Bud, twisting his head, saw a pair of slippered feet beside the running
board. The owner of the slippers was folding the robe and laying it over
the rail, and grumbling to himself all the while. “Have to come out in
the rain--daren't trust him an inch--just like him to go off and leave
the door unlocked--” With a last grunt or two the mumbling ceased. The
light was switched off, and Bud heard the doors pulled shut, and the
rattle of the padlock and chain. He waited another minute and crawled
out.
“Might have told me there was a father-in-law in the outfit,” he
grumbled to himself. “Big a butt-in as Marie's mother, at that. Huh.
Never saw my suit case, never noticed the different numbers, never got
next to the chains--huh! Regular old he-hen, and I sure don't blame
Foster for wanting to tie a can to the bunch.”
Very cautiously he turned his flashlight on the face of the automobile
clock. The hour hand stood a little past ten, and Bud decided he had
better go. He would have to fill the gas tank, and get more oil, and he
wanted to test the air in his tires. No stops after they started, said
Foster; Bud had set his heart on showing Foster something in the way of
getting a car over the road.
Father-in-law would holler if he heard the car, but Bud did not intend
that father-in-law should hear it. He would much rather run the gauntlet
of that driveway then wait in the dark any longer. He remembered
the slope down to the street, and grinned contentedly. He would give
father-in-law a chance to throw a fit, next morning.
He set his suit case in the tonneau, went out of the little door, edged
around to the front and very, very cautiously he unlocked the big doors
and set them open. He went in and felt the front wheels, judged that
they were set straight, felt around the interior until his fingers
touched a block of wood and stepped off the approximate length of the
car in front of the garage, allowing for the swing of the doors, and
placed the block there. Then he went back, eased off the emergency
brake, grabbed a good handhold and strained forward.
The chains hindered, but the floor sloped to the front a trifle, which
helped. In a moment he had the satisfaction of feeling the big car give,
then roll slowly ahead. The front wheels dipped down over the threshold,
and Bud stepped upon the running board, took the wheel, and by instinct
more than by sight guided her through the doorway without a scratch.
She rolled forward like a black shadow until a wheel jarred against the
block, whereupon he set the emergency brake and got off, breathing free
once more. He picked up the block and carried it back, quietly closed
the big doors and locked them, taking time to do it silently. Then, in
a glow of satisfaction with his work, he climbed slowly into the car,
settled down luxuriously in the driver's seat, eased off the brake, and
with a little lurch of his body forward started the car rolling down the
driveway.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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