“Laws-a-me!” came the quick laugh. “Isn’t that the craziest name? Some boys painted it on the car as a joke—it wasn’t us who did it. I wanted Pa to paint over it, for having the dignity of a Danver it embarrassed me to travel through the country in a four-wheeled billboard. But Pa’s ambition is about as thin as his wits, so the name never was painted out.”
Then, to our surprise, and before we could get around to speak on the subject for ourselves, the little old lady asked us outright if we would delay our hitch-hike for a day and drive the old car to town to meet the afternoon train. She was afraid to let Pa start out alone, she explained; nor did she want to go herself, having a lot of work to do. If we would go, she concluded, sort of begging us, it would be a big accommodation to her, and always and forever she’d remember the kindness and feel grateful to us.
Well, as you have a kind of hunch, Poppy and I didn’t lose any time saying “yes.” I guess not. So it was quickly arranged, with no objections from Pa, who sat taking things in with his usual intelligent look, that we were to start right after breakfast.
That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?—starting out in the morning to meet an afternoon train, and only twenty miles to go! But you haven’t followed us yet in the Galloping Snail! Bu-lieve me, what a fellow needed more than anything else in driving that mutilated old wreck, besides courage, was early starts.
Poppy and I, of course, weren’t fooled in the thought that we’d find the granddaughter at the Pardyville depot. Dreams were the bunk to us, “pansy” dreams included. Either the granddaughter, having dropped into Pardyville on time, was now hiding there, to a secret purpose, or, to another view, had left there on the same day on a later train.
But here was our chance. You tell ’em, kid! On top of the fun of galloping around the landscape in the old four-wheeled boiler factory, without spending any jack of our own, we’d be back on the job, as Juvenile Jupiter Detectives, in time to clear up the mystery of the slamming door, and possibly a few other “mysteries” in which Pa undoubtedly had a clever little hand.
Breakfast over, Poppy got my ear as I staggered away from the table.
“That old geezer sure is a puzzle to me, Jerry. Either he’s all-fired deep, or, to the contrary, gosh-awful dumb.”
“What’s on your mind now,” says I, loosening my belt, “besides hair?”
“He knows that we’re starting out on a wild-goose chase. But did he as much as bat an eyelash? No, sir! All the time we were talking about the trip he sat there as blank in the face as a petrified billiard ball. I thought maybe he’d kick about letting us use his car, when the trip, as he knows, is all for nothing. But nary a kick, or anything else.”