CHAPTER XLVI

WOMEN AS DRIVERS

The 5.19 had stopped at Lonesomehurst, and the grating sound of the Klaxon had caused more than one commuter to wish there were a law against harsh noises. To Cholly Subbubs, however, it had a welcome tone, and he grabbed for his bundles and umbrella, saying while he dashed to the door and swung off the train as it pulled out:

“Sorry, boys; finish the game tomorrow. Wife’s here with the car for me.”

His partners at whist saw him step into a smart car driven by Mrs. Subbubs, who turned it about and took the road parallel with the track and for several miles gave race to the train, while sundry passengers uttered wise sayings as to the folly of a woman trying to run an auto.

A woman can run a car as well as a man [one of the commuters finally averred, as an answer to the criticism of the wiseacres]. I expect my wife will be at the next station and we will have a twenty-five-mile spin before dinner. It will blow off all the grouch, and blow out of my lungs all the bad air I have had to breathe today, and give me an appetite that would do credit to a man who has been toting bricks up a ladder rather than selling bonds.

He had told the story of the new era of automobiling which has come to the metropolis. Wife, the chauffeur! Now what is happening about New York City is an old story in some parts of the country, but the latest wrinkle in suburban travel about these parts is for friend wife to meet the train two or three stations up the line and take tired hubby for a ride on the way home. Having learned to run the car, she had been taking him to the station and meeting him at night. One night he was startled to hear her familiar signal on the horn—he knows his master’s voice—some distance from the home station, looked out of the window and just had time to swing off on the station platform. Now he is keen for that sound. Probably every commuter train which leaves the city each evening in pleasant weather has several such scenes.

It is not a fad, either, but the solution of the fresh-air problem for pent-up business men; the relaxation from the daily cares and just the most delightful visit with each other that devoted ones can have. In the summer evenings there is time for a long ride before dining; in the cooler evenings of fall and winter, when dark comes before hubby is due, good roads still are inviting and the crisp air rejuvenates one and creates an appetite which is alarming, the high cost of living considered.

Women in the East began to take an interest in running an automobile about the time the self-starter was put on the market, three or four years ago. Cranking is not a feminine job and old models of cars bore no semblance in convenience and ease of handling to those now on the market; they are more reliable and dependable than the ancient makes.

Then, too, women in New York are used to being waited upon. They are not of the aggressive type, and do not care for man’s work; while in the West they are more self-reliant. That is only natural, since the western women have been thrown more upon their own resources; having helped the men subdue prairie and forest and desert, the younger generation has not departed from their footsteps. There are self-reliant women in New York, of course, but of a different type, and one would hardly expect them to want to own or operate a car themselves; but they are beginning to, by the thousands.

Another reason for the slowness of women to take up auto driving is that New York City is not a place for pleasure driving; but in the suburbs they are taking it up rapidly, as the increasing daytime honk-honk indicates. In the city it is unnecessary, for there is every convenience for shopping or calling at beck and call—taxis, buses, and rent cars. These things are not to be had so largely in the suburbs, and when hubby is at business and the chauffeur is at his grandmother’s funeral, or has too heavy a load of “Oh, be joyful,” for safety or pleasure, it is a case of stay at home, or learn to run the thing for herself. She learns, and then does not have to worry about the chauffeur going around the corner for a highball while she is calling.

So far as mastering the mechanical and technical details of a car, women seem to be just as apt as most men, if they take it seriously enough. The fact that mechanical talent is not limited to the male sex is indicated by the numerous automobile developments which are the product of the feminine brain.

The Y. M. C. A. Automobile School has been taking women pupils for three years and among the four hundred graduates have been every type, from the society debutante to the mature matron, chorus girl, actress, and a few who desired to become professional chauffeurs—“Jit Chicks” they call them in Philadelphia—with a lot of applications from school teachers. It does not appear why so many of that class have taken the course, but one of the instructors says that most of them are learning so that at vacation time they can take their car instead of the ocean steamer or railroad train and spend two months “seeing America.” One of them, however, declares that she intends to become a professional chauffeur during vacation, so that she can make money while enjoying a full relaxation from her ordinary labor. She teaches at an exclusive club-colony center and will run her car there.

When the first woman applicant came, it caused some of the instructors to gasp:

“Why, a woman cannot understand an engine.”

“Only because they never have tried,” was the response. “Give me a chance—I’ll show you.”

“But you would get all dirty. The men have to crawl under the cars and get covered with grease and grime,” was objected.

“If they get any dirtier than I did this morning when I had to clean out the kitchen stovepipe,” was the comeback, “then I’ll give up; grease has no fearsomeness for a housewife.”

Of course the director gave in, as man ever has yielded to woman, and today the women’s department of the school is a fixture, for woman has demonstrated that she can understand machinery and wires and things and learn how to pilot a car and do all sorts of other stunts with it.

It is no child’s play to which the woman student is ushered when beginning the course. She goes right at a machine and first of all has to learn what the array of bolts and valves and belts and wires is for. The women put on big aprons—or overalls—and gloves, and with sleeves rolled up start to dissect one of the cars as a doctor does a cadaver. From starting crank to differential and from spark plug to oil sump it all has to come down, and, worse yet, has to be put together again. The dainty young thing in dimity—under the jumper—gets her arms greasy and a splotch on her nose, but she doesn’t care a bit, for it all washes off and she knows that back of the nose she is accumulating something that won’t wash off—a knowledge of an intricate machine—and she is fascinated.

She has to learn about tires, too; how to take them off and repair and replace them. It is just a bit odd to see a woman patching an inner tube as handily and as daintily as though she were embroidering a bit of Christmas frumpery; but really she handles the shears to cut the patch a lot more readily than most men, and she puts the patch in place as carefully as though she were mending the seat of her young hopeful’s rompers.

When the student has mastered the mechanical part and has overcome all the “queering” the instructor can devise, she is taken out for road experience. When she has the car ready, supplied with gasoline, lubricating oil, water for the radiator, and all the other things which make for safety and successful operation, and has cranked the engine, unless there is a self-starter, then, with hands and feet engaging the steering wheel, levers, and pedals, the momentous hour has come when the machine is to be under her control. The instructor is provided with a duplicate set of levers for an emergency. Lessons begin in the quiet streets, gradually emerging into those busier, until at last Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street, the busiest intersection in the metropolis, is reached.

The women always enjoy that. Never one but shows she is having the time of her life at that corner. They are expected to lose their heads and “go up in the air,” but they do not. They are not so reckless as men, are quicker to grasp a situation, and do not “take a chance” as men do. Alertness is an attribute of most women, also intuition, and these are qualities needed by an auto driver.

The era of low-priced cars undoubtedly has had something to do with the influx of women into auto driving. Thousands to whom a high-priced car with liveried chauffeur must ever be a dream, are able to have a moderate or low-priced car for the whole family. Mother will not let her sons and daughters distance her in anything, so she learns too.

Whatever may be the cause, it is a fact that the women of the country are taking up the auto seriously. There already are too many in the city streets to excite even casual notice, but in the suburbs, where there is an almost total absence of men during the daytime, every car you meet has a woman at the wheel. There is no indication, however, that man has been relegated to the care of the nursery. He still is too valuable as a producer for that—producer of gasoline and tires and what not. But the chauffeur who drives for a living must take account of the woman at the wheel, for it means lessened opportunity; still, the use of trucks is increasing, and woman is not likely to be a competitor there—not yet.