“A RUN FOR HIS MONEY”
Elder Concannon jerked open the tonneau door and plunged inside. “Go
on, girl!” he gasped. “Heaven forgive me! I don’t know that I am
doing right. But it’s any port in a storm. If you can get me there in
time----”
The rest of his speech was jerked back into his throat by the leap the
Kremlin gave as Janice threw in the clutch. She bothered little with
the low speed, but sent the car on, out of the yard, and along the
country road at a pace that made the old man cling to the robe rail.
Fortunately there was nobody in sight at first to see him. The Elder
felt that something dreadful ought to happen to him for riding in the
automobile. It would be a judgment upon him if something broke!
Faster and faster flew the car. Janice, sitting well under the wheel,
paid no attention to him, but was watching the road ahead as keenly as
a terrier watches a rat hole.
The Elder leaned forward and shouted something to her. She paid no
heed, though she thought it was something about her driving. But Janice
was not driving her car recklessly; she was only driving fast.
When, on coming to a cross road, they took a sharp turn, the Elder
uttered a loud and prayerful ejaculation. He leaned forward again,
tried to say something, but the wind of their passage choked him.
He lost his hat. His long hair and beard whipped about his austere
face. His cheeks grew pink. His lips parted and his eyes brightened.
There was something very exhilarating about this speedy traveling. He
had not felt the same emotion since he was a young boy and had raced
colts on the county road with his young and godless friends--and that
had been more years before than Elder Concannon cared to remember.
A wagon came into sight. The teamster kept the middle of the road,
although he was not heavily laden and he must have heard the tooting of
the horn. His horses jogged right along without giving way one inch.
“Why don’t he get out of the way? Why don’t he?” the Elder suddenly
found himself shouting. He had forgotten the day he had kept to the
middle of the road himself with his load of hay, and held this very car
back.
But Janice was not to be balked. She did not slow down an atom. She
knew this Upper Road to Middletown like a book now.
“My soul, girl! you ain’t going to ram that wagon, air you?” called the
excited Elder, clinging with both hands to the back of the front seat,
his beard almost over Janice’s shoulder.
“Hang on!” the girl advised, grimly, and suddenly turned the wheel a
little. The automobile darted to one side, ran up the smooth bank, and
passed the wagon on a long curve, roaring down into the plain pathway
again with scarcely a jounce.
The Elder was worked up to a high pitch now. He glared back at the
amazed driver of the team and yelled:
“Whee!”
Then he instantly dropped back into the seat, and gasped: “My soul
and body! what will Bill Embers think of me?” For if he had led
three rousing cheers from his place in the amen corner at prayer and
conference meeting, the Elder could have no more surprised himself.
The car rushed on, Janice hanging to the wheel, and without a word
for her companion. They passed some of the dwellings along the way so
swiftly that it is doubtful if the occupants recognized the Elder’s
well-known figure in the back of the vehicle. Certainly, it was the
last place they would have ever expected to see him.
The car came in sight of Si Littlefield’s barns, and there they were
just turning the young stock out of one yard on one side of the road
into another yard on the other side. The Elder uttered a wild yell and
Janice punched the siren button a couple of times.
Si’s hired man--a lout of a fellow--did not know enough to shut the
gate and so keep the remainder of the herd off the road. He merely
stood and gaped, while the heifers and young steers bawled, and ran up
the road ahead of the automobile, tails in the air and heads down.
Si ran out of the house and came down to the road, yelling and waving
a club. Janice had reduced speed and was picking her way between the
frightened creatures as best she could.
“Go on! go on!” the Elder was yelling. “Drat the critters! they’ll stop
us.”
“Sit down, sir, do!” begged Janice. “You’ll be out of the car.”
“Dern my hide!” bawled old Si. “I’ll have the law on ye--scarin’ my
cattle. I ain’t surprised none that they arrested ye in Polktown an’
had ye up before the Jestice of the Peace, you Day gal! I’ll sue aout a
warrant for ye myself---- Good Land o’ Daybreak, Elder! Be that yeou?”
“Don’t you git in my way, Si Littlefield!” cried the Elder. “If you do,
it’ll be the sorriest day of your life. We’re in a hurry. I gotter get
to the bank quick.”
Janice, saying nothing, had worked the car through the huddle of
frightened animals. They raced a calf for ten rods farther, then the
roar of the exhaust sent the creature fairly into the ditch and they
were free of the whole herd.
Had they looked back they would have seen Si Littlefield pulling his
long beard, standing like a stock in the roadway, gazing after the
wonder of Elder Concannon riding in one of those “devil wagons” that he
had talked so wildly against.
“Goodness me!” the Elder groaned, after a minute, and when the car
was purring along again on high speed, “whatever will I say to these
people? I dunno, Janice Day, but if I save my money, it’s goin’ to cost
me dear in other ways.”
“You’re going to save your money,” returned Janice, with a glance at
the clock. “We’ve half an hour yet, and we’re more than half way to
Middletown.”
“I hope so,” said the old gentleman, with fervor.
But his hopes fell the next moment. Something began to knock under the
car. Janice, startled, shut off the spark and the flow of gas. The pace
was quickly reduced. Elder Concannon leaned over the back of the seat
again and snarled:
“What’s the matter with the plagued thing now?”
Janice began to giggle. She could not help it. The metamorphosis of the
staid and stern old Elder within the last few minutes was too funny
for anything.
[Illustration: “GO ON! GO ON!” THE ELDER WAS YELLING--(_see page 243_)]
“I’ll fix it, Elder. Don’t be worried,” she said, jumping out. “We’ve
plenty of time.”
