CHAPTER IX
WHOOPING IT UP
Life these days expressed itself in a ring of automobiles around the drive of Sard's home. Minga's coming stimulated the activities of a certain set known as the "Bunch," and the various hulking sedans or little roadsters lurching in the gutters were like so many beads on the rosary of her "popularity." In the village the prestige of the maidens was read by these signs. "Peggy Martin can't be very popular. I never see but one car in front of her house." "The Fairs must be very dull people. One never sees any parking on their driveway."
These machines, groomed and glossy, or in some cases dilapidated and frankly dirty, driven by a youth never contented to stay long in one place, had their own individual swan-songs and Iliads, their maladies, their insides, their prowess in speed and climbing, and furnished food for much of the conversation of Minga's associates. A tall, red-headed lad would inquire of his feminine neighbor, lolling in the canvas hammocks on the Judge's terrace of an evening, "Did you see her buck coming over the hill? The old maid! Didn't want to do the stunt on first, so I kicked her into second and she climbed it, the old girl, spitting and blowing. Well, I thought the cranky thing would bust a valve or something."
Then would follow serious dissertation on spark plugs and gas tanks, the new fuels, graded lubricating oils and service fuses.
"Where do you garage now, Dave?" inquired one tan-shirted hedonist.
"Oh, I garage on the front lawn," replied the careless Dave. "Mother hates it, says it spoils the grass, you know, but why bother about grass? Grass isn't fashionable any more—out of date, I tell her, to have grass and flowers and things. Cut all that out, I say, old stuff!"
Another youth, dapper, with the long-boned face of the manipulator of social things, deftly drew attention to his own brand new roadster. "Got Mother to jog the old gentleman some. Went out and played golf with him a couple of times. Result!" With negligent cigarette he indicated the graceful powerful shape. "Like that color? Not too loud, what?" The youth appealed to the girls sitting on the stone coping that swept the river-ward side of the house. "I don't want 'em to think I'm Mary Pickford or anything," was his modest suggestion.