Araminta and the Automobile

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Araminta and the Automobile, by Charles Battell Loomis, Illustrated by Otto Lang

Thornton, gesticulating wildly, disappeared round the corner
ARAMINTA AND THE AUTOMOBILE
BY CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS
With Illustrations by OTTO LANG
New York Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. Publishers
Copyright, 1903 , By Henry Holt & Co. Copyright, 1907 , By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. The stories in this volume were copyrighted separately, as follows: “Araminta and the Automobile,” Copyright, 1903 , By The Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia “The Deception of Martha Tucker,” Copyright, 1901 , By The Century Co. “While the Automobile Ran Down,” Copyright, 1900 , By The Century Co. THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
Mr. Reviewer and My Dear Readers,
I have been asked to say a few words to you before you get busy with my little book that is filled with “Cheerful Americans” going out for automobile rides.
A generation or two ago, there was a poor writer (I mean poor in this world’s goods, of course) and he saw people riding about in automobiles as if they owned them, and it made him wish he could ride about in one as if he owned it. But he lacked the nerve, so he had to be content with trolleys.
After a while he made believe that he had bought an automobile, and he rode around in it with “Araminta,” and enjoyed the motion so much that he set others to riding in automobiles that he made himself in his study, and he was much pleased at the way they “went.”