“That! Right there on the deck! It’s partly covered with canvas, but you can see what it is,” cried Janice.
“Jefers pelters!” ejaculated the astonished Walkworthy, tipping back his cap and scratching his head to stir his slow wits. “You don’t mean that contraption with all the shiny brass and leather, and them other dinguses—lamps, d’ye call ’em?—down front, with an in-gine cowcatcher, into the bargain?”
“You know very well that’s a four-passenger automobile, Walky!” she cried. “And they’ve got it ready to run ashore here. It must be for me! And Daddy sent it!”
“Well, Ma’am!” exclaimed the driver of Josephus, “it’ll be sure something new in Polktown. We ain’t never had one o’ them things here before—not to stop, at any rate. Us’ally,” added Mr. Dexter, with a wink, “they go through Polktown like what the Chinaman said about his ’sperience slidin’ down hill on the bobsled: ‘Whiz-z-z! Walkee back!’
“I don’t s’pose some o’ them ortermobilists even see Polktown as they go through. Sometimes I meet one o’ them—there’s a cloud of dust—somethin’ squawks like a frightened hen—Josephus gits up on his hind legs—and it’s all over! Some day I ’spect Josephus is goin’ to ditch me because of one of ’em. And if this one is going to be right here in town——”
He had climbed lazily down from his seat while he rambled on. Now Janice seized his arm and shook it a little.
“Oh, Talkworthy!” she said, giving him the nickname she often used when he was more than usually garrulous. “Do, do find out if that’s for me!”
The man on the dock had already caught and fastened the two hawsers. The old Constance Colfax snuggled in close to the dock. The broad gangplank was being run ashore and the deckhands stood ready with laden trucks to run freight and express over it.
The captain of the steamboat came to lean upon the landward rail. “Say,” he asked of the assembled spectators, “anybody know ‘J. Day’? Got something here for him. He’ll hafter come and run it off the boat, or tow it off, or something. Can’t let him git up steam in the thing while she stands on our deck.”
Janice could scarcely keep from dancing up and down. She clasped her hands and cried fervently under her breath: “Oh, Daddy! Just the most delightful thing you could have sent me!”