THE DECEPTION OF
MARTHA TUCKER
AN AUTOMOBILE EXTRAVAGANZA
It was not that Martha Tucker was particularly fond of horses so much as that she was afraid of automobiles of every sort, kind, or description. That was why she said that she would never consent to her husband’s purchasing a motor carriage.
“Horses were good enough for my father, and I guess that horses will do for me as long as I live and John is able to keep them,” said she to various friends on numerous occasions.
But if she was ridiculously old-fashioned in her notions, John was not, and he cast about in his mind for some way to circumvent Martha without her knowing it. The thing would have been easy to do if it had not been for the fact that they were a very loving couple. John seldom went anywhere without taking his wife along, and as his business was of such a nature that he carried it on under his roof-tree, he was unable to speed along in happy loneliness on a locomobile or electric motor. Besides all this, John Tucker’s conscience was such a peculiar affair that if he hoodwinked Martha it must be in her sight.
The Tuckers always spent their summers at Arlinberg, the roads around which were famous for driving; and almost their only out-door recreation, aside from wandering afoot in the fields, was found in riding behind any one or two of his half-dozen horses. The fact that he was abundantly able to maintain the most expensive automobile extant made it doubly hard for John to abstain from the use of one.
“I gave up smoking to please Martha when we first married, but I do not intend to give up the idea of running an automobile of my own, just because she has the old-fogy notions of the Hiltons in her blood. Her father never rode in a steam-car, although the road passed by his back door, and all the Hiltons are old-fogyish—which sums up their faults.”
John said this to an old school-mate who was spending a Sunday at his house.
“Wouldn’t she try one of your neighbor’s automobiles, and see how she likes it?”
“No, sir; her no is a no. But I mean to ride in one with her sometime, if I have to blindfold her and tell her it’s a baby-carriage.”