"Never mind what I mean. I am not sure I know myself. Well, as I told
you, Davison says it is for my own personal use and pleasure, mine and
my family's--not for the church under any consideration--either the
cow or the car. Probably, he says, in his outspoken way, I shall be
fool enough to take the cow, and in that case the car is to go to his
great-grand-nephew up in New London. And great-grand-nephew greatly
prefers the car, so he took me out to show me the cow, and explain what
a bargain she is, and how easy to milk, and how creamy the milk is, and
he figured up how many pounds of milk and gallons of-- No, I mean it the
other way, gallons of milk and pounds of butter I will get per year,
at so much per gallon and per pound, and that will mean a clear profit
of--"
"Father, you poor dear, shall I call a doctor?"
"So, after seeing the cow, and she is a beauty--I said, 'How about the
car? Let's give her the once-over, too, while we are at it.' He says
it isn't much of a car, in terrible condition, would take a hundred
dollars to put it in shape, and fairly eats gasoline--gas going up,
too. And he says it is a bad car to handle, quite dangerous, in fact,
has a habit of running into telephone poles and trains and things. But
we backed her out of the garage, and great-grand-nephew and Folsom and
I had a ride. Which do you want?"
"Mercy, father, how abrupt you are. I thought it was settled long ago.
We want the car, of course."
"All right, my dear, all right, but I have a hunch that
great-grand-nephew will not be particularly pleased. Lucky he lives in
New London instead of here--Congregationalist, too, that's good. And
when I consider that I got Davison out of jail twice for speeding the
thing, I think after all it is my just deserts. All right, call Folsom
up and tell him we take the car."
Doris ecstatically did, and the lawyer said he would deliver the car at
their door in person the next morning at nine o'clock.
"Can't you make it eight?" pleaded Doris. "I think the children ought
to be here, and they are in school, you know."
Very obligingly Mr. Folsom consented to the change of time, and the
entire family sat up until eleven o'clock that night figuring out how
to make motor bonnets of left-over coats and planning vacation motor
trips for ten years in advance.
At five-thirty the next morning Treasure and Zee made a tour of the
house, wakening every member of the family in no idle manner.
"Going to sleep all day?" Zee demanded in a peevish voice when she had
shaken Rosalie four times. "Get up, so you'll be ready for the car."
"Zee Artman, you go right back to bed, and let me sleep," protested
Rosalie. "Do I have to sit up all night just because the car is coming
to-morrow?"
"You get out, or we'll pull you out. Treasure and I are all dressed.
We're not going to have things held up at the last minute because
somebody isn't down yet. Are you going to get up-- Have you got the
water, Treasure?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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