“THE WORLD’S RUN MAD!”
The approach to the old Day house was a triumph. Not only Aunt ’Mira
and Uncle Jason, but most of the neighbors were out to see the
homecoming of Janice’s new car.
Molly, the brindle cow, put her head over the corner of the pasture
fence, caught sight of the car and its glistening brass work and
dust-guard flashing in the sunlight, and immediately set out for the
upper end of the pasture, tail up and head down.
The dogs barked a welcome; the sorrel ponies put their heads out of
their stable windows and snorted disapproval; and the Day tabby cat,
with its tail twice as big as usual, went up the poplar tree in fright
as Frank turned the car into the lane.
“My goodness me!” gasped Aunt Almira, coming down the porch steps in
her eagerness to view the car. “Ain’t that the han’somest thing you
ever see? My soul and body, Janice! I am glad I spent my money for them
ortermobile fixin’s, after all!”
Janice introduced Frank Bowman.
“And he knows all about the car and is kind enough to offer to teach me
to run it. If you approve, Auntie,” the girl added.
“There! that’s neighborly, I declare for’t!” agreed Mrs. Day, wiping
her hand on her apron before she offered it to the young engineer.
“Sure, I’ve no objection. I expect to l’arn to run it myself after a
while.”
“Good Land of Goshen, Almiry!” gasped Uncle Jason. “You’d look harnsome
sittin’ up there a-drivin’ that contraption.”
“Why not, I’d like to know?” demanded she, bridling at his sarcasm.
“One thing sure,” grunted her husband, after a moment. “You can’t make
that kind of a spectacle of yourself, even if ye want to.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause you couldn’t git in behind that wheel in the fust place to
steer it. You’re too fat.”
Janice tried to smooth over this very plain speaking on her uncle’s
part by introducing him to Frank Bowman.
“Yes,” put in Marty. “He’s the chap I was telling you about. He’s
working for the V. C. Railroad Company, and is going to build the
bridge over Mr. Cross Moore’s brook.”
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Day,” said the young man, shaking the farmer’s
hardened hand. “Marty and I are already great friends and your niece
is kind enough to call me an acquaintance. Hope we shall know each
other better.”
“It’ll be your fault, young man, if we don’t. You’ll be welcome here
when you fancy coming. Won’t he, Almiry?”
“That’s right,” agreed Mrs. Day heartily.
Janice saw that both her uncle and aunt were much taken with the manner
and good looks of Frank Bowman. She was glad of this for she did so
want to learn all about running the new Kremlin car--and in a hurry!
Frank backed the automobile around and they rolled it into the new
shed. The latter made a very good garage, indeed; and although Uncle
Jason saw fit to consider the automobile an extravagance on his
brother’s part, Janice kissed him soundly for his work in preparing for
the reception of the gift.
The young civil engineer promised to come the very next day to give
Janice her first lesson in the actual handling of the car, and then
took his leave.
“Mighty smart-actin’ young feller,” commented Uncle Jason. “Got some
git-up-an’-git about him--don’t ye say so, Almiry?”
“He’s got such pretty eyes!” exclaimed Mrs. Day. “And he says he ain’t
never had a mother since he was nine years old. Wouldn’t his mother be
proud of him now?”
“I’ve heard you say, ‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ Aunt ’Mira,” said
Janice roguishly. “He’s too new a friend to praise yet.”
“Huh!” said Marty. “He got us home in the buzz-cart, didn’t he? Shows
he’s a good feller. But crackey! wouldn’t it make him sore if he knew
Marm said he had pretty eyes?” and the boy giggled.
Janice was off in a brown study again. She was wondering, wondering,
wondering! And the burden of her surmises and suspicions was: “How did
Daddy know I still wanted the car, when he had once sent me money to
get it? He must know about little Lottie.”
Yet she had been very careful to say nothing in her letters regarding
her help toward paying for the operation that had aided Lottie Drugg
to see again. Janice Day had never hoped “to have her cake and eat it,
too.”
Through supper that evening she watched Marty closely. He began to
notice her observation and wriggled under it. No other word could just
express his fidgeting.
“Do keep still, Marty,” begged his mother. “Can’t you be quiet in your
chair long enough to eat a meal of victuals?”
“Well! what’s Janice looking at me like that for?” grumbled the boy. “I
ain’t a penny peep-show; am I, now?”
“Nobody would give a penny to look at you,” said his father tartly.
“You’re like an eel.”
“Marty!” exclaimed Janice suddenly, “when was it you wrote last to my
father? I forget.”
“It was right after Christmas, wasn’t it, sonny?” suggested his mother,
“when you thanked Mr. Broxton Day for the present of the gold piece?”
“Aw, I wrote him since then,” said Marty cheerfully. “You know, he sent
me a rattlesnake skin for a band to my hat.”
“That was in May,” Janice said quickly. “Did you thank him for that,
too?”
“Yep,” returned the boy.
“And that was after I’d spent my thousand dollars--or most of it,” said
Janice softly. “It was so thoughtful of Daddy to notice that I didn’t
spend my money for a car.”
“Huh! why wouldn’t he notice it?” retorted Marty, dipping half a
doughnut in his tea and then eating it quickly so as not to lose any of
the soft confection.
“I told him I’d got something different--and he never even asked me
what it was,” continued Janice.
Marty began to giggle.
“Look out, young man!” warned his father, “you’ll choke yourself again.”
