“But you would get all dirty. The men have to crawl under the cars and get covered with grease and grime,” was objected.
“If they get any dirtier than I did this morning when I had to clean out the kitchen stovepipe,” was the comeback, “then I’ll give up; grease has no fearsomeness for a housewife.”
SHE IS ACCUMULATING KNOWLEDGE OF AN INTRICATE MACHINE—AND SHE IS FASCINATED
Of course the director gave in, as man ever has yielded to woman, and today the women’s department of the school is a fixture, for woman has demonstrated that she can understand machinery and wires and things and learn how to pilot a car and do all sorts of other stunts with it.
It is no child’s play to which the woman student is ushered when beginning the course. She goes right at a machine and first of all has to learn what the array of bolts and valves and belts and wires is for. The women put on big aprons—or overalls—and gloves, and with sleeves rolled up start to dissect one of the cars as a doctor does a cadaver. From starting crank to differential and from spark plug to oil sump it all has to come down, and, worse yet, has to be put together again. The dainty young thing in dimity—under the jumper—gets her arms greasy and a splotch on her nose, but she doesn’t care a bit, for it all washes off and she knows that back of the nose she is accumulating something that won’t wash off—a knowledge of an intricate machine—and she is fascinated.
She has to learn about tires, too; how to take them off and repair and replace them. It is just a bit odd to see a woman patching an inner tube as handily and as daintily as though she were embroidering a bit of Christmas frumpery; but really she handles the shears to cut the patch a lot more readily than most men, and she puts the patch in place as carefully as though she were mending the seat of her young hopeful’s rompers.
When the student has mastered the mechanical part and has overcome all the “queering” the instructor can devise, she is taken out for road experience. When she has the car ready, supplied with gasoline, lubricating oil, water for the radiator, and all the other things which make for safety and successful operation, and has cranked the engine, unless there is a self-starter, then, with hands and feet engaging the steering wheel, levers, and pedals, the momentous hour has come when the machine is to be under her control. The instructor is provided with a duplicate set of levers for an emergency. Lessons begin in the quiet streets, gradually emerging into those busier, until at last Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street, the busiest intersection in the metropolis, is reached.
The women always enjoy that. Never one but shows she is having the time of her life at that corner. They are expected to lose their heads and “go up in the air,” but they do not. They are not so reckless as men, are quicker to grasp a situation, and do not “take a chance” as men do. Alertness is an attribute of most women, also intuition, and these are qualities needed by an auto driver.
The era of low-priced cars undoubtedly has had something to do with the influx of women into auto driving. Thousands to whom a high-priced car with liveried chauffeur must ever be a dream, are able to have a moderate or low-priced car for the whole family. Mother will not let her sons and daughters distance her in anything, so she learns too.