Part 5

Plury was a cosmopolitan. Her rear axle was Italian, her steering-wheel was French, her magneto was Austrian, and her mudguards were Belgian. It was hard to maintain her neutrality. For example, a German cogwheel that clutched with an English one--scarred veterans, both of them--kept the gear box in a constant state of friction. (When such international clashes occurred, it was always difficult to find out which one had started the trouble.) Then, too, among the American-made parts there was much jealousy between those that had come from rival factories. The tires were of four different makes, each boasting a surface specially patented against skidding; but each strove so hard to shove the other three into the gutter, that all four cavorted about the road in a most unseemly fashion.

Many were the heartburnings, the incompatibilities of temperament, of the parts thus yoked together. Whenever these dissentions brought matters to a standstill, I would have to get out and apply the monkey-wrench of peace.

Plury was hardly a _noble_ car in either appearance or speed, yet I was genuinely fond of her. Her lamps had a wistful look--a look as innocent and helpless as that with which poached eggs gaze up at you before they die. As for her slowness, that made little difference; because her speedometer, geared presumably for a racing car, exaggerated. And, after all, what is speed but a number on a dial? While I saw "71" registered there I was not disturbed by the fact that bicyclists were passing me.

I admired her pluck. She would chunk along stoically, accepting other people's dust without complaint, when in a condition of health that would have prostrated any other machine. (Thoroughbreds do not show the greatest endurance.) Bravely she would drag herself home, after a hard afternoon's work, with a leak in her radiator and congestion in all her bearings.

I used to practice vivisection on her, taking her apart and putting her together in new ways. It was a fascinating kind of solitaire, solving the problem of what to do on rainy Sundays. In a few hours' time I could shuffle the parts and deal out an entirely new model. Under my care Plury changed her shape with ultrafashionable frequency. A model that I was particularly interested in trying out was number nine (_i. e._, the eighth transformation). This was such a daring rearrangement that it seemed too wonderful to be true. But it worked, and thrillingly. In this form Plury exceeded all her previous speed records. The speedometer dial registered 87, and a swarm of gnats had hard work keeping up with us.

Proceeding at this reckless pace, we approached a hilly curve marked "DANGER: DRIVE SLOWLY." I changed gear. The cogs emitted a grating, crunching sound, as of quartz in a stone-crusher, and then subsided. I got out to view their death grapple.

But I had no sooner set foot upon the ground than the roar of an infuriated claxon startled me so that I leaped clear aside into the ditch. In that instant a huge Fiat, armed with a brazen fender, swung around the curve and rammed Plury in the radiator.

Plury _splattered_ like a charlotte russe hit by a sledgehammer. The road and neighboring fields were full of her.

The liveried chauffeur of the Fiat got out and began to brush the dust from the front of his car. A frightened fat man picked himself up from the floor of the tonneau and called to me, "Are you badly hurt?"

"No," I replied. "I'm all right, I think."

"Good!" he said, in a tone of great relief. "Then let's settle the damages at once, for I don't want this thing to get into the papers." With a shaky hand he drew out a checkbook. "What was the value of your car?"

I hesitated.

"Would you consider _five thousand_ sufficient indemnity to close the whole matter--personal injuries, property damages, and everything?"

I considered it!

And after he had gone, I fondly stooped and kissed Plury's tin remains.

ON CHAIRS--AND OFF

AS a person who frequently sits, I should like to know why there are so many uncomfortable chairs. Why is it that people who are apparently mild and kind-hearted will foster in their homes, at their very firesides, chairs of the most insidious cruelty? Why will dear old ladies cherish these household monsters, festooning them with ribbons and fancywork?

Of course I realize that every chair represents some furniture-maker's theory of beauty and comfort, that every lump, ridge, and crook is supposed to have its aesthetic or anatomic reason; what I object to is being tortured for heresy just because I am physically unable to agree with these theories. An innocent-looking willow rocker that stands invitingly on my aunt's veranda is built on the assumption that the human back is in the shape of an S. Perhaps the Apollo Belvedere may have a back like that; but not I. Mine, sitting in that rocker, feels more like the Dying Gladiator's.

