenty-year-old American girlhood sending
away the man she confessed to care for, because, forsooth, she
would not marry before her elder sister! I always thought it was
beautiful of Freddy (she was named Frederica, you know) to be
always so sweet and tender and grateful about Eleanor; but
sometimes gratitude can be carried altogether too far, even if
you are an orphan, and were brought up by hand. Eleanor was
thirty-four if a day--a nice enough woman, of course, and college
bred, and cultivated, and clever--but her long suit wasn't good
looks. She was tall and bony; worshiped genius and all that; and
played the violin.
"No," repeated Freddy, "I shall never, never marry before Eleanor.
It would mortify her--I know it would--and make her feel that she
herself had failed. She's awfully frank about those things,
Ezra--surprisingly frank. I don't see why being an old maid is
always supposed to be so funny, do you? It's touching and tragic
in a woman who'd like to marry and who isn't asked!"
"But Eleanor must have had heaps of offers," I said, "surely--"
"Just one."
"Well, one's something," I remarked cheerfully. "Why didn't she
take him then?"
"She told me only last night that she was sorry she hadn't!"
Here, at any rate, was something to chew on. I saw a gleam of
hope. Why shouldn't Eleanor marry the only one--and make us all
happy!
"That was three years ago," said Freddy.
"I have loved you for four," I retorted. I was cross with
disappointment. To be dashed to the ground, you know, just as I
was beginning--"Tell me some more about him," I went on. I'm a
plain business man and hang on to an idea like a bulldog; once I
get my teeth in they stay in, for all you may drag at me and
wallop me with an umbrella--metaphorically speaking, of course.
"Tell me his name, where he lives, and all."
"We were coming back from Colorado, and there was some mistake
about our tickets. They sold our Pullman drawing-room twice
over--to Doctor Jones and his mother, and also to ourselves. You
never saw such a fight--and that led to our making friends, and
his proposing to Eleanor!"
"Then why in Heaven's name didn't she" (it was on the tip of my
tongue to say "jump at him ") "take him?"
"She said she couldn't marry a man who was her intellectual
inferior."
"And was he?"
"Oh, he was a perfect idiot--but nice, and all that, and
tremendously in love with her. Pity, wasn't it?"
"The obvious thing to do is to chase him up instantly. Where did
you say he lived?"
"His mother told me he was going to New York to practise
medicine."
"But didn't you ever hear from him again? I mean, was that the
end of it all?"
"Yes?"
"Then you don't even know if he has married since?"
"No,"
"Nor died?"
"No."
"Nor anything at all?"
"No."
"What was his first name?"
"Wait a moment . . . let me think yes, it was Harry."
"Just Harry Jones, then, New York City?"
Freddy laughed forlornly.
"But he must have had antecedents," I cried out. "There are two
ways of doing this Sherlock Holmes business--backward and
forward, you know. Let's take Doctor Jones backward. As they
say in post-office forms--what was his place of origin?"
"New York City."
"He begins there and ends there, does he, then?"
"Yes."
"But how sure are you that Eleanor would marry him if I did
manage to find him and bring him back?"
"I'm not sure at all."
"No, but Freddy, listen--it's important. You told me yourself
that she--I want the very identical words she used."
Freddy reflected.
"She said she was almost sorry she hadn't accepted that silly
doctor!"
"That doesn't seem much, does it?" I remarked gloomily.
"Oh, from Eleanor it does, Ezra. She said it quite seriously.
She always hides her feelings under a veil of sarcastic humor,
you know."
"You're certainly a very difficult family to marry," I said.
"Being an orphan--" she began.
"Well, I'm going to find that Jones if I--"
"Ezra, dear boy, you're crazy. How could you think for a moment
that--"
"I'm off, little girl. Good-by!"
"Wait a second, Ezra!"
She rose and went into the next room, reappearing with something
in her hand. She was crying and smiling both at once. I took
the little case she gave me--it was like one of those things that
pen-knives are put in and looked at her for an explanation.
"It's the h-h-hindleg of a j-j-jack-rabbit," she said, "shot by a
g-g-grave at the f-f-full of the moon. It's supposed to be l-l-lucky.
It was given to me by a naval officer who got drowned. It's the
only way I can h-h-help you!"
And thus equipped I started bravely for New York.
II
In the directory I found eleven pages of Joneses; three hundred
and eighty-four Henry Joneses; and (excluding seventeen dentists)
eighty-seven Doctor Henry Joneses. I asked one of the typists in
the office to copy out the list, and prepared to wade in. We
were on the eve of a labor war, and it was exceedingly difficult
for me to get away. As the managing partner of Hodge & Westoby,
boxers (not punching boxers, nor China boxers, but just plain
American box-making boxers), I had to bear the brunt of the whole
affair, and had about as much spare time as you could heap on a
ten-cent piece. I had to be firm, conciliatory, defiant and
tactful all at once, and every hour I took off for Jonesing
threatened to blow the business sky-high. It was a tight place
and no mistake, and it was simply jackrabbit hindleg luck that
pulled me through!
