Frankly, I am not much of a hand at machinery of any sort. I have no
prejudice against it as such, for some of my best friends are of a
mechanical turn of mind, and very nice fellows they are too. But the
pencil sharpener in our office is about as far as I, personally, have
ever got in the line of operating a complicated piece of mechanism
with any degree of success.
So, when George suggested that he teach me to run his car, it seemed a
reasonable proposition. Obviously, _some one_ had to teach me. I
couldn't be expected to go out and pick the thing up by myself, like
learning to eat olives. No matter how well-intentioned I might be, or
how long I stuck at it, the chances are that I never could learn to
drive a car simply by sitting in the seat alone and fooling around
among the gadgets until I found the right ones. Something would be
sure to happen to spoil the whole thing long before I got the hang of
it.
The car was, therefore, brought out into the driveway at the side of
the house, like a bull being led into the ring for a humid afternoon
with the matador. It was right here that George began to show his true
colors, for he stopped the engine, which was running very nicely as it
was, and said that I might as well begin by learning to crank it, as I
probably would spend seven-eighths of my driving time cranking in the
future.
I didn't like this in George. It showed that he wasn't going about it
in the right spirit. He was beginning with the assumption that I would
make a dub of myself, and, as I was already beginning to assume the
same thing, it looked rather black for the lesson, with both parties
to it holding the same pessimistic thought.
So, right off the bat, I said:
"No, George. It seems to me that you ought to crank it yourself.
To-day I am learning to _drive_ the car. 'One thing at a time' is my
motto. That is what has brought our modern industrial system to its
present state of efficiency: the Division of Labor--one man who does
nothing but make holes in washers, another who does nothing but slip
the washers over the dinguses over which they belong; one man who
devotes his whole time to running a car, another who specializes in
cranking it. Now, in the early days of industry, when the guild was
the unit of organization among the workers--"
George, having cranked the engine, motioned me into the driver's seat,
and took his position beside me. It struck me that the thing was very
poorly arranged, in that the place which was to be occupied by the
driver, obviously the most important person in the car (except, of
course, the lady member of the party in the tonneau, who holds the
bluebook and gives wrong directions as to turnings), was all cluttered
up with a lot of apparatus and pedals and things, so much so that I
had to inhale and contract in order to squeeze past the wheel into my
seat. And even then I was forced to stretch one leg out so far that I
kicked a little gadget on a box arrangement on the dashboard, which
apparently stopped the engine. As he cranked it again, George said,
among other things, that it couldn't possibly have been done except on
purpose, and that he could take a joke as well as the next man, but
that, good night, what was the use of being an ass?
As if I, with no mechanical instinct whatever, knew what was in that
box! I don't know even now, and I have got my driver's license.
George finally got things stirring again and climbed in, leaving the
door partly open no doubt in order that, in case of emergency, he
could walk, not run, to the street via the nearest exit.
"The gear set of this car is of the planetary type," he said, by way
of opening the seminar, while the motor behaved as if it were trying
to jiggle its way out from under the cushions and bite me. "This
planetary system gives two forward speeds and a reverse motion."
[Illustration: "George said that he could take a joke, but that, good
night! what was the use of being an ass?"]
"Nothing could be fairer than that. It sounds like an almost perfect
arrangement to me," I said, to show that I was listening. And then, to
show that I was thinking about the thing as well, I asked: "But surely
you don't have to pedal the thing along yourself by foot power! All
those pedals down there would seem to leave very little for the
gasoline power to do."
"Those three pedals are what do the trick," explained George. And then
he added ominously: "If you should step on that left-hand one now, you
would throw in your clutch."
"Please, George, don't get morbid," I protested. "I'm nervous enough
as it is, without having to worry about my own bodily safety."
"The middle pedal, marked 'R,' is the reverse, and the one at the
right, marked 'B,' is the foot brake. Now, when you want to start--"
"Just a minute, please," I said sternly. "You skip over those as if
there were something about them you were a little ashamed of, George.
Are you keeping something from me about the reverse and the foot
brake?"
"I didn't know but that somewhere in your valuable college course they
taught you what 'reverse' meant, and I was sure that your little son
had told you all about the foot brake on his express wagon," said
George, waxing sarcastic in the manner of the technical man that he
is.
"I don't want you to take anything for granted in teaching me to run
this thing," I replied. "It is those little things that count, you
know, and I would feel just as badly as you would if I were to run
your car over a cliff into a rocky gorge because of some detail that I
was uninformed about. You know that, George."
"Very well," he said, "I'll get down to fundamentals. When you push
the reverse pedal, you drive the car in the opposite direction from
that in which it is headed. This is done by tightening the external
contracting clutch bands which are between the gearing and the disk
clutch."
Somehow this struck me as funny. The idea of reversing by tightening
_any_ bands at all, much less external contracting ones, was the one
thing needed to send me off into roars of laughter. The whole thing
seemed so flat, after the excitement of the war, and everything.
Naturally George didn't get it. It was 'way over his head, and I knew
that there would be no use trying to explain it to him. So I just
continued to chuckle and murmur: "External contracting clutch bands!
You'll be the death of me yet, George!"
But I felt that, as the minutes went by, the situation was getting
strained. My instructor and I were growing farther and farther apart
in spirit, and, after all, it was his car and he was going to
considerable trouble to teach me to run it, and the least that I could
do would be to take him seriously, whether the thing struck me as
being sensible or not.
So I calmed myself with some effort, and tried to bring the
conversation around to an opening for him to begin with further
explanations.