I am fond of Nature and I have the greatest respect for her, but my joy in things sylvan does not extend to rustic chairs. As parlor editions of the woodpile they are certainly ingenious, but their surface, which resembles that of a corduroy road, is hardly adapted to sitting purposes. Then, too, there are always a few nails in evidence. And I can never resist picking at the loose shreds of bark on the arms, with the result that, before I know it, I am sure to skin quite a large place, and then feel mortified.

The city cousin of the rustic chair is the high-backed carved seat. This has a lion's head that catches you at the nape of the neck, and a couple of scrolls for your shoulder-blades. The seat itself is a huge slab of wood that feels like adamant. This chair looks best against the wall, and the fact that it weighs about fifty pounds is one reason why it generally stays there.

Another massive chair is the Morris. It indeed took the imagination of a poet to conceive of sitting on a folding-bed that was only half folded. When I get into one of these contrivances its bedlike quality makes me so drowsy that I almost fall asleep, yet its chair-like quality keeps me awake--with the result that I remain in a semi-comatose condition, from which I rouse myself occasionally to climb out and shift the rod to another notch.

A variety that is not to be relied on--much less, sat on--is the loop-the-loop species, which is found in cheap restaurants and at amateur theatricals. This consists of a four-legged tambourine, backed by two loops of wood, the outer one in the shape of a Moorish arch and the inner one in the shape of a tennis racket. Exactly half of these chairs in existence have racks under them to hold your hat and gloves, whereas the other half have no such racks; so that exactly half the times I sit on one of these chairs and put my hat and gloves under the seat those articles fall disconcertingly to the floor.

A kind of rocker much in vogue is a medley of young banisters, a sort of improvisation on a turning-lathe. When new this chair emits a peculiar creaking sound. In the course of a few weeks it loosens up till quite supple, so that, in rocking, the various rods perform a complicated piston motion. This process continues till gradually the chair reaches the stage where at every rock it comes apart and puts itself together again--or almost together.

Best-parlor chairs run to extremes of fatness and leanness. They are either pampered, slender, gilded things--mere wisps of chairs--that offer a most precarious support, or fat, puffy, tufted affairs, satin feather-beds on sticks--no, not feather-beds, either, for they have twanging springs that tune up every time you sit on them. The colors of this latter variety may be endured in winter, but when summer comes it is necessary to suppress them with linen slips.

One interesting species, the elevated rocker, is nearly extinct. This curious chair, able to skid on rollers like any other, has a little rocking department upstairs, so that it can wobble to and fro on its track without doing the least harm in the world.

I could speak of the personal idiosyncrasies of chairs, such as the trick some of them have of shedding their castors at the slightest provocation; I could tell of the rocker that insisted on sidling away from a reading-lamp; or the chair that, while not supposed to be a rocker at all, teetered diagonally on its northeast and southwest legs--but the chair I am now sitting on has given me such a cramp that I shall have to get up and take a walk.

MINIMS

THE NIGHT OF THE FLEECE

Wimley was the mildest man living. Consequently, when Molly said, in her most decisive tone, "Nonsense! I won't hear of your going back tonight, before you've even seen our new tennis-court," he realized that he would have to stay over the week-end.

Not that he didn't want to, in one way; for he liked Molly, and admired the way she bossed the servants and ran the house for her mother. Then, too, the weather, which seemed to be growing hotter every minute, would be far more endurable out here in Avondale Manor than in the city. What troubled him was the fact that he had not brought a handbag.

"I'll lend you some of Father's things," she went on. "It will be no bother at all."

When the evening drew to a close and bed-ward migration began, he was shown to the guest-room.

"I hope you will find everything all right," said his hostess as she bid him good night.

