The Wrong Twin

by Harry Leon Wilson

"She'd ought to go now," said the proud mechanic.

"You ought to know," said Sharon. "You been plumb into her gizzard."

"Only other thing I can think of," continued the mechanic, "mebbe she needs more of that gasoline stuff." He raised the cushion of the front seat and unscrewed a cap. "We might try that," he suggested, brightly. "This tank looks like she's empty."

"Try it," said Sharon, and the incredulous Elihu Titus was dispatched to the village for a five-gallon tin of the gasoline stuff. Elihu was incredulous, because in Newbern gasoline was until now something that women cleaned white gloves with. But when the tank was replenished the car came again to life, throbbing buoyantly.

"I'll be switched!" said Sharon.

A day later he was telling that his new car had broke down on him, but Buck Cowan had taken her all apart and found out the trouble in no time, and put her gizzard and lights and liver back as good as new. And Buck Cowan himself came to feel quite unjustifiably a creator's pride in the car. It was only his due that Sharon should let him operate it; perhaps natural that Sharon should prefer him to. Sharon himself was never to become an accomplished chauffeur. He couldn't learn to relax at the wheel.

So it was that the boy was tossed to public eminence on a day when Starling Tucker, accomplished horseman, descended into the vale of ignominy by means of the Mansion House's new motor bus. Starling had permitted the selling agents to instruct him briefly in the operation of the new bus, though with lordly condescension, for it was his conviction that a man who could tame wild horses and drive anything that wore hair could by no means fail to guide a bit of machinery that wouldn't r'ar and run even if a newspaper blew across its face. He mounted the seat, on his first essay alone, with the jauntiness becoming a master of vehicular propulsion. There may have been in his secret heart a bit of trepidation, now that the instructor was not there. In fact, one of the assembled villagers who closely observed his demeanour related afterward that Star's face was froze and that he had hooked onto the wheel like he was choking it to death. But the shining structure had glided off toward the depot, its driver's head rigid, his glance strained upon the road's centre. As it moved away Wilbur Cowan leaped to the rear steps and was carried with it. He had almost asked Starling Tucker for the privilege of a seat beside him, but the occasion was really too great.

Five blocks down Geneseo Street Starling had turned out to permit the passing of Trimble Cushman's loaded dray—and he had inexplicably, terribly, kept on turning out when there was no longer need for it. Frozen with horror, helpless in the fell clutch of circumstance, he sat inert and beheld himself guide the new bus over the sidewalk and through the neat white picket fence of the Dodwell place. It demolished one entire panel of this, made deep progress over a stretch of soft lawn, and came at last—after threatening a lawless invasion of the sanctity of domicile—to a grinding stop in a circular bed of pansies that would never be the same again. There was commotion within the bus. Wild-eyed faces peered from the polished windows. A second later, in the speech of a bystander, "she was sweating passengers at every pore!"

Then came a full-throated scream of terror from the menaced house, and there in the doorway, clad in a bed gown, but erect and defiant, was the person of long-bedridden Grandma Dodwell herself. She brandished her lace cap at Starling Tucker and threatened to have him in jail if there was any law left in the land. Excited citizens gathered to the scene, for the picket fence had not succumbed without protest, and the crash had carried well. Even more than at the plight of Starling, they marvelled at the miracle that had been wrought upon the aged sufferer—her that hadn't put foot to floor in twenty years. There were outcries of alarm and amazement, hasty suggestions, orders to Starling Tucker to do many things he was beyond doing; but above them all rose clear-toned, vigorous denunciation from the outraged owner of the late pansy bed, who now issued from the doorway, walked unsupported down the neat steps, and started with firm strides for the offender. Starling Tucker beheld her approach, and to him, as to others there assembled, it was as if the dead walked. He climbed swiftly down upon the opposite side of his juggernaut, pushed a silent way through the crowd, and strode rapidly back to town. Starling's walk had commonly been a loose-jointed swagger, his head up in challenge, as befitted a hero of manifold adventure with wild horses. He now walked head down with no swagger.

But the crowd ceased to regard him, for now a slight boyish figure—none other than that of Wilbur Cowan—leaped to the seat, performed swift motions, grasped the fateful wheel, and made the bus roar. The smell of burned gasoline affronted the pretty garden. Wheels revolved savagely among the bruised roots of innocent pansies. Grandma Dodwell screamed anew. Then slowly, implacably hesitant, ponderous but determined, the huge bus backed along the track it had so cruelly worn in the sward—out through the gap in the fair fence, over the side-walk and into the road, rocking perilously, but settling level at last. Thereupon the young hero had done something else with mysterious handles, and the bus glided swiftly on to the depot, making the twelve-two in ample time.