"But, all joking aside, George, how can you be so sure about these
things? You say that when you push the reverse pedal you tighten the
external contracting clutch bands. Did you ever see them tighten? Or
were you taking some one's word for it? Remember how the German people
were deceived for years by their rulers! Now supposing--just
supposing--that it had been to some unscrupulous person's advantage to
make you think that the--"
"Now, listen, Bob," said George (my name _is_ Bob, and I see no reason
why, simply because I am writing a piece about myself, I should make
believe that my name is Stuart or Will, especially as it is right
there in black and white at the head of the story. This assuming new
names on the part of authors is a literary affectation which ought to
be done away with once and for all). "Now, listen, Bob," said George,
very quietly and very distinctly, "the only thing for you to do if you
are going to learn to run this thing, is to get right down to brass
tacks and _run_ it, and the sooner you try it, the better."
"Oh, you practical guys!" I said. "Nothing will do but you must
always be getting down to brass tacks. It's men like you who are
driving all the poetry out of the world."
"You flatter me," said George, reaching bruskly across me as if he
were after the salt and pepper, and adjusting a couple of dingbats on
the steering wheel. "This here is the spark, and this is the throttle.
The throttle governs the gas supply, and the spark regulates the--eh,
well, it regulates the spark."
"What won't these scientists think up next?" I marveled. "It's
uncanny, that's what it is--uncanny."
"_Now_, then: hold your foot on the clutch pedal and keep her in
neutral, while you shove your hand lever forward as far as it will go.
_That's_ right!... That's fine ... 'way forward ... now ... _that's_
right ... that's fine!"
I was so encouraged by the way things seemed to be going that I took
all my feet away from all the things they were stepping on, and
sighed:
"Let's rest a minute, old man. I'm all of a tremble. It's much easier
than I thought, but I'd rather take it stage by stage than to dash
right off the first thing."
The trouble seemed to be that, in lifting my feet, I had discouraged
the motor, which sighed and stopped functioning, giving the car a
playful shake, like an Erie local stopping at Babbitt (N.J.) on
signal. So George said that, in the future, no matter how well things
seemed to be going, never to give in to my emotions again, but keep
right on working, even though it looked as if I were in danger of
becoming an expert driver in three minutes. There is always something
to learn, he said. Then he got out and cranked the engine.
We went through the same process again, only I kept my foot on the vox
humana pedal until I had crammed it 'way into fortissimo. Then
suddenly a wonderful thing happened. The whole thing--car, engine,
George, and I--began to move, all together. It was a big moment in my
life. I could see the headlines in the evening papers:
YOUNG SCRIBE OVERCOMES NATURAL LAWS
Causes Auto to Move by Pushing Pedal
But this elation was for only a moment. For, while we had been
arguing, some one had sneaked up in front of us and transplanted the
hydrangea bush from the lawn at our side to the very middle of the
driveway, a silly place for a hydrangea bush at best, but an
absolutely fatal one at the moment when an automobile was being driven
through the yard.
It was but the work of a second for me to sense the danger. It was but
the work of half a second, however, for us to be rustling our way
slowly and lumberingly into the luxuriant foliage of the bush. So I
was just about half a second late, which I do not consider bad for a
beginner.
"Put on your brake!" shouted George.
Quick as a wink (one of those long sensuous winks) I figured out which
the brake was, by finding the symbolical "B" on the pedal. Like a
trained mechanician I stepped on it.
"Release your clutch first, you poor fish!" screamed George, above the
horrible grinding noise. "Release your clutch!"
This was more than flesh and blood could bear. Again I relieved my
feet from any responsibility in the affair, and turned to my
instructor.
"Don't _shout_ so!" I yelled back at him. "And don't keep calling it
_my_ clutch! It may be because I was brought up in a Puritan family,
but the whole subject of clutches is a closed book to me. If it is
something I should know about, you can tell me when we get in the
house. But, for the present, let's drop the matter. At any rate, I
stopped your darn car, clutch, or no clutch."
And so I had. There we were, in the middle of the hydrangea bush, very
quiet and peaceful, like a couple of birds in a bird house atop of
rustling oak (or maple, for that matter). Even the engine had stopped.
I reached out and plucked a blossom that was peeking over the
dashboard where the whip socket should have been. After all, there is
no place like the country. I said so to George, and he tacitly agreed.
At least, I took it to be agreement. It was certainly tacit. I was
afraid that he was a little hurt over what I had said about the
clutch, and so I decided that it might be best not to mention the
subject again. In fact, it seemed wiser to get away from the topic of
automobiles entirely. So I said softly:
"George, did it ever occur to you how the war has changed our daily
life? Not only have we had to alter our methods of provisioning our
tables and feeding our families, but we have acquired a certain
detachment of mind, a certain new sufficiency of spirit."
(We had both alighted from the car and had placed ourselves, one on
each side, to roll it out of the embraces of the hydrangea bush.)
"I have been reading a book during the past week on Problems of
Reconstruction," I continued, "and I have been impressed by the
thought which is being given to the development of the waste lands in
the West."
[Illustration: "After all, there is no place like the country. I said
so to George, and he tacilty agreed."]
(We had, by this time, got the car rolled out into the driveway
again.)
"The problem of the children, too, is an absorbing one for the years
which lie ahead of us. We cannot go back to the old methods of child
training, any more than we can go back to the old methods of
diplomacy. The war has created a hiatus. That which follows will
depend on the zeal with which America applies herself to her task of
rehabilitation."
(The machine was now moored in her parking space by the porte-cochère,
and the brakes applied.)
"It seems to me that we are living in a great period of transition;
doesn't it look that way to you, George?"
"Yes," said George.
And so we went into the house.