MARCH 23: The Automobiles
“Honk-honk, it seems a pity,” said one automobile to the other. “I know I seem like the rudest sort of an old thing. I scare folks, and children just run when they see me coming. But it does seem a pity. Yes, it seems a shame that I can’t help it.
“One day I was resting. My owner had gone inside a building. I heard a little girl and an old lady talking. The little girl said, ‘I’ve been quite ill and my heart is just beginning to get strong. I have a horrible time crossing the street, for I simply cannot walk across. Those old automobiles make me run.’
“The old lady said to the little girl, ‘I know just how you feel, my dear, for I have been ill too, and I am not supposed to run fast. It hurts me when I run fast and yet I have to hurry to get out of the way of the automobiles.’
“‘I don’t see why they have to make people run, when they’re not going to fires and they’re not going after accidents,’ said the little girl. ‘It does not seem fair in the least.’
“‘It doesn’t,’ said the old lady. ‘But I don’t suppose the people who run automobiles are ever sick. They don’t know what it means to have a horn tooted at them when they feel they cannot run.
“‘And it seems a pity that folks should be in so much of a hurry, as they run along in their automobiles, that they can’t give those who are walking a fair chance, too.’
“Sometimes I wish I weren’t an automobile.”
“Sometimes I wish I were one with a different owner,” said the second automobile.
“Maybe we will be sold and nice people will own us, who will consider those who are walking,” said the first automobile.
“Let’s hope so,” said the second automobile.
“There’s the first star of the evening,” said the first automobile. “We’ll make a wish.”
So the modern automobiles wished in the old, old way, their wishes!