My first Jones was a hoary old rascal above a drug store. He was
a hard man to get away from, and made such a fuss about my
wasting his time with idle questions that I flung him a dollar
and departed. He followed me down to my cab and insisted on
sticking in a giant bottle of his Dog-Root Tonic. I dropped it
overboard a few blocks farther on, and thought that was the end
of it till the whole street began to yell at me, and a policeman
grabbed my horse, while a street arab darted up breathless with
the Dog-Root Tonic. I presented it to him, together with a
quarter, the policeman darkly regarding me as an incipient
madman.
The second Jones was a man of about thirty, a nice, gentlemanly
fellow, in a fine offce. I have usually been an off-hand man in
business, accustomed to quick decisions and very little beating
about the bush. But I confess I was rather nonplussed with the
second Jones. How the devil was I to begin? His waiting-room
was full of people, and I hardly felt entitled to sit down and
gas about one thing and the other till the chance offered of
leading up to the Van Coorts. So I said I had some queer,
shooting sensations in the chest. In five minutes he had me
half-stripped and was pounding my midriff in. And the questions
that man asked! He began with my grandparents, roamed through my
childhood and youth, dissected my early manhood, and finally came
down to coffee and what I ate for breakfast.
Then it was my turn.
I asked him, as a starter, whether he had ever been in Colorado?
No, he hadn't.
After forty-five minutes of being hammered, and stethoscoped, and
punched, and holding my breath till I was purple, and hopping on
one leg, he said I was a very obscure case of something with nine
syllables!
"At least, I won't be positive with one examination," he said;
"but kindly come tomorrow at nine, when I shall be more at
leisure to go into the matter thoroughly."
I paid him ten dollars and went sorrowfully away.
The third Jones was too old to be my man; so was the fourth; the
fifth had gone away the month before, leaving no address; the
sixth, however, was younger and more promising. I thought this
time I'd choose something easier than pains in the chest. I
changed them to my left hand. I was going to keep my clothes on,
anyhow. But it wasn't any use. Off they came. After a decent
interval of thumping and grandfathers, and what I had for
breakfast, I managed to get in my question:
"Ever in Colorado, Doctor?"
"Oh, dear me, no!"
Another ten dollars, and nothing accomplished
The seventh Jones was again too old; the eighth was a pale
hobbledehoy; the ninth was a loathsome quack; the tenth had died
that morning; the eleventh was busy; the twelfth was a veterinary
surgeon; the thirteenth was an intern living at home with his
widowed sister. Colorado? No, the widowed sister was positive
he had never been there. The fourteenth was a handsome fellow of
about thirty-five. He looked poor and threadbare, and I had a
glimpse of a shabby bed behind a screen. Patients obviously did
not often come his way, and his joy at seeing me was pitiful. I
had meant to try a bluff and get in my Colorado question this
time free of charge; but I hadn't the heart to do it. Slight
pains in the head seemed a safe complaint.
After a few questions he said he would have to make a thorough
physical examination.
"No clothes off!" I protested.
"It's essential," he said, and went on with something about the
radio-activity of the brain, and the vasomotor centers. The word
motor made me feel like a sick automobile. I begged to keep my
clothes on; I insisted; I promised to come tomorrow; but it
wasn't any good, and in a few minutes he was hitting me harder
than either of the two before. Maybe I was more tender! He
electrocuted me extra from a switchboard, ran red-hot needles
into my legs, and finally, after banging me around the room, said
I was the strongest and wellest man who had ever entered his
office.
"There's a lot of make-believe in medicine," he said; "but I'm
one of those poor devils who can't help telling a patient the
truth. There's nothing whatever the matter with you, Mr.
Westoby, except that your skin has a slightly abrased look, and I
seem to notice an abnormal sensitiveness to touch"
"Were you ever in Colorado, Doctor?" I asked while he was good
enough to help me into my shirt.
"Oh, yes, I know Colorado well!"
My heart beat high.
"Some friends of mine were out there three years ago," I said.
"Wouldn't it be strange if by any chance the Van Coorts--"
"Oh, I left Denver when I was fifteen."
Five dollars!
The fifteenth Jones was a doctor of divinity; the sixteenth was a
tapeworm specialist; the seventeenth was too old, the eighteenth
was too old, the nineteenth was too old--a trio of disappointing
patriarchs. The twentieth painted out black eyes; the twenty-first
was a Russian who could scarcely speak any English. He said he
had changed his name from Karaforvochristophervitch to
something more suited to American pronunciation. He seemed to
think that Jones gave him a better chance. I sincerely hope it
did. He told me that all the rest of the Jones family was in
Siberia, but that he was going to bomb them out! The twenty-second
was a negro. The twenty-third--! He was a tall, youngish man,
narrow-shouldered, rather commonplace-looking, with beautiful
blue eyes, and a timid, winning, deprecatory manner. I told him
I was suffering from insomnia. After raking over my grandfathers
again and bringing the family history down by stages to the very
moment I was shown into his office he said he should have to
ask me to undergo a thorough physical--! But I was tired of being
slapped and punched and breathed on and prodded, and was
bold enough to refuse point-blank. I'd rather have the insomnia!
We worked up quite a fuss about it, for there was something
tenacious in the fellow, for all his mild, kind, gentle ways; and
I had all I could do to get off by pleading press of business.
But I wasn't to escape scot-free. Medical science had to get
even somehow. He compromised by stinging my eye out with
belladonna. Have you ever had belladonna squirted in your eye?
Well, don't!
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