CHAPTER XITHE RUNAWAY
I thinkit was around eleven o’clock when we pulled out of Neponset Corners on our way back to C. H. O. We had been three hours on the road, and if we were as long going back it would be two o’clock before we came to the big stone house where we had started from. To get to the highway from there would eat up another hour. And how long it then would take us to get to Pardyville, we could only guess at. However, we were going to do the best we could.
“If only we had known in starting out,” groaned Poppy, “that C. H. O. was open. We could have been in Pardyville by now.”
“Yes,” says I, of a sort of financial turn of mind, “and we would have twenty dollars in our jeans instead of eighteen.”
That stirred up the other one to more unhappy thoughts.
“Good night!” he yipped, yanking the steering wheel just in time to keep our Rolls-Royce from kicking over a tree. “Do you suppose we’ll have to cough up another two bucks to get through that crazy town?”
“I don’t see how we’re going to escape it,” says I, “unless our gallant little gas chewer grows a pair of wings.”
“The blamed robbers! It’s a skin-game, Jerry.”
“Nothing else but.”
“Still, I don’t blame old Goliath so much. He’s got to do what the others tell him, I suppose.”
“He tried to skin us on his own hook,” I reminded, a bit stiff in my feelings toward the tricky old geezer.
“He didn’t get by with it, so why hold it against him?”
“You seem to like him,” I grunted.
“I feel kind of sorry for him, if you want to know the truth of the matter. For he hates it there. He said so. And for that matter what man with any sense wouldn’t hate to live in a place like that? I’d as soon be in jail myself.”
“His wife must be a regular old rip-snorter,” I laughed.
“She sure has him buffaloed, all right.”
“Some women like to be bossy.... I hope I don’t get that kind.”
“You!” laughed Poppy. “I didn’t know that you were thinking of getting married, Jerry.”
I made a sudden grab for my smeller.
“Phew!” I gurgled. “Whiff that old slaughter-house.”
We learned afterwards that the cluster of rickety buildings set back from the road wasn’t a slaughter-house outfit, as we had supposed, but a rendering works. Old dead cows and horses were brought here to be boiled and then ground up into chicken feed. To judge from the ravishing smell the dead animals were left to ripen in the hot sun for two or three months before they were stuffed into the jaws of the grinding machine.
When we were in the thickest of the lumpy smell, the old snail started to shimmey, as though, with some such feeling as we had, it was getting ready to heave up its mechanical insides. Then it gave a final stagger and dropped dead.
“For the love of mud!” I gurgled. “Throw in the clutch.”
“I can’t make it work.”
“What!” I squeaked. “Are we stalled?”
The other took that as a slam at his driving, I guess.
“Oh, no!” came sarcastically. “I’m just dilly-dallying along so that we can enjoy the magnificent scenery. And see the beau-utiful wild flowers!” he gestured, like a nut. “Aren’t they perfectly scrumptious?... Climb out, Jerry, and see if a hunk of the engine is dragging in the sand.”
I got out, all right—and in a hurry, too, let me tell you. But don’t imagine that I stopped to check upon the engine. Not so you can notice it. What I did instead was to hoof it for the back-line trenches, away from the firing line, as fast as my number eights would carry me. Let the dead cows and horses fight it out among themselves, was my indifference. Their troubles weren’t anything to me.
Nor did Poppy stick it out very long, with the hunks of future chicken feed sizzling past his nose like swarming bullets.
“The beau-utiful wild flowers,” I mimicked, as he staggered out of the smoke of battle.
“Traitor!” says he, and he kind of meant it, too.
“What did you expect me to do?” I flung back at him. “Stand between you and the wind and fan you with a perfume bottle?”
This last mess proved beyond all doubt that our luck had deserted us. Whether we had seen them or not, thirteen black cats had skulked across our path that morning. Nor did it add any to the joy of the occasion to have the leader and I growling at each other. Anyway, to our credit, we aren’t the growling kind. So pretty soon we were all right again. And seeing the funny side of our crazy adventure we almost laughed our heads off.
“Whistle,” says I.
“What for?” says Poppy.
“Maybe it’ll come to you,” says I, pointing tothe car, suffering in the thickest of the gas attack.
“How would it be,” grinned Poppy, “if we climbed the fence and moved the stink factory?”
“I’ve got it!” I yipped. “Let’s turn off the electric fan,” meaning the wind.
“And we used to think that Limburger cheese was delicious!”
“And sauerkraut,” I gagged in company.
At noon the thick smell sort of quieted down. Either the wind had switched or the supply of ripe horses was running low. We could stand it now to go back to the car, where Poppy got to work. And did any music, even a calliope, ever sound as sweet to me as the first healthy snort that came out of that old engine when the tinkerer finally got the jigger cornered that was causing all the grief.
