The Red Devil
In the year 1903 I bought my first automobile. It was a Ford. Even as early as that the inimitable Henry was at work; but this car was quite unlike the modern Ford. It had double opposed cylinders placed horizontally on either side of the crankshaft which was in the middle and in the fore and aft axis of the machine. The engine was said to develop eight horsepower—perhaps it did. There was a front seat for two passengers and two corner seats for two more in the small tonneau back of it. The tonneau was entered by a narrow door in the middle of the back; below it was a step to enable the passengers to get up and down. There was no cover. The car was painted a brilliant red.
I was very much elated over my new car which had been carefully tested before I bought it. The salesman, who was also the mechanic, drove me over all the rough roads and steep hills in the vicinity. I drove it down one of these steep hills myself to test the brakes. Under all these tests the car behaved very well, but I soon found that a good-sized repair bill was a necessary part of the program. I also found myself gaining a profound respect for the mechanic, that is for some mechanics. I also discovered that it was necessary to spend three hours looking for the source of any trouble and but three minutes in fixing it.
There was a beautiful drive along the river. Every evening after my working day was over and I had had supper (we did not call it dinner) I was in the habit of driving several miles down the river and back before the night shut in. In case I lingered and the darkness overtook me there was a brilliant headlight in the front of the car making the pathway as light as day. Usually some young lady of my acquaintance accompanied me on these drives. I was also fond of riding on Sunday afternoons. I asked Mrs. Henry to go with me one Sunday afternoon but she refused—she said it was wicked to take rides on Sunday.
“You might say that if I were driving a horse or an ass or anything that was my neighbor’s, Mrs. Henry,” said I, “but I am driving a soulless machine and it belongs to me.”
“Well, I don’t know very well just what the ins and outs are,” she replied, “but I don’t feel right when I go out driving on Sunday.”
Mr. Henry smiled—I knew he did not feel that much respect for Sunday—but when I asked him to go he declined; said he had a lot of writing to do, but I thought he was afraid.
I was determined to go and did not want to go alone. There was a baker’s daughter living on the same street. She was a very pretty girl, with a beautiful complexion and wonderful eyes. She had a smile and a kind word for everybody. When I asked her whether she would like to go she said: “yes she would, very much.” Now, that is what I like in a girl; I like a girl who knows her own mind.
Sally was a quiet girl, usually, but that afternoon she had a great deal to say. When she spoke she smiled at me, and she did not say a single unkind thing during the ride. I was very much pleased with Sally. I thought it would be nice to have her around all the time. I determined to take her again that evening; her mother told me, however, that she had gone to church with Jim Barkley. Jim was a bank cashier. He was getting a good salary and dressed very well. I looked at Mrs. Lunn with considerable interest. She was a very nice woman and her complexion was good, for she lived over a bakery, and spent much of her time in it. I had noticed that bakers and singers always had good complexions and were fat. Mrs. Lunn was fat, too—very fat. As I looked at her I said to myself: “that is how Sally will look in a few years,” and a chill stole over me.
I was living at a boarding house at this time. Several other members of the college faculty also boarded there. The food was pretty good but we were not very well satisfied. The dining table was rather small and was so full of dishes that the coffee pot was placed on the floor alongside of the hostess. We had pie at every meal—a fresh pie at lunch and supper, and pieces of left-over pie for breakfast. Of course we need not eat pie, but so much pie was disconcerting. That coffee pot on the floor was disconcerting also. One of the boarders disturbed us, too. He was a minister and a very good young man, but when he wanted a piece of pie he looked straight at it, like a pointer dog, until some one asked him to have a piece. I had boarded for two years and I was growing tired of boarding. My position as a teacher in Rochambeau College was pleasant but I was growing restless.
The next Saturday I started to drive my car to Trenton. I was fond of reading, and it was my custom to visit Traver’s bookstore in Trenton or Leary’s in Philadelphia and purchase several books at a time. These second hand books answered my purpose perfectly and were much cheaper than new books. Sometimes I also attended vendues in the country and bought books, but this was not usually very satisfactory.
I had driven about a mile down the river when I overtook two girls traveling afoot in the same direction. One of them was very pretty. I asked them to get in. They looked doubtfully at each other but finally accepted my invitation. The oldest one told me her name was Fanny Hilltop and the pretty girl was her younger sister, Mary. Mary was rather quiet but seemed very pleasant. She smiled very often and when she smiled she showed a very pretty set of very white teeth. I had always admired white teeth and pretty girls and Mary seemed very nice. We came to a cross road very soon and the girls said they must get down there, they lived about a mile up the side road. I told them I was out for a ride, which was true enough, and that I might as well take them home, but they warned me the road was rough and hilly.
