"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
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration: _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"_)
[Illustration]
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.
Becoming purple in the face, my master nearly twisted my crank off. He
heaped upon me the most insulting and unjust imprecations, as though it
were my fault that my health was gone, even making distressing
insinuations as to my ancestry. Words failing him, he fell to belaboring
me with a hammer and monkey-wrench.
The spectators looked on with indifference. Some of them even urged him
maliciously to the attack.
"I'd _sell_ the thing for fifty cents!" he exclaimed, with a shocking
oath.
Suddenly an elderly, kindly-faced man pushed his way forward through the
crowd. "I'll give you that for it," he said. "Only stop battering it!"
My master left off hitting me. He looked surlily at the speaker and then
at the crowd.
"You can have it," he said between his teeth.
Hot tears of gratitude dropped from my cylinders as my deliverer pushed
me to his nearby home. From that moment to this I have never known
anything but happiness.
For my dear old master is a retired gas-fitter whose hobby is landscape
gardening. Relieving me of my tired wheels, he has pastured me in the
center of his front yard and planted me full of geraniums. I am lovingly
taken care of. My kind master waters me regularly and curries me with a
trowel. My working days are over. But what makes me happiest is the
knowledge that I can never be sold.
LIGHT BREAKFAST
[Illustration]
"Henry dear," said Mrs. Brush gently, without raising her pretty head
from the pillow, "it's nearly half-past eight."
"What!" exclaimed her husband, sitting up vehemently and staring at the
clock. "Where is Maria? She's supposed to be here by seven, isn't she?"
"Perhaps she didn't come today."
"That good-for-nothing darky! I'll go and investigate." Plunging
energetically into his bath-robe and slippers, he sallied forth on a
tour of the apartment.
No Maria sweeping in the hall; no Maria straightening up the living-room
or library; no Maria dusting in the dining-room; no Maria preparing
breakfast in the kitchen.
"How provoking!" sighed Mrs. Brush.
"Provoking? I call it outrageous."
"Yes; I'm sorry, dear, that this will make you late to your office."
"Oh, I'm not bothered about _that_, for I've just put through some new
efficiency systems which enable me to accomplish a tremendous amount of
work in a very short time. What I can't stand is having that darky
_impose_ on us."
"But, dearest, maybe she's sick."
"Then she could have sent us word by telephone. No; she's taking
advantage of the fact that you are young and inexperienced. But she'll
be sorry for it. I'll discharge her myself."
"Now, please don't get excited, dear. If you discharged her, it might
be days and days before we could get another."
"That wouldn't make any difference. We'd simply take our meals out.
Except breakfast, of course. _I'd_ get that."
"You?"
"Yes. We'll start this morning. If you'll attend to the dusting--later
in the day, I mean--I'll bring you your coffee before you get up, just
as you're used to having it."
"But, Henry--"