have been returned unopened. As you say, John Henry, they have been very
timid ones, and possibly are so vague she does not think them worth even
a decided negative. We will send more emphatic ones; not too emphatic,
mind you, but couched in symbols which cannot be misunderstood.
That is our best plan, John Henry Smith, don't you think so? I am glad
we agree at last. As yet nothing has happened of a character positively
discouraging.
Carter? I wish you would not mention his name. From this on we will
ignore Carter.
I intended to write of our automobile trip, but the hour is late and I
must postpone it until some other time. Good night, John Henry Smith!
ENTRY NO. XV
THE AUTO AND THE BULL
I started to tear out what I wrote last night, but on second thought
will let it remain. Its perusal in future years may amuse me. I will now
resume the trail of Woodvale happenings.
The touring car won from her father by Miss Harding is a massive and
beautiful machine. Luckily I am familiar with the mechanism of this
particular make, and, as a consequence, am called in for advice when any
trifling question arises. Harding scorns a professional chauffeur.
"Next to running one of these road engines," he declares, "the most fun
is in pulling them apart to see how they are made. I would as soon hire
a man to eat for me as to shawf one of these choo-choo cars."
Shortly after the big machine arrived Mr. Harding received a letter from
a gentleman named Wilson, who is spending the summer at the Oak Cliff
Golf and Country Club. Wilson challenged him to come to Oak Cliff and
play golf, and to bring his family and a party of friends with him.
Harding read the letter and laughed.
"Here's my chance to win a game," he declared. "I can't beat the Kid,
but I'll put it all over Wilson, you see if I don't."
"Don't be too sure, papa," cautioned Miss Harding.
"Wilson only started golf this year, and the only game he can beat me at
is hanging up pictures," insisted Harding. "He stands six-foot-four, and
weighs about one hundred and fifty. He looks like a pair of compasses,
but he's all right, and we must go up and see him. Do you know the road,
Smith?"
"Every foot of it."
"How far is it?"
"About forty miles."
"Good!" declared the magnate. "I'll wire Wilson we'll be there
to-morrow. We'll fill up the buzz wagon, take an early start, and put in
a whole day at it. Smith shall be chief shawfer, and the Kid and I will
take turns when he gets tired."
And we did. We started at seven o'clock with a party consisting of Mr.
and Mrs. Harding, Miss Harding, Chilvers and his wife, Miss Dangerfield,
Carter, and myself.
There are many hills intervening and some stretches of indifferent road,
but we figured we should make the run in two hours or less--but we
didn't.
The few early risers gave us a cheer as we rolled away from the club
house and careened along the winding path which leads to the main road.
The dew yet lay on the grass, and little lakes of fog hung over the fair
green. It was a perfect spring morning, and the ozone-charged air had an
exhilarating effect as we cleaved through it.
Miss Harding was in the seat with me. I don't imagine this exactly
pleased Carter, but it suited me to a dot. My lovely companion was in
splendid spirits.
"Now, Jacques Henri," she said to me in French, pretending that I was a
professional chauffeur, "you are on trial. Unless you show marked
proficiency we shall dispense with your services."
"And if I do?" I inquired.
"Then you may consider yourself retained," she laughed.
"For life?" I boldly asked.
I was so rattled at this rather broad insinuation that I swung out of
the road and struck a rut, which gave the car a thorough shaking.
"If that's the way you drive you will be lucky if you're not discharged
before we reach Oak Cliff," Miss Harding declared, and I did not dare
look in her eyes to see if she were offended or not.
For the following minutes I attended strictly to business. The steering
gear and other operating parts were a bit stiff on account of newness,
but I soon acquired the "feel" of them, and we ate up the first ten
miles in seventeen minutes.
We were following a sinuous brook toward its source, now skirting its
quiet depths along the edge of reedy meadows, and then chasing it into
the hills where it boiled and complained as it dashed and spumed amid
rocks and boulders.
"Hold on there, Smith!" shouted Harding from the rear seat in the
tonneau.
"Stop, Jacques Henri!" ordered my fair employer, and then I dared look
into her smiling eyes.
"I want to cut some of those willow switches," explained Harding, as
the car stopped.
"What do you want of willow switches, John?" asked Mrs. Harding.
"Going to make whistles out of them," he said, cutting several which
sprouted out from the edge of a spring. "Besides they're good things to
keep the flies from biting the tonneau. Smith runs so slow that they are
stealing a ride."
