A NOVICE AT THE WHEEL.
The governor and Hitchens made inquiry of the crowd regarding their
missing driver, but no one present seemed to have seen the man.
Presently the governor turned to his secretary.
“You don’t imagine,” he asked in a low tone, “that the young man who
is injured in Judge Wiggin’s house can be George?”
“The girl called him Reginald, according to that fellow who brought
word to the judge.”
“Still, I’ve got a queer notion that it may be the boy. Let’s
investigate.” When they reached Wiggin’s front door, George, a
bandage tied round his head, was just coming out, followed by the
judge, who seemed to be highly disturbed and indignant.
“I’m all right now, governor,” called the young man reassuringly. “A
disagreeable bull helped me over a fence, and I sort of collapsed
after walking into town.”
“Governor,” said Nathan Wiggin grimly, “as near as I can find out,
your shuffer climbed a tree to git away from a toothless, half-blind
old shepherd dog, and run like the devil when Libby’s bull took
after him. Then he follered my darter home, and walked right into
the house arter her. Whuther or not he was shammin’ when he flopped
on the sofy with his eyes shet, Bessie was upsot and made a touse
over him. She’s a ruther emotional girl. My sister’s lookin’ after
her now, and I’ve told her what I think of shuffers in gen’ral and
young men that climb trees to get away from dogs without teeth
enough to dent a biscuit.”
The governor laughed. “There may be an excuse for the young man,” he
said. “He was bitten by a vicious dog when very young, but I don’t
think bulls could scare him much.” He put his arm across the
shoulders of the young man. “Are you sure you’re not hurt much,
George?”
“Well, not on the head,” was the reply. “But that girl came pretty
near finishing me. She’s a perfect witch, and I——”
“Such a statement concerning my darter is slanderous, considering
the fuss she made over him,” said Judge Wiggin in deep resentment.
“But I don’t s’pose it’s anything more than could be expected of an
ordinary shuffer.”
Again the governor laughed in a peculiar way. “Perhaps not,” he
admitted, turning back to the judge. “I’d like to convince you,
however, that my argument about automobiles was right, and, as long
as you prevented me from catching my train after I had spent three
hours persuading Ephraim Glover, of Palmyra, to withdraw and not
contest you in the primaries, I think it is up to you to give me the
chance.”
First Nathan Wiggin looked astonished, and then slowly his face
turned red.
“Was that whut brought you inter these parts?” he asked.
“That was the principal business. Glover was so hard to handle that
I was delayed until it was only possible for me to get back by train
in time for an important meeting to-night.” Judge Wiggin’s
embarrassment was painful. “Governor,” he said, “circumstances alter
cases. I’m ruther sorry circumstances interfered with that important
app’intment of yours. But whinin’ never stopped a blister from
smarting, and it’s too late to dodge after you’ve been jabbed by the
business end of a hornet. Although I’ve said I’d never set foot in
one of them gas-wagon contraptions, considering who’s invited me, if
you’ll agree to proceed circumspect and decorous within the town
limits, and promise to land me back here safe and sound, I’m going
to take you up.”
“Done,” accepted Governor Bradley. “Come along, judge.”
Back to Turner’s grocery, where the bigger part of the curious
crowds still hovered around the touring car, they went, the governor
walking arm in arm with Nathan Wiggin, greatly to the wonderment of
the staring throng.
“I want you to sit on the forward seat so that you can watch the
driver operate the car, judge,” said the governor, opening one of
the forward doors. “Get in!”
The incredulous and bewildered spectators gasped when the judge
complied without a murmur to this invitation. Lem Dodd had said that
Bessie Wiggin had gone crazy, and now it seemed that Bessie’s father
was ready for a padded cell.
“Wull, what d’ye think o’ that?” mumbled old Abner Nutter, poking
his thumb into the ribs of Joshua Philbrook. “The jedge—goin’
bubble ridin’ arter he’s swore a hundred times that there wasn’t
money enough in the United States treasury to hire him to set in one
o’ them berjiggered things. I’ve heerd him say it with my own two
ears.”
“They’ve hippynotized him,” was Philbrook’s opinion. “Nothin’ else
explains it. He ain’t in his right mind.”
“Perhaps you’d better let Hitchens drive, George,” said the
governor, addressing the injured young man. “I declare, you’re pale!
Sure you’re not badly hurt?”
“Somehow walking makes me dizzy,” was the answer. “Still, I’m
feeling better. I think I’ll step into this store and get a drink of
water.”
Having become suddenly anxious, the chief executive followed him
into the store. Hitchens, fretful and none too well pleased with the
governor for wasting so much time on Wiggin, left the latter sitting
in the car and mounted the store steps.
Aware that the accusing eyes of his fellow townsmen were upon him,
Nathan Wiggin gave his attention to the mechanism of the car as
displayed before him. He examined the levers and pedals, squinted at
the clock and the speedometer and the gasoline gauge. He wondered at
the numerous contrivances of push buttons and small levers on the
dash. He even bent forward and curiously moved one of the latter
from one side to the other. About that time a bold urchin who had
climbed on the running board released the emergency brake.
It was a cry of warning from somebody in the crowd that made Judge
Wiggin aware that the car was moving. It had been standing on a
gentle incline, with its nose pointing down the long main street,
and had started as soon as the brake was set free.
“Hey!” shouted an excited voice. “She’s goin’! Jump, jedge!”
Nathan Wiggin did not jump. He was not greatly alarmed at first. The
thing had barely started; it was not running away. He had broken and
trained vicious horses that other men could do nothing with, some of
them veritable man-killers, and surely he could stop an inanimate
contrivance like a motor car, especially when it was not under
power. Possibly he was restrained also by a conviction that he could
not abandon the car with dignity, and by the knowledge that to
abandon it at all under such circumstances would possibly make him
an object of ridicule. He knew with what keen gusto the Greenbushers
“harped on a joke” and nagged the victim thereof.
“Whoa!” said the judge, moving quickly over into the driver’s seat
and grasping the wheel. “Whoa back!”
The car moved on, those persons who had been in front of it hastily
scrambling out of the way. The judge braced hard with one foot
against the clutch pedal, but that did not seem to have any effect.
He grabbed one of the levers, thinking it might be the brake, and
gave it a yank. It was the lever that manipulated the gears. At the
same time his foot slipped off the clutch pedal.
Thrown into gear, the moving car cranked itself, and the engine
leaped to life with a sudden vibrating hum. For in shifting the tiny
lever on the dash Judge Wiggin had made connections with the
magneto. The surprised man gasped as the machine gave a sudden
forward lunge, like a horse beneath the stinging cut of a whip.
Almost before he could gasp twice, the confounded thing was running
away.
“Whoa!” shouted the dismayed man commandingly, surging back on the
wheel with all his strength. “If the bit holds, I’ll break your jaw,
you——”
One foot was planted on the accelerator, jamming it down and opening
the throttle wide. The engine roared beneath the quivering hood. The
car made a jump that seemed to take all four wheels off the ground.
Judge Wiggin’s hat flew off, his sparse gray hair stood on end, his
eyes bulged; but between his parted, drawn-back lips his teeth were
set. Behind him he heard the horrified shouts of the crowd, through
which Hitchens had vainly tried to plow a path in time to board the
machine before it could get beyond his reach. Realizing he had
failed, Hitchens stopped and flung up his arms in despair.
“The old fool!” he groaned. “He’ll smash the car! He’ll be killed!”