He had told the story of the new era of automobiling which has come to the metropolis. Wife, the chauffeur! Now what is happening about New York City is an old story in some parts of the country, but the latest wrinkle in suburban travel about these parts is for friend wife to meet the train two or three stations up the line and take tired hubby for a ride on the way home. Having learned to run the car, she had been taking him to the station and meeting him at night. One night he was startled to hear her familiar signal on the horn—he knows his master’s voice—some distance from the home station, looked out of the window and just had time to swing off on the station platform. Now he is keen for that sound. Probably every commuter train which leaves the city each evening in pleasant weather has several such scenes.
It is not a fad, either, but the solution of the fresh-air problem for pent-up business men; the relaxation from the daily cares and just the most delightful visit with each other that devoted ones can have. In the summer evenings there is time for a long ride before dining; in the cooler evenings of fall and winter, when dark comes before hubby is due, good roads still are inviting and the crisp air rejuvenates one and creates an appetite which is alarming, the high cost of living considered.
Women in the East began to take an interest in running an automobile about the time the self-starter was put on the market, three or four years ago. Cranking is not a feminine job and old models of cars bore no semblance in convenience and ease of handling to those now on the market; they are more reliable and dependable than the ancient makes.
Then, too, women in New York are used to being waited upon. They are not of the aggressive type, and do not care for man’s work; while in the West they are more self-reliant. That is only natural, since the western women have been thrown more upon their own resources; having helped the men subdue prairie and forest and desert, the younger generation has not departed from their footsteps. There are self-reliant women in New York, of course, but of a different type, and one would hardly expect them to want to own or operate a car themselves; but they are beginning to, by the thousands.
Another reason for the slowness of women to take up auto driving is that New York City is not a place for pleasure driving; but in the suburbs they are taking it up rapidly, as the increasing daytime honk-honk indicates. In the city it is unnecessary, for there is every convenience for shopping or calling at beck and call—taxis, buses, and rent cars. These things are not to be had so largely in the suburbs, and when hubby is at business and the chauffeur is at his grandmother’s funeral, or has too heavy a load of “Oh, be joyful,” for safety or pleasure, it is a case of stay at home, or learn to run the thing for herself. She learns, and then does not have to worry about the chauffeur going around the corner for a highball while she is calling.
So far as mastering the mechanical and technical details of a car, women seem to be just as apt as most men, if they take it seriously enough. The fact that mechanical talent is not limited to the male sex is indicated by the numerous automobile developments which are the product of the feminine brain.
The Y. M. C. A. Automobile School has been taking women pupils for three years and among the four hundred graduates have been every type, from the society debutante to the mature matron, chorus girl, actress, and a few who desired to become professional chauffeurs—“Jit Chicks” they call them in Philadelphia—with a lot of applications from school teachers. It does not appear why so many of that class have taken the course, but one of the instructors says that most of them are learning so that at vacation time they can take their car instead of the ocean steamer or railroad train and spend two months “seeing America.” One of them, however, declares that she intends to become a professional chauffeur during vacation, so that she can make money while enjoying a full relaxation from her ordinary labor. She teaches at an exclusive club-colony center and will run her car there.
When the first woman applicant came, it caused some of the instructors to gasp:
“Why, a woman cannot understand an engine.”
“Only because they never have tried,” was the response. “Give me a chance—I’ll show you.”