It was quite warm this morning, much warmer than yesterday, and the sun turned the yellowing maples and birches to pure gold. The elms along the drive were already littering the gravel with their rusty brown leaves. It was a lazy sort of a day, and Clif’s steps, once he was in the fuller sunlight of Oak Street, grew slower and slower, until he was fairly dawdling along. He was still dawdling when he crossed Hubbard Street and passed the Inn, before which several visiting automobiles were parked. His thoughts went back to a week ago, and his father’s visit, and the drive to Cotterville, and he was almost to State Street, beyond which, on the other side of Oak, “Poppy’s” combined fruit, candy, and news emporium stood, when something claimed his interest, and brought his thoughts back to the present.
The something was a wheel chair which was being slowly propelled along the sidewalk by its occupant. At the distance of half a block Loring Deane was easily recognizable and Clif wondered at finding the boy alone so far from the school. Evidently he, too, had been to “Poppy’s” for the sunlight shone garishly on the colored outer section of the paper in his lap. Approaching, although on the opposite side of Oak Street, Clif considered offering his assistance again. It was a long way back to school, and he didn’t see how Deane could manage the curbings. But he did see a moment later, for the wheel chair came to a place where the sidewalk sloped to meet the street level at the entrance of a narrow alley, and the occupant turned his vehicle to the right, eased it down the short descent, and headed obliquely toward the State Street intersection and Clif.
“I guess I’ll offer to push him back,” thought Clif. “He won’t mind waiting while I get my paper.” He had already started to put the thought to action when an automobile came charging eastward through State Street. Involuntarily Clif drew back from the curbing. Then a motion of the arms grasping the wheel of the car sent Clif’s heart into his throat. The driver was going to swing south, had already slowed slightly and was turning the steering wheel hard to the right. Squarely in the middle of the street was the wheel chair. Its occupant, unaware of the danger an instant before, now heard, and saw the car lurching around the corner scarcely forty feet away. For a moment irresolution stayed the hands on the wheels. Then, bending forward, Loring strove desperately to roll the chair to safety.
All this Clif saw ere he dashed forward. As he raced toward the boy in the chair, he was aware of the throbbing of the big automobile almost beside him, heard a spasmodic blast from the horn, and the screeching of hastily applied brakes. Then he had reached the chair and seized one arm of it, dragging it frantically toward the sidewalk. Almost simultaneously something huge and black rushed past, the wheel chair was almost wrenched from his grasp, there was a sharp report, and the metallic sound of crashing glass and silence!
Coming swiftly, the car had been unable to make the turn abruptly, and had swung well toward the left side of Oak Street. The building on the corner had obscured the driver’s view of what lay ahead until he had started to turn. Then he had desperately avoided the wheel chair by swerving hard to the right, grazing the object in passing and, in spite of brakes, had swung onto the sidewalk, demolishing an iron hitching post—perhaps Freeburg’s last reminder of the Horse Age—and plunged obliquely into the front of “Poppy’s” emporium! When, dazedly, Clif looked, the farther sidewalk was strewed with papers and oranges and shattered glass, and splintered boxes and “Poppy” himself, white-faced but voluble, was shaking a huge fist in the face of the scared driver.
Two minutes before it would have been difficult to count a dozen persons on the whole length of Oak Street. Now thrice that many were gathered about the scene of the accident and every instant saw the number increase. Clif’s gaze dropped to Loring Deane. The latter was looking up at him questioningly. His face was pale, but he was smiling bravely enough.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Plenty,” answered Clif grimly. He swung the chair around so that its occupant could see for himself. The driver of the badly damaged car had alighted, but in the rear seat two frightened women were staring strainedly about them. The town constable, stiffly attired for church, had arrived, and his thin, indignantly high-pitched voice was to be heard above the excited chatter of the throng. “You was goin’ too fast! I seen you! You was goin’ too fast!”
“I’m very sorry,” said Loring. “It was my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Clif protested. “That man came around the corner at twenty miles an hour, easy. He was hitting thirty until he started to turn! It’s a wonder he didn’t get you, Deane. He’s smashed the handles clean off.” Clif retrieved the broken part from the asphalt. It didn’t look to be of any further use, however, and he tossed it into the gutter.