He replied that he was sure he would. Then he opened the door. The heat met him like a solid wall. Throwing off his coat, he went to the two windows to see if they could really be open. Yes, they were; but the thick fly-screening kept out any air that might have desired to enter. He glanced at the bed. There was something blue and white lying folded on it. As he drew nearer, he could see that this something was fuzzy. Picking it up, he discovered it to be a pair of woolen pajamas. Horrors! Not even in the bitterest winter could his skin endure the feel of wool. He wondered if Molly's father ever really wore such things. Perhaps his wife had given them to him, and perhaps that was why the old gentleman was staying so long in South America.

Midnight found Wimley still looking the pajamas squarely in the fuzz. An awful thought was in his mind: What would Molly and her mother think of him if they found them unrumpled and therefore unused?

He slid one leg into the proper section: the flannel drew like a mild mustard-plaster. Then he pulled on the other: he was engulfed. A hippopotamus would have felt comfortable in them at the north pole.

He drew the fuzzy cord several feet before he tied it, then put on the ulster. It had a huge pocket, capable of containing a tablecloth, that hung over the spot where his appendix would have been if he had been internally left-handed. Noting that his feet had disappeared, he turned up the bottoms of the trousers four times, so that each ankle was neatly encircled with a doughnut-shaped buffer.

Then, after throwing back all the covers, he snapped out the light and got into bed. It had one of those patent soft mattresses that, sinking in, hold the body in bas-relief. He rolled and floundered on the thing, but at every flounder he sank deeper. It was a quicksand of a bed.

He recalled Victor Hugo's account of the unfortunate traveler who perished in just such a way: how first his feet disappeared, then his knees, then his waist, till at last there was nothing but a waving hand, and then that went.

He was just preparing to wave when his attention was distracted by the realization that his whole body was tingling with the heat. He seized the jacket by the middle button and pumped it in and out, trying to pump in some cool air. There was none to pump. Gasping for breath, he crawled to a window. Still no air.

He decided to remove the fly-screening. There was a little groove in the side of the frame where you were supposed to put in your fingers and pull. He put in his fingers and pulled. Nothing happened. Then he did so again, considerably harder, and the screen went sailing out of the window. He leaned out just in time to see it crash upon a row of potted plants. His heart stood still. Had any one heard the noise? He listened for several minutes in agonizing suspense.

Here at the window it was a little cooler than in the bed. Why not emulate the Japanese and sleep on the floor? Splendid! No more squashy, clinging mattress for him! Fetching a pillow, he stretched out in true oriental style.

Quite right, the floor did not sink or yield in any manner. It even gave prominence to certain bony places which the bed had kindly overlooked. Resisting the thick woolen anklets, it complicated the disposal of his lower limbs. Finally, however, a gentle sleep "slid into his soul."

But about an hour later the slippery thing slid out again at the mere announcement by a rooster that dawn had arrived. Other roosters, wishing to remove all doubts on the subject, repeated with emphasis that joyous day was at hand. Then a large fly buzzed in through the window to say good morning. It perched sociably on his left temple, and began rubbing its two front legs together in a jovial manner.

But Wimley was in no mood for holding a levee. He brushed the fly away. It executed a boomerang trajectory, lit again on the same spot, and began rubbing its legs as before. He brushed it away again. It perched again in exactly the same spot. He was indignant: was _he_ to be at the mercy of a miserable little _fly_? It seemed he was.

He got up and paced the floor. Happening to catch a glimpse of his face in the mirror, he beheld a flourishing crop of black bristles. His whiskers stood ready to be harvested, and his faithful razor was fifty miles away! Panic seized him. He thought of the window-screen catastrophe, of the quicksand bed, of the hard floor; his heart sank. But when he thought of a day in those whiskers, another night in those pajamas, and then _tomorrow's_ whiskers, he felt that instant flight was the only thing possible.

Hastily he pulled on his clothes, which felt sticky and moldy and spoke eloquently of yesterday's dust and heat. Then he opened the door and peered out into the hall. No one was in sight; but other doors were open, and out of one of these came a rumbling snore. Could it be Molly's? This ominous sound was more than he could bear; he retreated.

