“Am I on the road to Brookville?” Jerry yelled at a passing farmer, who sat huddled up in a horse blanket on the seat of his rickety wagon.
“Whoa! Hey?” asked the man, one remark being addressed to his horse, and the question to Jerry.
“I say, am I on the road to Brookville?”
“No, you’re headed for Deanhurst. You ought to have took the left hand road a piece back to get to Brookville. Can’t you read the signs?”
“I can, yes—when they’re right,” snapped Jerry, who was not in the best of humor. “Thanks!” he called, as he waited for the other to pass on, so that he might turn the car. It was no easy matter to get the big machine headed the other way in the narrow road, but Jerry finally managed it and then he sent the auto on at a fast clip, passing the man who had given him the needed direction.
Jerry reached the decrepit sign post again, and this time made the right turn. It grew darker and darker as he advanced, but the lights on the car were powerful. The thunder and lightning had ceased, but it still rained hard, and the roads were fast becoming puddles of mud and water.
“I’m glad I have the car,” reflected Jerry. “A doctor won’t have the excuse that he doesn’t want to take his horse out in the storm.”
It was fully night when Jerry reached Brookville, though had it not been for the storm there would have been the glow of sunset to dispel the gloom. The tall lad stopped at the first house he came to, in order to inquire about a doctor, and was delighted to learn that a physician lived about a mile down the road.
But his delight was turned to disappointment when he reached the office, and learned that the medical man had been called out into the country, on a case that would probably keep him all night.