Adventure stories; Automobiles -- Juvenile fiction; New York (State) -- Fiction; Teenage boys -- Fiction
“I’ve thought of that,” answered Tom. “There’s lots of room in our
stable, if I can get dad to let me put the old buggy in storage
somewhere. We don’t use it now, you know, since Peter died summer
before last. Dad’s been talking of getting another horse, but I don’t
believe he will. I guess Saunders would store the buggy for us pretty
cheap.”
“We’ll make it a part of the bargain,” declared Willard. “That’s
settled, then, and we won’t have to pay for a place to keep the car.
Now, what’s next?”
“I suppose gasoline and lubricating oil,” suggested the other. “I
inquired about gasoline, and it costs twenty-two cents, by the gallon,
or eighteen, if you buy fifty gallons or more. Maybe it would be a good
idea to buy a lot and get the discount. Only thing is, we wouldn’t have
anything to keep it in.”
“We could get it by the barrel, couldn’t we? Doesn’t it come in
barrels? Sure, it must. Look here, how far does a gallon run a car?”
“I don’t know,” owned Tom. “I must get a book about automobiles and
study up. I’ll go over to the library this evening. I guess they’ve got
one there.”
“Must have. Why don’t you walk up with me when I go home? And, by the
way, there’s a fellow on Linden street who sells autos; has an agency
for them. I suppose he’d tell us a lot about them if I asked him.”
“Maybe he’d want us to buy one of his cars, though,” Tom objected.
“Well, what if he did? We wouldn’t have to, would we? He could tell
us about gasoline and oil and things like that, I guess. And, about
getting a license, too. That’s another thing we’ll have to reckon in.
Say we call it five dollars. It won’t be more than that, I’ll bet. Put
down five for a license, Tom. How much is that?”
“A hundred and fifteen.”
“Golly! It mounts up, doesn’t it? And we haven’t counted in gasoline
yet. How much would we have to have to start with?”
“The tank holds ten gallons, I think. And ten gallons, it seems to me,
ought to last a week easily.”
“Well, then, put down ten gallons of gasoline at twenty-two cents a
gallon.”
“Two-twenty,” murmured Tom.
“And some oil and grease. How much――a dollar’s worth?”
Tom nodded and added another figure.
“Well, there we are. Now we’re ready for business. Now, the question
is, how many folks could we carry in a week?”
“Well, there are six express trains a day――three each way,” answered
Tom. “Most of the traveling men come on the morning express and go away
in the afternoon. Suppose we got three passengers each way for those
two trains, Will. That would be three dollars a day. Six times three
would be eighteen! Why, that’s a lot!”
“Why not seven times three?”
“Oh, I don’t think dad would like me to run the car on Sundays.
Besides, no one comes or goes then, anyway, I guess.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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