Short stories, American; United States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
“Here’s where your nice, red, hand-painted autymobile either takes to
its own side of the road or to the trees!” shouted Jimmie back to the
carload.
The young men swung themselves out to see the sight. The road was
narrow. The approaching bedevilment, streaming dust at every pore,
bestrode (or, better, bewheeled) one rail of the track.
“There is your nice little bubble,” chanted the young men. “‘Bubble,
bubble, toil and trouble!’ Get peevish there, Jimmie! Hit her on the
end!”
Tommie, the mild, called out, “Just one layer of varnish off will do
the trick, Jimmie.”
Naturally, the man at the wheel of that automobile expected the
trolley car to stop. Had it been an ordinary trolley car, at the
service of mere citizens, it must have stopped, but being an
Independent State of Modern Progress, it left restraint behind, and
could be seen to move toward that automobile.
“Shove, you shover!” shouted the tallest of the young men.
It was high time. The side of 809 hit the rear tire with a rubbery
shriek. The red automobile went over a small knoll of loose stone and
bunch-grass, to the left of the road, and disappeared from view.
“They can get her back again, all right enough,” said one of the young
men whose severe face suggested the mechanical engineer. “Just erect a
capstan on top of the hill, and winch her right back. I don’t know how
far she has gone down the other side. Wish I had asked you to stop, and
put in a bid for the job.”
“Too late,” said Tommie. “There is a long slant ahead of us, and we’re
really going to run.”
“I could die trolleying!” cooed the stout young man. “Hit her up in
front!” He clambered over the seats toward the front of the car.
In the general joy and enthusiasm then prevailing another young man
began to ring up fares.
“Hey! What yer doin’?” shouted Tommie in the grip of habit. Then he
remembered. “Let her sizzle,” said he. “No harm done.”
The register rang. The signal bell rang. Both gongs rang. It was
somewhat like a party of Swiss bell-ringers tobogganing down the
Matterhorn. Untrained horses walked upon their hind legs, and the _vox
populi_ was hushed.
The fat young man reached the front platform. He was not only fat. He
was also very strong.
“Here, let me run this old shebang?” he asked Jimmie. “I won’t kill
anybody.”
“Well, we’re in the open now,” said Jimmie. “I guess you can’t do much
damage.” So he gave him the controller and joined the vocalists.
Minutes passed by to the lilt and swing of such grand old classics as
_The Bulldog and the Bullfrog_, and the rest of it, with xylophone
accompaniment, accomplished by drawing a cane across the rods in the
backs of the seats.
Never had happiness so untrammeled an occupancy. Number 809 spread
her long wheels in the ecstasy of freedom. Her motors purred. She
passed the high points with loving pats, scarcely touching them. Her
inhabitants were carried away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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