Chapter 5

"My Despardoux car!" exclaimed Grace. "It holds five, you know, and I'm going every day to the I.B.&Q. depot and take passengers. Hang out a little card: Beautiful Stackport, Two Hours' Ride for One Dollar; Children Half-Price!"

"No chauffeur?" asked Coal Oil Johnny.

"Of course not. In that case it would be the money he earned --not mine!"

"I don't think I'd do that," said Coal Oil Johnny.

"It matters so little what you think!" said Grace.

"But all alone?" objected Bassity.

"I told you it holds five," said Miss Sinclair.

"I shall make it a point to go every trip," said Coal Oil Johnny.

"Indeed you shan't," protested Grace. "The basis of the whole idea is that no friends are allowed. It's to be genuine money-making without favoritism or the personal element, and I think it's splendidly original and American."

Coal Oil Johnny looked at her and slowly shook his head.

"Don't do it," he said seriously. "Please don't do it."

"But I please will, thank you," she returned; "and I'm going to make more money out of it than anybody."

"What does your father say?" he asked,

"Offered me a hundred dollars not to!"

"Then I suppose it wouldn't be any good offering two hundred."

"Not in the least--nor two thousand!"

Coal Oil Johnny sighed, and puffed away at his cigar.

"See here," he said at last, "why wouldn't it be a bright idea to give me lessons--at so much a lesson--on how to behave, and that kind of thing!"

Sattie Felton clapped her hands together excitedly.

"I take him, I take him!" she cried. "I spoke first, girls, and it beats filing all hollow." In her eagerness she jumped up and ran to Coal Oil Johnny, as though to hold him tight and prevent his being snatched away from her by the others. Poor Bassity had hoped to fall into other hands, and his face showed his disappointment.

"I hoped--" he stammered. "I thought perhaps--"

"No, Sattie spoke first," said Miss Hemingway, detecting incipient rebellion, "and, anyway, she deserves to have you, for her plan wasn't any good and was hardly better than getting a present of the money from her father!"

"What can I charge him?" exclaimed Sattie. "What are lessons worth, Dolly--good long ones?"

"Five dollars each, or fifty for a course of twelve," replied that reliable authority. "Diploma, elegantly tinted for framing, one dollar!"

"It isn't too much, is it?" asked Sattie anxiously of Mr. Bassity. "I don't want to rob you, you know, and even half would be more than I could get by filing."

"Oh, it's cheap," said Coal Oil Johnny, attempting to seem cheerful. "I never expected to become a social favorite for anything under a hundred. Only I wish you wouldn't try your way," he added aside to Miss Sinclair. "I mean it in all earnestness. If I had a sister--"

"You'd keep her in a red morocco case, and only show her in peeps to people of guaranteed respectability," said Grace, continuing his sentence for him. "That's always the way with imaginary sisters. But the real ones like to jump in and help the old world along!"

"Oh, but do take a chauffeur," he pleaded.

Miss Sinclair gave him a mocking smile.

"Would you mind my running my own little show in my own little way?" she observed sweetly.

He blew out a large smoke-ring and did not reply. His honest, sunburned face assumed a far-away expression. Coal Oil Johnny was thinking!

In the line of cabs and omnibuses that stood outside the I.B.&Q. depot was a Despardoux car, dazzling the eye with brass, and reflecting the passing throng in the deep, ruby, red of its highly polished surface. Its only occupant was Miss Grace Sinclair, suffocating in a leather coat, and with her shy, pretty face well concealed behind an automobile mask. At the side of the car, neatly pinned to one of the long rawhide baskets, was the following invitation to the public:

BEAUTIFUL STACKPORT TWO HOURS' RIDE FOR $1 CHILDREN 1/2 PRICE

But the public who had possibly already seen beautiful Stackport for themselves, or who, maybe, were withheld by the lack of the necessary dollar--the public, jostling past in an intermittent stream, and coy as always in the investment of its cash, disregarded the allurements of the Despardoux, and scarcely deigned even to look its way. A few of its members, however, of a chatty and mechanical turn, were willing to volunteer a vast deal of random conversation with less than no encouragement; but the man with the dollar, the man who desired to see beautiful Stackport, the man who thirsted for a two hours' ride--children half-price--was yet to come.

Grace Sinclair had waited an hour. Her first eager expectancy had given way to a heartbreaking consciousness of failure. She felt herself humiliated, less for herself than for her Despardoux. She had thrown down her pearls, and the swine (true to tradition) were treating them in the time-honored manner. At last, when hope was nearly dead within her breast, it was suddenly revived by the appearance of a rustic gentleman, who, stopping as though he had received a galvanic shock, opened his mouth as he slowly spelled out the notice on the basket. It was plain he was from the country, for his reddish whiskers were untrimmed, his hair long and straggling, his clothes of an extraordinary and antique design; and, moreover, under his arm he carried a coal-oil box, slatted across the front, which contained a live rooster. It was a pity that so sturdy a representative of the agricultural classes should have worn spectacles, and blue ones at that, and he had a troubled, peering, blind look that caused Grace a momentary pang. But he seemed a jolly, hearty fellow in spite of his infirmity, and coming up to her he gave her a broad and confidential smile.

"About this burd," he began, in a rich, friendly drawl, indicating the rooster. "Be there any trouble about the burd coming, too?"

"Not a particle," said Miss Sinclair.

"Hey?" said the stranger. "Hey?"

"Glad to have it," said Miss Sinclair, trying to suit her English to the intelligence of the plain people.

"But no monkey business?" said the gentleman from the country. "No half-price rung on me later? No extry for live stock?"

"One dollar, and no charge for rooster," said Grace in her most matter-of-fact tones.

From a capacious and inner pocket the stranger produced a venerable wallet, and from the venerable wallet a dollar bill.

"A lot of money for just whizzing through the air," he remarked genially, handing it to her. "I could fall off my barn for nothing, and as like as not be less hurt than when you've got through with me!"

"I'll get you back all right," said Miss Sinclair.

The stranger showed symptoms of wanting to climb into the tonneau by way of the mud-guard; and his enthusiasm was unbounded when he was directed to the door.

"Gosh!" he exclaimed, seating himself luxuriously on the cushions. "Gosh! but they've got these things down fine! I never read the Poultry Gazette of a Saturday night without saying to myself, what next? Every day some new way of being killed, or some old way improved! My! but this is the dandiest of all!"

"There isn't the least danger if people are careful," said Grace, gazing out of the corner of her eye at three very loud and offensively jocular young men, their straw hats tilted at the back of their heads, who had also been arrested by the notice on the basket. They were flashily dressed, with race-tout written all over them, and their keen, impudent, tallowy faces filled her with sudden misgiving.

"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?"