THE NEW MOTOR TRUCK
On Thursday the new motor truck arrived. Jimmy’s praise of it had not
been a whit too enthusiastic. To look at, it was a thing of beauty
indeed, at least from the point of view of its new owners, and as
for traveling――well, Tom had to own by the time they had completed
a triumphal journey up Main Street to the garage that, for power
and smoothness, it could run circles around The Ark! Tom viewed the
large wheels with solid tires doubtfully, but later he discovered
the wisdom of Jimmy’s choice, for there were no blow-outs to bother
with. Naturally the car didn’t glide quite as smoothly over the city
cobblestones as would a vehicle with pneumatic tires, but then one
didn’t use the truck for pleasure riding. After it was in the garage
Jimmy took up the floor-boards and exhibited and explained the engine,
which was tucked away under the front of the car. The square radiator,
which breasted the dash, held the maker’s name in brass letters and
Tom and Willard howled with anguish when Jimmy suggested removing it
to save the trouble of keeping it polished. The body was large enough
to hold eight trunks without piling them, while, if one cared to, one
could probably get on at least twenty. The dark green and pale yellow
looked very well together, and the little black leather top over the
seat glistened bravely. They were all delighted with it, and, although
Jimmy was aching to go over engine and wiring to make certain that all
was as it should be, Tom and Willard insisted on trying it out again;
which explains why a brand new green and yellow express wagon, without
a horse to draw it, ran around Audelsville for three-quarters of an
hour that Thursday evening, creating much interest in beholders!
Yes, that was certainly a busy week; so busy, in fact, that Tom got
out to football practice but two afternoons, Wednesday and Friday. On
Wednesday George Connors berated him soundly, Tom taking the scolding
meekly enough, since he knew he deserved it. But on Friday the captain
had even more to say, and Tom, while acknowledging to himself that
George Connors had plenty of excuse for complaint, was at last goaded
to anger.
“That will be about all, Connors,” he said at last. “I’m sorry I
haven’t been out to practice more, but I’ve been busy――――”
“Yes, stealing business from my father,” sneered Connors. “It’s a
wonder you couldn’t find a decent way to make money, Benton.”
“Anyhow, I guess you don’t want me on the team and I guess I don’t want
to be on it, so――――”
“You bet I don’t want you! I want fellows who will work and take an
interest. Shirkers――――”
“You know very well, Connors, that even if I haven’t done much
practicing I could go in to-morrow and play as well as any fellow here,
including you,” said Tom hotly. “You’ve got it in for me because I’ve
taken some of your father’s business away from him. You don’t care
whether I can play football or not. You want to get rid of me. That’s
all right. You’ll do it. I’m out of it.”
“You bet you’re out of it! We don’t need you, Benton――――”
“And you wouldn’t get me if you did!” And Tom stalked angrily away and
footed it back to town again feeling very badly used until his common
sense returned to him and showed him that, while Connors might have
been needlessly insulting, he had got not much more than he deserved.
He didn’t return to the garage, for Willard, who, with Jimmy, was
washing The Ark with the new overhead washer that had just been
installed, had agreed to meet the 6:05 train. Instead he went right
home, and, to his surprise, found his father, who usually did not
return until just before supper time, sitting on the porch with a
newspaper lying across his knees and a very troubled look on his face.
“Hello,” said Tom, “you’re home early, aren’t you? Anything wrong at
the office, sir?”
“N-no,” responded Mr. Benton, “nothing wrong there. I-I got tired
and came home. I’ve been looking through the paper,” he added rather
needlessly. Tom sat down on the top step, after a fleeting and puzzled
glance at his father’s worried countenance. “I see,” went on Mr.
Benton, “that you’re advertising in the _News-Courier_.”
“Yes, sir, we thought we ought to let folks know we were ready for
business.”
“Of course, of course,” murmured Mr. Benton. “I――I suppose you’re quite
interested in it, Tom.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the boy heartily, “I certainly am. Why, dad, we’re
going to make just gobs of money as soon as we get going well!”
“Hm; glad to hear it, son. We may need money before long.”
“Need mon――Look here, sir, there _is_ something wrong; I can see it by
the way you look, dad. What is it, sir?”
“Wrong? Nonsense! That is――well, yes, Tom, I am troubled a little. It’s
nothing important, though. It’ll work out, it’ll work out. Things
always do, you know――somehow.” He paused and frowned for a moment at
the lilac hedge that was fast losing its leaves. “Don’t you worry,
son,” he added after a while.
“Is there――can I help any way, sir?” asked Tom sympathetically.
His father shook his head slowly. “I hope not, Tom. I mean――no, there
isn’t anything you can do. Well, well! What time is it, I wonder. Must
be most time for supper, eh?”
