CHAPTER IVJIMMY BRENNAN REPORTS
If you will look at your map of Rhode Island you will discover that the northern portion of that small but important state consists of the county of Providence, which, unlike most New England counties, is surprisingly square in form. In the southeast corner the Providence river has wedged its way in, and seemingly pushed the boundary a few miles into the state of Massachusetts, but otherwise Providence county is beautifully symmetrical, a thing of rectangles and equal sides—if you haven’t too true an eye!
Taking the city of Pawtucket as a base—and you’ll find it due north of Providence, on the upper reach of the river—and, going westward, about half-way across the county and state, you’ll find yourself in a region of lakes and rivers and streams, a region as full of queer-sounding Indian names as a pudding is full of plums. Here is Moswansicut pond and Pochasset river, and Pockanosset branch, and many others.And, among them, if you’ll look very, very closely, you’ll find Fountain lake, which, being smaller than the surrounding bodies of water called ponds, is by the law of contraries termed a lake. And, from Fountain lake, trailing south into the Pawtuxet, is Fountain river.
It is a small stream and unimportant. In fact, in its upper reaches it is hardly more than a good-sized trout brook, although, unfortunately, the trout have long since left it. Twelve miles below Fountain lake is the town of Audelsville, named many years ago for a certain German farmer, whose holdings at that time comprised thousands of acres thereabouts. Audelsville to-day is a big and busy town of some six thousand inhabitants. There are two big mills there, one manufacturing paper, and one cotton cloth, and these mills, with the railroad repair shops, account for fully half of the population. Audelsville has some of the ear-marks of a city. There’s a local street railway, which, starting at the railroad station by the river, proceeds somewhat leisurely to the business center of the town, and there forms a loop before it returns. And the main trolley line between Providence and Graywich runs right through Main Street, past Dunlop & Toll’s Mammoth Department Store, and the Common, with its white, clapboarded Court House, and its red brick Town Hall, and the post-office—whichoccupies a corner of the Centennial Block—and Meechin’s Hotel, and Hall & Dugget’s Cut-Price Drug Emporium, and within a quarter of a block of the Opera House, which stands out of sight up Main Street Court. Take it on a busy day, say a Saturday, at about eleven in the morning, when two of the big trolleys are passing at the siding almost in front of the hotel, and the station car is waiting at the corner of Main and Walnut streets for the track, and there are a lot of folks in from the country, why, you might almost think at first glance that you were in a real city, like, say, Pawtucket!
The railroad—the steam railroad, I mean now—enters Audelsville along the bank of the river, and back from the track, occupying the northern side of town, lie the mills and the railroad yards and the car shops, and block after block of monotonous small houses occupied by the operatives. It isn’t until you cross Washington Street that the town becomes attractive. There are some pleasant, comfortable, old-fashioned dwellings on Washington Street. Then comes Main Street, with its retail stores and principal business blocks, and after that, still traveling south, you reach the newer part of the town that is called The Hill. There are some fine residences there; Mr. Dunlop’s, for instance, which occupies a whole half block opposite the public library and the high school;and Mr. Martin’s, which is all of brown sandstone, with a wonderful red-tile roof, and has a great semi-circular conservatory at one end. (Mr. Martin is superintendent at the Paper Mills and owns a lot of stock in the business, they say.) The Hill, its real name is Myer’s Hill, rises to a considerable height above the rest of town, and from the top, say from the front steps of the high school building, or Mr. Dunlop’s veranda, one can see for many miles up and down the shallow valley. Fountain lake is quite plain to the northward, and on clear days one may see Providence.
The Hill, however, is the location of wealth and aristocracy, and we have little interest in it at present. Neither Tom Benton nor Willard Morris lived on The Hill. Tom’s folks occupied a small white-painted, green-shuttered house on Cross Street, one street back of Washington, while Willard lived with his father, mother and younger sister on Lincoln Street, almost at the corner of Main, and some five blocks distant from Tom’s. Consequently when, the following morning, they met to hurry down to the machine shop before school commenced, Willard walked through to Washington Street and waited there in the shade of a big horse-chestnut tree until Tom came around the corner of Walnut Street and waved gaily from a block away. They were both in high spirits this morning,and neither was willing to entertain a doubt as to the success of their project. Tom had sat up half the night reading a book on automobiles and was full to the brim with strange lore which he unloaded upon his friend as they hurried toward the railroad.