"Defend me," I said to my employer.
"Jacques Henri is doing as he is told," declared Miss Harding.
The spring was so inviting that we sampled its clear, cold water.
Harding in the meantime whittling industriously on his willow switch.
When he found that his whistle would "blow" he was as pleased as if he
had designed a new type of locomotive.
A mile farther on we passed sedately through a country village and
aroused the fleeting interest of the loungers in front of the combined
post-office and news store. Then we entered a fine farming country, and
from it plunged into a forest so dense that the overhanging boughs
almost spanned our pathway.
Moss-covered stone walls lined both sides of the road. Everywhere was a
profusion of wild flowers, their petals brushing against our tires, and
their flaunting reds, yellows, and blues brightening the gloom of the
encompassing wood. A gray squirrel scampered across our path and
impudent chipmunks chattered to right and left. And then we came to a
small clearing filled with the wagons, tents and litter of a gipsy camp.
"Let's stop and have our fortunes told!" cried Miss Dangerfield, but my
employer vetoed that proposition. It was a vivid flash of colour. The
brightly painted wagons with their canvas tops, the red-shirted men,
black of hair and eyes, olive of skin, and graceful in their laziness;
the older women bare-headed, bent of shoulder, and brilliantly shrouded
in shawls; the younger women straight as arrows, bold and keen of
glance, and decked in ribbons and jewelry, and on every hand swarms of
gipsy children, more or less clothed. The blue smoke of their camp-fires
twisted through the dark green of the fir trees in the background.
Again the forest closed upon us. The grade became steeper, and in places
our road had been blasted through solid rock. And then we reached the
summit of this ridge, and like a flash the superb panorama of the Hudson
burst upon us. At our feet lay the broad bosom of the Tappan Zee, its
waters glistening in the sunlight, the spires of a village in the
foreground, and the distance blue-girt with cliffs, hills, and
mountains.
I have seen it a thousand times, but it is ever new.
"Stop; Jacques Henri!" commanded Miss Harding, and I stopped.
"What's the matter?" asked Harding. "Something busted?"
"We're going to sit right here a minute or more and admire this,"
declared Miss Harding.
"Great; isn't it?" admitted Harding. "Who owns it, Smith? Does it cost
anything to look at it?"
"Not a penny," I said.
"First time I've got something for nothing since I struck New York," was
the comment of that gentleman.
Four or five miles across the Tappan Zee the blue of the mountain was
splattered with the white of straggling houses. To the left was a
checker-board of farms, an area hundreds of square miles in extent
basking in the rays of a cloudless sun. Yet beyond, the Orange mountains
lifted their rounded slopes. To the south was the grim line of the
Palisades, blue-black save where trees clung to their steep sides. On
the north Hook Mountain dipped its feet into the Hudson, and to our ears
came the dull boom of explosions where vandals are blasting away its
sides and ruining its beauty.
"Right over there," said Carter, pointing toward Piermont, "is where
André landed when he crossed the river on the mission to Benedict Arnold
which ended in his capture and death. Beyond the mountain is the
monument which marks the spot where he met with what our school books
term 'an untimely fate.'"
"A short distance to the south," I added, "is the old house where
Washington made his headquarters during the most discouraging years of
the Revolution, and in which he and Rochambeau planned the campaign
which ended with the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. And not far
away is 'Sleepy Hollow,' where Washington Irving lived, wrote, and
died."
"Yes, yes," contributed Chilvers, "and on this sacred soil there now is
bunched a cluster of millionaires, any one of whom could pay the entire
expense of the War of the Revolution as easily as I can settle for a gas
bill."
We had not noticed Harding, who suddenly appeared in front of the
machine with his driver and a handful of golf balls.
"The future historian will record," he declared, "that from this spot
Robert L. Harding drove a golf ball into that pond below!"
"Suppose you can, Robert," observed his wife, "what earthly good will it
do you, and what will it prove?"
"It will prove that I can drive one of these blamed things into that
pond," he grinned. "I've got to break into history some way."
On the fifth trial he had the satisfaction of driving a ball into that
pond. It was not much of a drive, but it pleased him immensely.
"I got my money's worth out of those five balls," he declared as he
climbed back into the car.
"See how the sun strikes the sail of that schooner!" exclaimed Miss
Harding. "And how it glances from the brass work of those yachts at
anchor! There goes an auto boat darting through a swarm of sail boats
like a bird through fluttering butterflies. It is a glorious view from
here!"