But within ten minutes we were hung up again. Nor could we get anything out of the old engine now except the weakest kind of a wheeze. We cranked and cranked. Boy, it was hot work. Our tempers were hot, too. Yes, and our stomachs wereempty. Don’t forget about that.
Poppy was thorough. He unscrewed everything that wasn’t riveted down. At one time we had enough junk spread around in the sand to build six engines. And the funny part is that the more stuff we took away from it the healthier the old gas eater sneezed.
We worked till six o’clock. Then we gave up. It was no use, Poppy said. And if you could have seen how greasy and fagged out that poor kid was you sure would have had a hunk of pity for him.
What should we do now—get a garage man from Neponset Corners, or go on afoot? I knew something about garage bills. One time I fiddled with Dad’s car and it cost him seventeen dollars and fifty cents to find out that my new way of attaching the sparkplug wires wasn’t a complete success. All we had with us was eighteen dollars. And what could any garage man do to this old junk-pile with eighteen dollars? Certainly, with the big end of our hitch-hike still ahead of us we would need every cent that we had. So we decided to hoof it for home. Yet the thought of that long sandy walk had us licked before we started in.
Weak as he was, Poppy still had a voice.
“Anyway,” says he, as a final effort, “we’ll give it ten more cranks apiece, and then if it won’t start we’ll kiss it good-by ... and hope that in the next world it suffers as much as it has made us suffer.”
“I’ll crank it first,” says I, seeing how fagged out he was.
Well, can you imagine our great joy when the old hunk of iron, at the first twiddle of the crank, grabbedthe bit in its teeth and started off as friskily as a two-year-old colt!
“There you are,” says I, acting big. “Any time you want it started, kid, call on arealmechanic.”
“Quick!” cried the driver. “Jump in before it stops,” and joining him in a flying leap, away we went down the skyline at our usual break-neck speed.
But the jinx that was trying to chloroform us with bad luck hadn’t used up all of its dope.Bang!went a hind tire. That meant another hour. It was growing dark now. Instead of getting a look at Pardyville that day, we’d be lucky if we saw the inside of the big stone house before midnight. A whole day wasted! And the two of us done up for nothing, as you might say. No wonder we were out of sorts.
It was eight-thirty when we crossed the river. New Zion was just ahead of us. But the whole town was in darkness.
“They go to bed early,” I yelled at Poppy, as we hurtled along like a crippled turtle.
“Without any picture shows to go to, or anything to read, what else can they do?” the driver yelled back.
“Maybe,” I yelled then, “we can get through town without them catching us.”
Quick to act on that thought, Poppy stopped the engine and switched off the lights, of which only one was working up in front.
“If we use our wits, Jerry, we ought to be able to save that two dollars. For instance,” came the plan, “as soon as old Goliath stops us, instead of forking out our two dollars, we’ll hit him for something to eat. Two suppers will be four bits in his pocket, we’ll tell him. All right. When we get ready to leave for home the old engine won’t run. We accidentally dropped a gee-whacker. See? And you go back with him to try and find it. That gives me a chance to beat it. And once outside of town, I’ll shut off the lights and wait for you.”
“Lovely!” says I. “And suppose old blunderbuss grabs me and takes the two dollars out of my hide?”
“Shucks! As soon as he hears the engine running he’ll start back on the gallop. Then you can easily follow him in the dark.”
“And how about yourself?” says I. “You’ll be out of luck if the old bus stalls before you get away.”
“If I put up the two dollars, he can’t any more than bawl me out.”
“All right,” I gave in. “If you’re willing to take a chance, count me in, too.”
I got out then to jiggle the crank. And what do you know if I didn’t actually fall over old Goliath’sbig feet. He had been standing in the dark taking in every word we said! And right then, let me tell you, is one of the times in my young life when my heart, as the saying is, did a neat little loop-the-loop in the roof of my mouth. For see how big he was!Goodnight!
But the giant didn’t grab me and start twisting me into fancy bowknots, as I had feared that he would. Instead, as I stumbled, he steadied me as gently as you please.
“Sh-h-h-h!” says he in a sort of drawling whisper, to keep me from yelling, I guess. “You boys got here jest in time to help me.”
My voice was gone. I had swallowed it. But Poppy still had his.
“Help you?” says he. “What do you mean?”
“I’m runnin’ away. I hain’t a-goin’ to live here no longer, like a prisoner, an’ have a woman boss me ’round. No, I hain’t! I jest set my foot down. An’ now that you boys is here, I won’t have to walk.” He started to get into the car. “Shove over, Sonny, an’ I’ll show you tricks with the steerin’ wheel that I picked up when you young sprouts was jest learnin’ how to wear pants as wasn’t hitched onto you with safety pins.”