“You see,” he said, drawing shapes in the air with his hands, “here’s your cylinder, Will; like that; understand?” Willard nodded doubtfully. “And underneath here is the crank case. Your cylinder is open into the crank case and closed at the top. Now, then, here’s a piston working up and down, like this; see? The gas is admitted to the top of the cylinder, above the piston, through what is called an inlet valve. Then it is exploded while under—er—compression——”
“That’ll do,” laughed Willard. “You keep the rest and show me about it on the engine. Anyhow, here we are at the shop. Suppose he’s here yet?”
That question was soon answered, once they were inside, for Jimmy Brennan, looking somewhat tired and cross, saw them as they entered and, laying aside the job he was on, went to meet them.
“Well, I went over her for you,” he announced when he had drawn them to the comparative quiet of the stock room. “I was up till most two o’clock.”
“Really?” asked Tom sympathetically. “And—and what did you find out?”
Jimmy scowled disgustedly. “I found out that that car is fitter for the scrap heap than anything else, fellows. Why, there’s hardly a part of her that don’t need fixin’!”
The boys’ faces fell. “Then—then you don’t think it would pay to repair her?” asked Willard.
Jimmy examined a callus on one hand in silence for a moment. Then: “Well, I don’t know. How much was you willin’ to pay out on her? That’s the question, I guess. I don’t say she can’t be fixed up, ’cause I guess she can. You wouldn’t ever have a nice, quiet-runnin’ car, maybe, but there’s a good engine there and I guess it’ll pull most any load you’d be likely to put on it. She wouldn’t exactly be speedy, either.”
“It isn’t speed we want, I think,” said Tom relievedly. “If you could fix her up so she’d run pretty well for——” He looked at Willard.
“For fifty or sixty dollars,” said Willard.
“Yes, say fifty dollars,” went on Tom, “why, we’d be willing to pay it.”
“Fifty dollars, eh? Humph! I don’t know as I could promise that. She needs quite a few new parts.” He pulled a little red-leather notebook from his pocket and thumbed the pages. “I made a few memorandums here somewhere. Here they are. In the first place the cylinders are pretty badly scored, but itwouldn’t pay to put in new ones. I guess if they were well cleaned they’d answer. You need two new wrist-pins, though. Then your gears are badly worn; you’d have to have new gears. And you’d have to wire her all over again. Your carburetor—well, I guess that could be fixed all right; same with the magneto. I didn’t have time to take that apart. You’ve got two broken leaves on one forward spring. You need new hose couplings on your pump. The connecting rods will have to be taken up, but that’s no job.”
Jimmy closed his book again and studied a moment. Tom and Willard eyed each other hopelessly. It sounded like an awful lot! Finally: “Well, say, I’ll take the job for fifty-five dollars, boys, and that’s the best I could do. I wouldn’t do it for that if it wasn’t that I can use a little extra money. I’d have to work on her nights and holidays, of course. Where you going to put her?”
Tom told him about the stable and Jimmy nodded. “That’s all right, if your folks won’t object to the noise. Well, there’s my offer, boys. I’d like to help you out, understand; otherwise I wouldn’t take the job less’n seventy-five.”
“How long would it take, do you think?” asked Tom.
“Depends. Maybe two weeks. Maybe three. I’dhave to send to the factory for the new parts, you see. Better say three weeks, I guess.”
“And you think that when you got through with it—her—she would be all right, Mr. Brennan?”
“I think she’d run smooth. That’s all I’d guarantee. She’s an old car; must be six years old, I suppose; and she isn’t as nifty as the ones they make now. But she’s built strong, all right. She’s got a good engine. What was you wanting her for principally?”
“Just—just to run around town in,” answered Willard. They hadn’t confided to Jimmy the real purpose to which they intended putting the car.
“Oh, she’d last twenty years, likely, around town. ’Course if you was thinkin’ of doing much tourin’ with her, why, that’s different. She wouldn’t stand it long. But just around here on good roads, why, she’d last a good while, boys.”
“Then——” Tom looked at Willard for confirmation—“then I guess you’d better do it, if you will. When could you start?”
“To-night. You get her hauled around to your stable and I’ll start in this evening to take her down.”
“That will be fine! That is, if I can get the carriage taken away to-day. If I can’t I’ll let you know. Have you a telephone here?”
“Yes, 48-W. I’ll be here till four. If you can’tget her around to-day let me know and I’ll start to-morrow. That’s a bargain, then, fellows. I’m to put her in good runnin’ shape; best I know how; and you pay me fifty-five dollars when she’s done. All right. See you later.”