Back in the room once more, he tiptoed over to the screenless window to see what his chances would be in that quarter. Ah, there, close by, was a vine-covered trellis that reached down to the ground! With palpitating heart he swung himself over to it. It oscillated slightly as it received his weight.

The thorny crimson rambler was decidedly cloying. He no sooner succeeded in detaching himself from one twig, than two more just like it whipped out and hooked him. He reached down with his right foot--down, down--where the devil was that next cross-piece? At last he found it, together with about a dozen new thorns. But when he started to bring down his left foot, the twigs from above insisted on escorting him to the lower perch; so that he was now in the clutches of the thorns of both levels. His coat tails had soared to the middle of his back, and his side pockets were nestling under his armpits. The air was full of perfume and profanity.

All at once there was a crack and a tear, and something gave way. The next instant he and the vine were descending rapidly in each other's embrace.

A clump of lofty hollyhocks suffered martyrdom in breaking his fall. They gave their sap to save him and complete the ruin of his clothes. Disentangling himself from the wreckage, he dashed off down the nearest path, under arbors and pergolas, around sun-dials and summer-houses, past marble seats with mottos that spoke of rest; till, just as he thought he had reached the edge of the labyrinth, he found himself at the end of a blind alley. In front of him was a dribbling fountain, a vapid-faced female clad in dew and idiotically pouring water out of a parlor ornament. On the pedestal was carved, "A garden is a lovesome spot, God wot." A brown measuring-worm was measuring the lady for garments she needed but would never wear. And the water dribbled and dribbled.

But Wimley wasn't thirsty. Striding over a row of conch-shells and broad-jumping a plot of geraniums, he made for a six-foot hedge that appeared to be the boundary of the garden. A desperate spring, followed by a frantic scramble, brought him to the top of it. He wriggled there like a bareback rider on a bucking porcupine.

_Ping!_ sounded a tennis-racket close beside him. Lifting his face from the foliage, he beheld Molly enjoying an early morning game with her thirteen-year-old brother.

"My advantage!" she called as she raised her racket to serve. But catching an astonished look on the boy's face, she stopped short and glanced at the hedge. "A tramp!" she exclaimed, moving toward the spot.

The would-be fugitive struggled to tumble back on the other side. His head and one shoulder disappeared from view.

"Grab him! Don't let him get away!" she cried excitedly.

The boy did so, seizing one foot while she seized the other.

Then, from the depths of the foliage came a voice as shy and as plaintive as that of the hermit thrush, murmuring, "It's Wimley!"

BLACK JITNEY

THE AUTO-BIOGRAPHY OF A FORD

(_A twentieth-century revision of "Black Beauty"_)

The first thing I can remember was being shoveled out of a great incubator, called a factory, along with several hundred brothers and sisters. All the men in that factory wore diamond shirt-studs.

While I was wondering at this, an old motor-truck named Mercury said to me with feeling:

"Ah, if all the workmen in the world could be as well off as the ones here, there would be no more poverty, and no people so poor as to have to ride in fords!"

I was loaded on a freight-car and carried many, many miles. The car jolted so terribly that I should have gone all to pieces had I not been built for jarring. None of the train-crew showed me any sympathy. They were wicked men, and used language that frequently sent a tinkle of shame to my mudguards. I did not then know, as I do now, that the purest-minded automobile has to endure all its life words and tones of the most shocking sort.

My first master was a careful and conscientious man. He had a large garage full of fords, and he always kept a sharp eye on the door to make sure that nobody who walked out carried off one of us.

One day a man came in with a twenty-dollar bill that he wanted changed.

"Sorry," said my master, "but all I have in my cash-drawer is $2.69. I'll have to give you the rest in fords."

Whereupon he handed him me and one of my brothers and three extra tires, which just made up the amount.

This new master, whose name was Mr. Pious, was very good and humane. He drove me with a gentle foot, and he would say to his children: "Be kind to Black Jitney. Never scratch him or bend him." The chubby little fellows grew so fond of me that before long they would trot sturdily beside me.