“Not for a half-hour, sir,” answered Tom troubledly. He had never
seen his father look so tired and dejected before. At that moment
Jerry Lippit and Teddy Thurston came in at the gate to tell Tom quite
candidly what they thought of George Connors; and Jerry, especially,
could be exceedingly candid when he set out to be. Only the presence of
Tom’s father prevented Jerry from doing full justice to his subject.
But neither visitor received much encouragement from Tom.
“Oh, Connors was right enough,” said Tom. “I did stay away from
practice too much. I know that. I was so busy with the new truck and
the garage and things that I just couldn’t get out. It’s all right. I
wouldn’t want to play on the team anyhow with Connors feeling the way
he does toward me. It would be too unpleasant. Besides, I guess you
fellows will get on all right without me.”
“Yes, we will――_not_!” scoffed Jerry. “You were the whole right side of
the line last year, Tom! What are we going to do now? We’ll stand a fat
chance of winning anything, won’t we?”
But Jerry’s indignation soon wore itself out and he changed the subject
to the new motor truck.
“I suppose you won’t want me and Julius Cæsar now?” he said.
“Not after to-morrow, Jerry. You lose your job then.”
“Well, I’m sort of glad, because it takes a lot of a fellow’s time;
and now that football has begun――――” Jerry paused. “Say, I wonder if
Will would mind driving the wagon to-morrow afternoon, Tom,” he went
on. “You see, I want to go over to Finley Falls with the team. I guess
there isn’t much chance of my getting into the game, and if I do go
I’ll have to pay my own fare, but I’d sort of like to see it. Think
he’d mind, Tom?”
“No, I guess not. He isn’t going himself, is he?”
“Will? I don’t think so.”
“No,” said Teddy. “I asked him this morning. I offered to drive the
express wagon for him, Tom, but he insulted me.”
“What’s the matter with letting Spider do it?” asked Tom.
“Spider! Why, he’s going to the game, of course. You can’t keep Spider
away from a football game unless you tie him. He thinks there wouldn’t
be any game unless he was there!”
“All right, Jerry, you go ahead. I’ll tell Will about it. Besides,
I suppose if we had to we could get the baggage in the new truck
to-morrow. Jimmy won’t let us even look at it until he’s been all over
it with a fine-tooth comb!”
Tom returned to the garage after supper――it was less than four short
blocks from the house――and found Jimmy and Willard unpacking cases of
oil, grease and soap. They were stowing the cans on a series of shelves
back of the office which Jimmy had put up that afternoon. “I’ve been
thinking, Tom,” announced Jimmy, “that what we ought to do is build a
sort of bay-window in the office and show goods in it. It wouldn’t cost
much and there’s a good twelve feet between the front of the building
and the building line.”
“How would it do to put a little addition on that corner?” asked Tom.
“Say about eight feet by ten and then have a couple of big, broad
windows in front where we could show things? Then we’d use it for the
office and salesroom both, and there’d be a small door at the side,
so we could get in without going through the garage part. Of course,”
he added, laughing, “I’m not suggesting doing it to-morrow, because
I guess by the time we pay for the things we’ve ordered we’ll be
stone-broke, but――――”
“Some day we will,” said Willard decisively. “Fellows, we ought to own
this place and then we could fix it up as we liked; build on at the
back and front, too, if we wanted to.”
“Well, we’ve got enough room for now,” said Jimmy contentedly. “It’s a
lot of fun, though, planning what you’ll do later, isn’t it? Is that
the last of these boxes, Will? Now let’s check off. You have the list,
haven’t you? By the way, Tom, we get our first boarder next week.”
“Boarder?” repeated Tom, puzzled.
“Yes. Quinby’s car is due about Monday or Tuesday, and we’re to unload
it for him and bring it up here.” Jimmy squinted thoughtfully a moment.
“Unloading a car ought to be worth about five dollars, I guess.”
“If you get five dollars out of Mr. Quinby,” said Willard dryly,
“you’ll be doing well!”
Jimmy smiled untroubledly. “A man with a new automobile will pay any
price you ask him to――if it’s for the auto! And five dollars isn’t a
cent too much. In fact, I’m not sure we oughtn’t to ask him more!”
“Better start easy,” laughed Tom, “or Mr. Quinby will get scared and
send his car back to the maker! Now go on with your checking, you
loafers. It’s a good thing I came. If I hadn’t you’d have sat around
here doing nothing all the evening!”
“Is that so, sonny? Just cast your eye along those shelves and tell me
if you see anything,” replied Willard indignantly.
“There are a few cans there,” replied Tom.
“A few cans! There are six dozen cans, my young friend, and Jimmy and
I unpacked them all with our tender little hands. Suppose you get busy
and do something yourself. Get the wax crayon in the office and mark
the price on each can as we give it to you. I guess that’ll hold you
for a while!”