I turned into the by-road and though it was rough and rocky got along very well for over half a mile; then we came to a short, very steep hill. The car snorted and puffed and finally stopped. I let it back down, put on full speed and went at it again. It stuck fast again. By this time the girls had grown nervous backing down the hill, so I pulled the car to one side of the road and we walked to their house up several hills and directly on top of a mountain overlooking two beautiful valleys, one on either side. Their house was a very pretty one painted white. I told Mary that they had a right to the name of Hilltop but she said I had misunderstood, it was Hillpot. “Oh,” said I, “that must be a mistake. I believe one of your ancestors was a poor speller and twisted the spelling.”
The girls invited me to come in and rest or at least to sit down on the porch awhile. I chose the latter. The mother came out after awhile and I was introduced. She was a pleasant-looking, motherly soul, quick-motioned and rather thin. Her face was seamed with fine wrinkles and her hands showed signs of hard usage. I liked her looks and I liked Mary, too. They invited me to stay to dinner and I accepted. Fanny went to help her mother with the dinner while Mary entertained me. The father and a half grown boy came in after awhile.
Old man Hillpot looked me over pretty sharply, and I thought I knew just what he was thinking, but I wasn’t thinking that at all. The boy looked at Mary and then at me and then he grinned and Mary’s eyes snapped. I knew what he thought and what she thought. The old lady had a pleasant smile on her face as if she never thought at all, but I knew that she was doing a heap more thinking than all the others put together; for she was figuring out what each one thought and then what she should do herself so that everything should come out all right. I was getting to like the old lady.
After dinner Mary and I went out on the porch. The old lady and Fanny washed the dishes. The old man and the boy went off to milk the cows but the boy winked at Mary before he started and her eyes snapped again. After we had talked awhile I excused myself to get a drink in the kitchen. The old lady was washing the dishes. She had a dish pan full of soapy water and a dish cloth. First she scraped all the dishes as clean as possible; then she put them in the soapy water and rubbed them with the cloth; then she put them into another pan full of very hot water, took them out and laid them on the table. I got a towel and wiped them for her. She said:
“This isn’t the first time you wiped dishes.”
“How do you know?” I replied.
“Because you washed your hands first, and you don’t touch the dishes with your hands.”
“Yes,” I said, “I used to help my mother.”
“Is your mother living?” she asked.
“No,” I answered, “she died two years ago.”
“Oh, you poor boy,” she said; and she looked at me very sorrowfully.
Mary had come into the kitchen by this time but I thought she seemed somewhat bored. Pretty soon the old man and the boy came back and we all went out on the porch and had a real folksy talk. The boy was very much interested in the college and asked me a great many questions about it. He said he thought of going to college if it didn’t cost too much. I told him it would be all right to go to college but I hoped after he got out he would come back and help his father farm. He said he didn’t know about that and grinned at the old man; but the old man seemed very quiet; he just sat and listened; sometimes I thought he seemed a little sad. He appeared to be very fond of Fanny; he often looked at her, and when he did a pleasant look came over his face.
The old lady asked me to come again, real cordially, and then we all shook hands and I started off.
It was beginning to get dark when I reached the car. I was just ready to turn the crank when I heard some one say: “Get up Billy.” I looked up and found a pretty girl in a falling top was trying to make her horse pass the machine. He was frightened and wouldn’t go and the girl seemed to be frightened too.
It was the law in those days that when a person driving a horse met an auto and held up a hand, the auto driver must drive to the side of the road, stop his car and lead the horse past the machine. So I went to the horse’s head and led him past the machine. When we had gone a short distance up the road I asked the girl whether she could drive him now? She said she was afraid of him, he might run away. She didn’t like to drive anyhow but there was no one to drive her that afternoon so she had hitched up the horse herself. I told her I would drive her home if it was not too far. She said her house was only half a mile up the road, so I got in and took the reins. The horse was old and stiff, but as his nose was pointed toward home and oats he made steady progress and we soon arrived. I had introduced myself to the lady who informed me that her name was Horner, that she taught school in the neighborhood and boarded at the farm house to which we were going. I remarked that Horner was a rural name and smelled of the dairy at which she managed to crack a smile. We had come by a side road at the last, down into a valley, over a bridge and up the other side to the farm house.
The farmer came out and held the horse while I helped the lady out. By this time the mother and her two daughters, Sarah and Jane Oldit, had come out and been introduced. We sat on the porch for awhile and then I started for home once more murmuring: Hilltop, Hillpot, Horner, Oldit!