“He giggles every time I speak about Daddy’s giving me the car and
asking no questions,” said Janice reflectively. “I smell a mouse,
Marty! _You told!_”
“Told what? I never!” demanded and denied the boy in a breath, but all
one broad grin.
“You wrote Daddy about my--my helping Lottie Drugg.”
“Aw, shucks! You don’t know so.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Who told you?” demanded Marty.
“A boy.”
“What boy?” cried Marty, in flushed wrath. “I didn’t tell no boy.”
“You’re a boy yourself, Marty,” laughed Janice gaily, and with shining
eyes, “and you have just told me!”
“Aw, you cheated,” grumbled Marty, very red in the face.
“What did you do it for?” asked Janice.
“Well! he ought to know that you didn’t do anything foolish with that
money. I don’t care what you say, Dad,” he added, bristling up. “Poor
little Lottie Drugg tumbled down the cellar steps and might have been
killed. By crackey! I’d have give money myself to have her see. Yes, I
would.”
Then he suddenly grinned slily across the table at Janice, and added:
“B’sides, I wanted to run a car myself. I thought he’d buy you one if
he knew what you’d done with your money.”
“I don’t believe you were so selfish in your thought, Marty,” said the
girl, her eyes misty. “I can’t scold you, now it’s done, and the car is
here, but I am going to punish you just the same.”
She jumped up from her seat and started around the table. Marty looked
scared for a moment. She bore down on him with such plain intention,
however, that he began to grin sheepishly again.
“Aw, g’wan, Janice,” he said, trying to fight her off.
But she was as strong as he. She held his arms tightly and implanted a
kiss on one of his freckled cheeks and then on the other.
“There, sir!” she declared. “You are a most blessed boy. I can’t
approve of your tattling to Daddy; but you meant well, and I certainly
am crazy about that car! Let’s go out and look at it again, Marty.”
“All right,” he agreed, vigorously rubbing his cheek with his coat
sleeve. “But no more kissing. I’m no girlie-boy.”
They viewed the car by lantern light; and in the night when Janice
chanced to wake up, she was almost tempted to run out in her night
clothes, unlock the garage door, and make sure that the automobile was
a reality!
Frank Bowman came the next afternoon to take out the car and give
Janice her first lesson in its management. They went up on the Upper
Road, so called, and that was where Elder Concannon lived.
The Elder had built up and had ministered unto the flock of the
Polktown Union Church for a great many years. Now superannuated, and
grown moderately wealthy in this world’s goods, he was not only a power
in the church, but influential in the town’s politics as well.
A new idea to the Elder was usually like a red rag to a bull.
Improvement and change he sniffed from afar and when the smell of it
was in his nostrils, as Walky Dexter irreverently expressed it, “pawed
the ground like a he-goat!”
On several occasions Elder Concannon had opposed changes suggested by
Janice, or in which she was deeply interested. Of late, however, he had
begun to think “that Day girl” not quite so flighty as he had at first
maintained.
The old gentleman--a grim-faced, prophet-like figure--sat on his porch
as the new car went by his house on the Upper Road. He started when he
saw Janice, her hair flying, her face flushed, and all her youthful
eagerness displayed in attitude and countenance as she clung to the
wheel and felt the throb of the engine. Frank sat close to her, guiding
the car in reality, but showing her from minute to minute just what
pedal or lever to use, and how to manage the wheel.
Coming back, the automobilists saw Elder Concannon down at his front
gate. He raised his hand commandingly as the car drew near, and Frank,
with an amused glance at Janice, brought the Kremlin to an easy stop.
“I’m surprised to see you in one of those ungodly things, Janice,” said
the old man seriously. “Many who ride in them are led into wrong ways.
They are an invention of the devil, I verily believe.”
“Oh, Mr. Concannon!” cried Janice. “I hope you don’t really believe
that! You will have to take a ride in this one sometime and give it a
trial. You see, it belongs to me. Daddy just sent it as a present. I am
learning to run it.”
“You surprise me, Janice!” repeated the Elder, frowning. “The world
has run mad over those things. I am sorry that your father was so
thoughtless as to spend good money for one.”
“Don’t say that, please,” begged Janice again. “Daddy did it to give me
pleasure, and I shall want to give other people pleasure with it, too.
I hope you will take a ride in it with me before you utterly condemn
the car. Do!”
“I have observed them on the road, and the reckless manner in which
people who ride in them run the machines,” said the old gentleman. “I
disapprove--thoroughly and irrevocably! Had I my way I would get a law
through the Legislature refusing automobilists the use of the public
highways. I scarcely dare drive from here to Middletown because of the
numbers of those devil wagons on the Middletown Pike.”
“But you don’t know how quietly and easily this runs, sir,” put in
Frank Bowman, with perfect gravity. “Like every good thing, reckless
and foolish people misuse it. You would not condemn the printing press
because bad books are printed on it as well as good?”
“Sophistry--sophistry, young man,” croaked the Elder. “I am sorry to
see two young people like you and Janice engaged in such pleasures. The
world’s run mad after these things, I tell you!” and he turned about,
shaking his head warningly, and retired again to his porch.
Yet Janice and Frank noticed that, as they speeded up and down the road
for the next hour, Elder Concannon watched the running of the car with
increasing interest.
And it did run beautifully! Janice quickly learned the uses of the
guiding wheel, the switch, the pedals and levers, how to start the car,
and all that. Frank pronounced her an apt pupil and declared all she
needed was practice to make her a proficient chauffeur.