"It makes the Rhine look like counterfeit money," asserted Chilvers,
whose similes usually are grotesque. "Any time you hear an American
raving over the wonderful scenery of Europe you can place a bet that he
has never seen that of his own country."
"That's right, Chilvers," said Harding. "We have all kinds of scenery
out West that has never been used. It's a drug in the market, laying
around out-of-doors for the first one that comes along."
We made the next ten miles at a rapid gait through one of the finest
country-residence sections in this fair land of ours. Then we entered a
sparsely settled agricultural district. We were opposite a meadow which
recently had been mowed. It was a gentle slope with picturesque rocks
flanking its sides, and near the road was a pond.
[Illustration: "It was not much of a drive"]
"Whoa there, Smith!" shouted Harding. I jammed on brakes and turned to
see what was the matter.
"What is it, papa?" asked Miss Harding.
"This is just the place I've been looking for," he said, standing and
surveying the meadow with the eye of an expert.
"What for?"
"To paste a ball in," he asserted, reaching for his clubs.
"Drive ahead, Jacques Henri!" ordered my charming employer. "Papa
Harding, we're not going to stop every time you see a place where you
wish to drive a ball!"
"Just this once, Kid," pleaded her father. "Let me soak a few balls out
there, and I won't say another word until we get to Oak Cliff. Be good,
Grace, we've got lots of time."
"Very well," she consented, looking at her watch. "We'll wait ten
minutes for you."
"Here's where I get some real practice," he said, arming himself with a
driver and a box of balls. "Come on, Chilvers, you and Carter help me
chase 'em."
"Robert Harding, you are hopeless!" declared his good wife. "You have
become a perfect golf crank."
"Let me alone," he grinned, as he climbed the fence. "I'm on my
vacation. Keep your eyes on this one, boys!"
Before we started from Woodvale he declared that it was all nonsense to
take along a change of clothes, and he was dressed in that wonderful
costume, plaids, red coat and all.
We lay back in our seats and smilingly watched his efforts. He has shown
signs of improvement recently, and is imbued with the enthusiasm of the
novice who realises that his practice has counted for something.
He drove the first half-dozen balls indifferently, but the next one was
really a good one.
"There was a beaut!" he exclaimed, turning to us as the ball
disappeared with a bound over the crest of the slope. "What's the matter
with you folks? Why don't you applaud when a man makes a good shot?"
"That's balls enough, papa, dear," said Miss Harding. "By the time you
have found them your time will be up."
"Right you are, Kid," he admitted. "I'm proud of that last one, and I'm
going to pace it. Help me pick 'cm up, boys, I'll drive 'em back, and
then we'll go on."
He started to pace the distance of the longer ball, counting as he
strode along. When he reached the crest of the slope we could hear him
droning, "one hundred twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three," etc. Carter
was hunting for the balls to the right and Chilvers for those to the
left.
The red coat and plaid cap disappeared over the hill. Miss Dangerfield
was chattering about something, I know not what. I was looking at Miss
Harding, and did not hear her.
I did hear some sound which resembled distant thunder. A moment later I
saw the top of that plaid cap bob above the hill. Then I saw the
shoulders of that red coat, and the huge figure of the railroad magnate
fairly shot into view.
He was running as fast as his stout legs would carry him, waving his
club and occasionally looking quickly to his rear.
I knew in an instant what was the matter.
"What is papa running for?" exclaimed Miss Harding. That question was
speedily answered.
"Run! Run, boys!" he yelled as he plowed down that slope. "Run like
hell; he's after us!"
Carter and Chilvers took one glance and the three of them came tearing
down that hill.
There came into view the lowered head and humped shoulders of a Holstein
bull close on the trail of the lumbering millionaire. The women
screamed.
"He will be killed; he will be killed!" moaned Mrs. Harding. "Oh, do
something to save him, Mr. Smith; please do something!"
I am rather proud of my generalship at that critical moment. I have a
certain amount of wit in an emergency, and luckily it did not fail me.
It is not an easy matter to head off an enraged bull in an open field,
but I saw a chance and took it.
[Illustration: "Run! Run, boys!"]
I grasped Miss Harding and fairly threw her to the ground.
"Jump! Jump!" I yelled to the others.
