“Are we going home?” Pee-wee asked in great agitation.
“Positively not,” said Townsend. “The trouble with you is you’ve been fed up on Pierce-Arrows and cars like that and you don’t know anything about a real friendly, companionable car. This car is a pal, Kiddo.”
“Like my unknown pal, hey?” said Pee-wee.
“Something like that. We’ll just turn around and go up backwards. Then the gas will flow like water.”
“Can you drive it all the way up backwards?” Pee-wee asked.
“Positively,” said Townsend, maneuvering to make the turn and at the same time keep from ditching the car. “Once headed in the wrong direction and our troubles are over. We’ll go the right way without any trouble. I can even make her laugh going backwards, listen.”
The shabby little tin hero was now lumbering up the hill rear end first, and the alteration of its plane caused several small articles to slide down in the pan. “That’s a spark-plug and a couple of nuts,” Townsend said. “I leave them there because I like to hear her laugh when things go wrong. The Ford with the smile wins. She always starts to laugh when she goes up hill backwards. G’long, Liz, you’ll make it. Laugh and the world laughs with you.”
It was a very long hill and as Lizzie’s cross-eyed lights illuminated the road they had traveled, Pee-wee looked down along the lighted area and saw that the way was bordered with thick woods. As for Townsend, he kept his gaze fixed behind him and steered the car with difficulty up through the darkness.
“The great advantage of traveling this way,” said he, “is that if we run over any one the lights shining down the road below us will show us that we have done so. Keep your eye out down the hill and let me know if I have run over any one.” At last they came to the top of the hill but kept going backwards, because they hoped to find a suitable spot for camping very soon, and it was easier to keep going than to turn.
“We don’t want to go down the other side of the hill this way, do we?” Pee-wee asked.