I couldn't stop the thing to save my life.
Every time I yanked the lever the snap would let a chortle out of its puzzle department and fly 400 feet straight through the air.
We were headed for an old ash heap, and my market price had gone down to three cents a ton.
"Don't jump!" I yelled to my lady friend, but the wind whisked the first half of my sentence away.
Clara Jane gathered her skirts in a bunch and did a flying leap out of the crazy cab.
She landed right in the middle of that heap of fresh ashes—and she made good.
All I could see was a great, gray cloud as I pushed on to the next stand. About half a mile further down the road the machine concluded to turn into a farm-yard and give the home folks a treat.
It went through a window in the barn, out through a skylight, did the hula dance over the lawn, and then fell in the well and stayed there, panting as though its little gas-engine heart would break.
When I limped back to Clara Jane the storm signals were flying.
She was away out on the ice.