“‘Plenty of time,’ girl!” repeated the old gentleman. “Your clock says
ten minutes after three right now!”
“Twenty minutes is ample time to reach the bank,” she mumbled, crawling
under the automobile.
“Great goodness!” he groaned. “How can you say that? We’re only at
Timothy Warner’s. And I declare! I believe they are all at the windows
looking down here.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Janice returned in a muffled tone. “They usually
stare at me when I come by.”
“Humph!” groaned the Elder. He didn’t like the idea of being made a
spectacle of on the public road. He knew the Warners were gossips. Of
course the tale of his wild ride in the automobile would be spread
broadcast all over the county. And if he had come thus far only to be
too late at the bank in the end!
He opened his lips to say something tart to Janice, when she backed out
from under the car again. She had a smudge across her face, one of her
fingers was bleeding, and her hat and coat were rumpled. It struck the
Elder suddenly that this young girl, who had every occasion to dislike
him, was doing her very best to save him trouble and misfortune. He
shut his mouth grimly and said nothing.
“We’ll try it again,” Janice said, cheerfully, and got into the car.
It started smoothly and soon they left the Warners’ house far behind.
The speed increased until that strange exhilaration again seized upon
the old gentleman. The faster they traveled the faster he wanted to
travel. The bacilli of speed mania had got into his blood in some
mysterious way.
His grim mouth relaxed. His eyes shone again and he could not keep
his face straight. He felt that there was a grin widening on his hard
countenance and he could not control it.
It wasn’t merely a facial grimace, either. He felt different inside!
There had been a change enacted within him as the motor-car whisked him
over the frozen road.
He was an austere man, having lived for years a strictly virtuous life,
but without being touched much by that greatest grace, charity. He had
nothing but a frown for the failings and weaknesses of humanity in
general. He never made allowances for the natural desire of healthy
human beings for amusement. His idea of a normal man was one who spent
his spare hours in studying the prophecies of the Old Testament; who
went to each service of the church, save, indeed, the young people’s
meeting which the Elder believed was ungodly; who sat in the amen
corner and responded loudly at the proper times; who worked hard all
the week; who opposed everything, political and religious, that savored
of progress; and who amassed money.
He had been unable to appreciate any other attitude toward life, and
he disagreed with that phrase of the Constitution that spoke of “the
pursuit of happiness.”
But on this afternoon there was something novel aroused in Elder
Concannon. His condition of mind was a throwback into his youth. He
hadn’t thought of those horse-racing days for many and many a year.
He had not relaxed his grimness since long before he had given up the
pastorate of the Union Church. The gentle influence of a young wife had
been lost to him so long before that it positively hurt him to think
back so far. Josiah Concannon had once been a different man from the
being that bore that name to-day.
He had been ashamed of that old man, whenever he thought of him. Now he
was not quite sure that he was right in being ashamed of him--thus did
the swift ride and the stirring of his pulse affect the old gentleman.
He leaned upon the back of Janice’s seat, clinging with both hands
to it, and watched the play of expression upon her fair face. Here
was youth, beauty, the joy of living, all that he had opposed, had
quenched in his own existence, had tried to quench in others.
She turned suddenly and gave him a most brilliant smile. “There’s the
Soldiers’ Monument, Elder,” she said, “at the head of Main Street.
There’s Mrs. Protherick’s School that I attend. We’ll be at the bank
in two minutes--and it is only twenty-five minutes past three by the
school clock.”
The old gentleman drew a long breath. He sank back in the rear seat,
and his usual expression returned to his gray features like a mask.
He had been excited, the blood was still pumping rapidly in his veins,
and he felt that strange stirring of life within him that he had not
known for so long a time.
But he appreciated the fact that certain things were expected of Josiah
Concannon. He was known in Middletown almost as well as in Polktown.
He already saw pedestrians on the sidewalk staring in surprise at his
upright figure in the car.
He had had “a run for his money,” in very truth. He must now enter the
bank with his usual calm dignity and transact his business as though
it were an ordinary occasion. It would never do to let the officials
suspect that he knew the difficulties the bank was in. Business--all
business again! It was not the same man who had shouted angrily at Si
Littlefield, who now stepped out of the tonneau when Janice brought the
car easily to the curb.
Even the carpet slippers flapping about his heels could not disturb
Elder Concannon’s dignity when he stalked into the bank. Perhaps it was
fortunate that the teller did not get a glimpse of the old man’s feet,
for the slippers advertised his nervousness and excitement if nothing
else did.
“I find I must use that cash in closing my timber deal at once,” he
said to the bank official, after scribbling the amount he wished to
draw on a blank check.
“This quite cleans up your account, Elder,” said the teller, doubtfully.
“Yes. I’ll need it all, just as I warned you when I put it in last
week,” the Elder said, without in the least betraying the emotion he
felt.
The teller took the check back and showed it to a bespectacled man who,
with two other strangers, were at the books. He explained in a whisper
about the Elder’s deal and the man with spectacles nodded.
In a few minutes Elder Concannon came out of the bank and tossed a
heavy sack into the tonneau, for he had been obliged to take some of
the money in coin. Janice smiled at him radiantly.
“Is it all right?” she asked, eagerly.
“I got it,” said the Elder, grimly. “I’m sure I wouldn’t have got it
to-morrow. Ye can _smell_ trouble in that bank, and lots of folks will
wake up to it when ’tis too late. But you saved me, Janice Day, and I
hope you don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”