Mrs. Chilvers and Miss Dangerfield instantly obeyed, but Mrs. Harding
was too terrified to comprehend my orders. Her eyes were fixed on her
husband, and she neither saw nor heard me. There was not a second to
lose.
I swung that heavy touring-car in a backward curve, so as to face the
fence over which Mr. Harding had climbed. Turning on full speed I headed
for it.
The powerful machine quivered for the fraction of a second and then
leaped from the roadway. There was a crash of splintered fence posts and
boards, a glimpse of flying lumber, and we were in the meadow.
It takes some time to tell this, but it was not long in happening. When
we went through that fence Harding was probably seventy yards away and
to our left. The bull was not twenty feet back of him and gaining
rapidly at every jump. I saw nothing of Carter or Chilvers.
Harding had dropped his club and was running desperately. I feared every
moment that he would fall. He was headed for the pond, but never would
have reached it.
"Drop down! Drop down!" I shouted to Mrs. Harding.
We went over a hummock where a drain-pipe had been laid and I thought we
were done for. The shock hurled Mrs. Harding to the floor. Beyond that
point the ground was hard and fairly smooth and our speed became
terrific.
[Illustration: "Then I struck the bull"]
The distance between the bull and his intended victim had decreased to
so small a space that I despaired of cutting him off. I cannot tell
exactly what happened. I only know that I kept my eye on that bull as
religiously as one attempts to obey the golf mandate, "keep your eye on
the ball."
Then I struck the bull.
I caught him with the left of the front of the car. The collision was
at an angle of about thirty degrees, I should say. I missed Harding by
not more than six feet. I presume we were travelling at a rate of a mile
a minute, and that bull certainly was going one-third that fast.
As the front of the machine was upon the animal I ducked, but did not
release my firm grip on the steering-wheel. There was photographed on my
brain an impression of a shaggy head, short and sharp horns, rage-crazed
eyes, a wet nose and lolling tongue, of turf cast up by flying hooves,
of a bearded face with staring eyes, of a red coat and a bewildering
plaid--and then the machine was upon them.
The shock of the collision was so slight that I feared I had missed my
target. I shut off the power and swung sharply to the right. One glance
proved that Mrs. Harding was uninjured.
Two objects were on the ground over which I had passed, and Carter and
Chilvers were running toward them. Had I struck Harding? I suffered
agonies in those moments, and I was the first to reach his side.
As I sprang from the car he raised to a sitting posture and attempted to
speak, but it was impossible to do so. Before Mrs. Harding could reach
him he was on his feet, making gestures to indicate that he was not
hurt.
"He's all right!" shouted Chilvers, rushing up to us. "Don't be alarmed,
Mrs. Harding, he only stumbled and fell. He's winded but will catch his
breath in a minute!"
Mr. Harding panted, and between gasps bowed and made pantomimic signs to
indicate that Chilvers had correctly diagnosed his ailment.
His wife has too much sense to give way to her emotions at such a time.
She brushed his clothes and wiped the perspiration from his face. Miss
Harding and the others were on the scene before his voice came back to
him.
"I'm--all--right!" he declared with much effort, walking and swinging
his arms to prove it to himself and us. Then he shook hands with me, and
I noted that his violent exercise had not impaired the strength of his
grip. We walked over and looked at the dead bull.
"That was a good shot, Smith," he said. "That was great work. Do you
know how close you came to hitting me?"
"It was very close, but I had one eye on you," I replied.
"I honestly believe it was the rush of air from the machine that keeled
me over, but I was about done for. I doubt if I would have made that
pond."
"Governor," said Chilvers, "he would have nailed you in two more jumps.
That was as pretty a piece of interference as I ever saw."
There was not a mark on the dead animal, whose neck must have been
broken.
"When you struck him," said Chilvers, "the air was full of surprised
beef. That bull went at least twelve feet in the air, and he never moved
after he came down. It was a glancing shot, and you could not have done
better, Smith, if you made a hundred trials."
"Once is enough for me," I said.
I turned my attention to the automobile, and as I started toward it Miss
Harding intercepted me.
"That was very brave of you, Jacques Henri," she said, offering both of
her hands. "You are an excellent chauffeur, and we all thank you."
"Don't praise me too much or I shall be tempted to demand an exorbitant
salary," I declared. "I'm glad I had the sense to think of it in time.
Let's see if much damage was done to the machine."