Their mother, however, was a cold, imperious woman. She cared nothing for the feelings of a ford. She would drive me at a heartless pace till my radiator was parched with thirst and my gears fairly cried out for oil. Speed was her one desire, and naturally _I_ could not satisfy her. Even when I ran so fast that the effort made me shake from top to tires and I was in danger of losing my lamps, she would call me "ice-wagon" and "rattle-trap" and other cruel names, and refer unkindly to the fact that she could count the palings of the fences that we passed. Finally, this hard-hearted woman prevailed upon her husband to sell me and buy a big sixteen-cylinder Pope-Gregory. This car, as I afterward learned, was so vicious that the very first time she took it out for an airing it assaulted three helpless chickens and a pig.

My next master was a young man whose private life was such as no well-brought-up automobile could have approved of. Every evening, after he had kept me in the garage all day long fuming with impatience and spilled gasolene, he would make me carry him for hours and hours with some young woman who ought to have known better.

What sights and sounds I had to endure--I who had always kept the strictest decorum! Worst of all, his deplorable conduct began to affect me. I found myself thinking thoughts which I had never permitted to enter my mind before, and looking with more interest than I should at seductive, satin-trimmed limousines. My morality was in danger of skidding.

One evening while my master was dining with a young woman at a roadside inn I was left to wait in the adjoining garage. But I was not alone; for close beside me stood a little French landaulet, the most immorally alluring car I had ever seen. Her lines were exquisitely shapely; she was a goddess on wheels.

"Good evening," she sparked enticingly. "Aren't you the car that stood next to me at the country club last Thursday night?"

There was a daredevil gleam in her lamps which set my carbureter a-splutter.

"Yes," I answered, infatuated.

"I knew you, even though you tried to hide your name. Wasn't it lovely--just us two in the moonlight, touching tires!"

A quiver ran through me. I knew that unless I could back out in a hurry, I was lost. I tried hastily to reverse; she had me completely short-circuited.

Heaven knows what might have happened had not my master entered at that moment and saved me. The instant he laid hold of my crank I gave vent to my pent-up emotions in a way that nearly burst my muffler; and when he pressed down the pedal, I fairly leaped through the door in flight.

As it was, I was seething with nervousness. My motor throbbed so violently that I could hardly hold still while the young woman climbed into her seat.

Off we sped down a dark and narrow road. I had no control over myself, and neither did the people I was carrying seem to have control over me or over themselves.

All at once my left fore tire exploded violently, veering me aside into a mile-post. My master and the young woman landed in a clump of bushes, but _I_ was maimed for life. Bad example and bad association had ruined me. Many an innocent, unsophisticated car is thus driven to destruction all because its owner fails to live up to his moral responsibility.

I lay there all the rest of the night, while my gasolene ebbed away drop by drop. In the morning some men came out from the city and dragged me in. They performed a most painful operation on me, amputating various shattered members and grafting on several feet of tin.

Then, before I was really convalescent, I was sold to a new master. This person was a harsh-speaking, unfeeling man, who cared for nothing but money. He drove up and down the streets all day, inviting people to get in and ride; and when they did get in, he forced each one of them to surrender a nickel.

He was very cruel to me. Instead of showing any consideration for my broken health, he would say openly, "Well, I'll get what use I can out of this one, and then buy another." Not once did he ever throw a blanket over my hood in cold weather or steady my slipping wheels with chains. He was so penurious that whenever he drove me through a crowded street, he would shut off my gasolene, and make me run on what I could breathe in from the exhausts of other cars.

Wretched indeed is the old age of an automobile. Bereft of the beauty it had when it was a new model, it declines into squalid neglect. No amount of painting and enameling can restore its youthful bloom.

One day this master was driving me through an amusement park when I broke down completely. He got out, and prodded me brutally in the magneto. I had not the strength to budge.

He grew very angry, and the people in the tonneau demanded their money back. A crowd of idlers gathered to witness my humiliation.