Westward hoboes : $b ups and downs of frontier motoringDixon, Winifred Hawkridge
General
Westward hoboes : $b ups and downs of frontier motoring
Dixon, Winifred Hawkridge
Automobile travel; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
Our guardian angels fluttered so near we could almost see their
wings. Here was Albert Gray, for so he was hight, transplanted from
his Chippewa reservation for a two days’ visit to his Blood cousins,
for the sole purpose of rescuing us from our latest predicament.
Efficiency and economy must have been the watchword of those
ministering spirits of ours, for not only did they send the only
electrician within fifty miles, but then sent one whose knowledge,
combined with our own, was just sufficient. I do not believe Albert
really knew a fuse from a switchbox, but he did remember one essential
we had forgotten,--that the points should be a sixteenth of an inch
apart. But without tools he said he could do nothing. So we proffered
a nail-file, by happy inspiration, with which he ground the points.
We screwed together all the parts, connected the mysterious wire by a
counting-out rime, and turned the engine. Nothing moved.
I turned my back on the exasperating car, and started to walk the seven
miles back to the lumber camp. Then, on remembering my hunch it seemed
as if all conditions were now fulfilled, so I returned, put my foot on
the starter,--and the engine hummed. And until we reached Boston again,
it never ceased to hum.
A prouder moment neither Toby nor I ever had, when by grace of a
Chippewa and a nail-file we monkeyed with our ignition fifty miles from
a garage,--and conquered it.
I shall always remember slow spoken, polite Albert Gray. Like Lucy of
the same sur-name, he made oh, the difference to me!
* * * * *
The good looking garage helper at Cardston met us with a beaming smile.
“I’ve filled your radiator,” he said, “and your canteen, and put in oil
and gas, and I’ve infatuated all your tires.”
It was this same delightful Mr. Malaprop of whom we inquired,
discussing various automobiles, “Do you like the Marmon?”
“I’m not one myself,” he answered cautiously, “but my father-in-law is,
and I get on pretty good with him.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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