It was a happy moment for John Henry Smith, and I would tackle a bull
every day under the same circumstances if I knew that there was waiting
for me the reward of such a glance from those eyes and the clasp of
those little hands.
The forward lamps were smashed beyond repair and several rods were
slightly bent, but aside from these trifles I could not see that any
damage had been done. Mr. Harding and the others joined us.
"I suppose somebody owns that bull," he said. "Do you happen to know who
runs this farm, Smith?"
I had no idea. There was no farmhouse in sight, and Harding was in a
quandary. He thought a moment and then produced one of his cards.
"Write this for me, Smith. My hand is too shaky. Let's see," and then
he dictated the following: "_While playing golf I was attacked by this
bull. Send bill for bull to Woodvale Club_."
"I should say that was all right," he said, reading it carefully. "It is
short and does not go into unnecessary details."
We tied the card to the animal's horns, and I have an idea the owner of
that unfortunate beast will be mystified to account for the fate which
befel him. Having repaired the fence as best we could we resumed our
journey to Oak Cliff, and Mr. Harding was content to remain in his seat
until we reached there.
Later in the day Chilvers drew a diagram of this exploit on the back of
a menu card, and I paste it in here as a droll memento of this incident.
[Illustration]
Chilvers attempted to explain to Harding and the rest of us that the
collision between the auto and the bull resulted in "pulled or hooked
shot," the bull taking the place of a golf ball and the machine serving
as the face of the driver. It is quite accurate as showing the relative
positions of the various factors, but I should not term it an art
product.
"I am familiar with the road from here to Oak Cliff," said Miss Harding
when we had gone a mile or so. "You may rest, Jacques Henri, and I'll
take your place."
She did so, and handled the big car with the skill of an expert. I did
not talk to her for fear of distracting her attention from the task she
had assumed. I was contented to watch her, to be near her and to know
that I had had the rare good fortune to do an unexpected turn for one
who was near and dear to her.
I will tell of our day in Oak Cliff in my next entry.
ENTRY NO. XVI
MISS HARDING OWNS UP
"I Demand part of my payment this afternoon," I said to Miss Harding as
we neared the Oak Cliff club house.
"You are impatient, Jacques Henri," she laughed. "Is it possible my
credit is not good?"
"Not in this instance," I returned. "I am demanding that you refuse all
invitations to play in foursomes, and that after luncheon you and I make
the round of Oak Cliff."
"That is so modest a request that I grant it," she said, and ten minutes
later I had the satisfaction of hearing her decline Carter's invitation
to join in a foursome in which I was to take no part. This proves not
only that all is fair in love, but that victory favours the one who
strikes the first blow.
It was about ten o'clock when we reached Oak Cliff, and found Mr. Wilson
waiting for us. Harding was impatient to test his skill against Wilson,
and the two were ready to play when the rest of us were still chatting
with Mrs. Wilson and others of their party.
"We are entitled to a gallery," declared Harding. "Come on, everybody,
and watch me show Wilson how this game should be played."
Most of us accepted this invitation. Mr. Wilson fits the description
Harding had given of him. He is wonderfully tall and slim, and I doubted
if he had much skill as a golfer. His smooth-shaven features and dreamy
eyes were those of the poet, but he is one of the best bankers and
business men in the country.
Harding drove a fairly straight ball but Wilson promptly sliced into the
tall grass. Miss Harding and I helped him search for his ball, and
Chilvers joined in the hunt.
"Ah, this is very lucky!" exclaimed Mr. Wilson, bending his long frame
over some object.
"Found your ball?" asked Chilvers.
"The ball? No, no," he said, coming to his feet with something in his
hand which looked to me like a weed. "But I've found a rare specimen of
the _Articum Lappa_. It is a beauty!"
"Looks sort of familiar," said the puzzled Chilvers. "What did you say
it was?"
"The _Articum Lappa_, more commonly called the burdock," explained
Mr. Wilson.
"If you can't find your ball drop another one and play!" shouted Harding
from the other side of course. Just then I discovered the ball, and
after two strokes Wilson got it out of trouble, and then by a lucky
approach and putt won the hole. Harding looked at him suspiciously.
[Illustration: "What are you looking for?"]
On the next hole their drives landed the balls not far apart and neither
was in trouble.
"I'm afraid this man Wilson can beat me," Harding said to us in an
undertone as we neared the balls.
"Don't lose your nerve, papa," cautioned his daughter.