Benton's Venture

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“Clutch!” bawled Jimmy. “Stop her!”

Tom, perspiring freely now, got his left foot at work and the car stopped.

“Don’t put your foot brake on hard,” advised Jimmy, “without releasing your clutch. You wear it out if you do. Now when I say stop her quick I mean quick. See? What’s the quickest way to stop her?”

Tom’s wandering, puzzled gaze fell on the emergency brake. He seized it. “This!” he exclaimed triumphantly.

Jimmy nodded approvingly. “Right-o! Remember that quick means that, then. Let her go again.” After they were started: “Now put her into second,” said Jimmy. “Forward, across and forward again.”

Tom made poor work of that shifting and he had to do it many times until he could accomplish it with what was very nearly one motion. But the most of that lesson was devoted to stopping and starting, and by the time the car was headed back toward Audelsville Tom was pretty well worn out, but twice as enthusiastic as he had been before. Jimmy allowed him to keep the wheel, the car running slowly on high speed, almost into town, Jimmy himself managing the steering whenever they met a vehicle, which was infrequently. Tom discovered that after a while steering was something that almost did itself, that as he grew accustomed to it he was able to keep the car in the road without any especial effort.

Tom was so eager to finish his education that there was a second lesson that evening after supper, and two more the next day. The only mishap was when, the following morning, in trying to turn the car in the road, Tom almost slammed the fenders into a fence. Now and then Willard, who always went along, took the wheel for a few minutes and received instructions, but Willard showed little talent for the work and was distinctly nervous, and in the end it was decided that Tom should attend to the running of the car. Willard, however, expressed an intention of ultimately learning how. “You see,” he explained, “you might get sick or something and somebody would have to run it.”

Occasionally they stopped while Jimmy lifted the hood and tinkered with the engine; and once he made Tom put in a new set of spark plugs by the roadside, a performance that occupied a full half-hour, and left Tom very hot and dirty. Another day, some two miles from town, Jimmy pretended that they had had a blow-out—which, luckily, they hadn’t!—and made Tom unship the new tire from the rear of the car and put it on a front wheel. That necessitated lifting the forward axle with the jack, prying off an obstinate rim, and so, finally, removing the old tire. Then a new tube was partly inflated with the pump—warm work that!—sprinkled with talc powder and inserted in the new shoe, and the whole set on the wheel, the clincher rim being hammered on afterwards. Subsequently the pump was again brought into play and Tom’s arms ached long before the tube was sufficiently inflated. Two days later Jimmy decided that there was no use wearing out the new tube and shoe as long as the old one was serviceable, and made Tom transfer them again! This time, however, they were in the stable—no, garage!—and it wasn’t quite so hard.

Another time—Jimmy had become so used to spending his evenings in the Benton’s stable that he found it hard work to keep away—Jimmy did something mysterious to the engine and then told Tom to start it. But, although Tom turned and turned, and although Willard took his place when he gave out, the engine refused to even cough, and Tom was instructed to find the trouble. That was a problem! Jimmy lounged around with his hands in his pockets and offered no comment, and even refused advice when asked for it. It took Tom just forty minutes to discover that Jimmy had detached the wires from the cylinders, although they were dangling there uselessly in plain sight! Another time, unseen of the boys, he shut the cock in the gasoline supply pipe at the carburetor and again poor Tom nearly worried himself into a spasm. It was all useful experience, however, and the boys enjoyed it after it was over. By this time even Willard, whose talents scarcely leaned toward mechanics, had got a very fair idea of the philosophy of automobiles.