And then all in a minute the scenery ain’t movin’ past you at all. It stops dead in its tracks, like when the film of a movin’ picture machine gets tangled up, and there’s only one partic’lar scene to look at. It’s mighty curious, too, how quick that special spot loses its charm. Also, as a gen’ral rule, such things happen just at the wrong spot in the road. Now we’d been sailin’ along over a ridge, where we could look out across Narragansett Bay for miles; but here where our tire had gone on the blink was a kind of dip down between the hills, with no view at all.
First off we all has to pile out and get in Renée’s way while he inspects the damage. It’s a blow-out for fair, a hole big enough to lay your two hands in, right across the tread, where we’d picked up a broken bottle, or maybe a cast horseshoe with the nails in it. Then, while he proceeds to get busy with the jack and tire irons, we all makes up our minds to a good long wait; for when you tackle one of them big boys, with the rims rusted in, it ain’t any fifteen-minute picnic, you know.
Course, Pinckney gets out his fireless bottles and the glasses and improves the time by handin’ around somethin’ soothin’ or cheerin’, accordin’ to taste. Not bein’ thirsty, I begins inspectin’ the contagious scenery. It wa’n’t anything an artist would yearn to paint. Just back from the road is a sort of shack that looks as though someone might be campin’ out in it, and behind that a mess of rough sheds and chicken coops.
Next I discovers that the object down in the field which I’d taken for a scarecrow was a live man. By the motions he’s goin’ through, he’s diggin’ potatoes, and from the way he sticks to it, not payin’ any attention to us, it seems as if he found it a mighty int’restin’ pastime. You’d most think, livin’ in an out of the way, forsaken place like that, that most any native would be glad to stop work long enough to look over a hot lookin’ bunch like ours.
This one don’t seem inclined that way, though. He keeps his back bent and his head down and his hands busy. Now, whenever I’ve been out in a machine, and we’ve had any kind of trouble, there’s always been a gawpin’ committee standin’ around, composed of every human being in sight at the time of the casualty, includin’ a few that seemed to pop up out of the ground. But here’s a case where the only party that can act as an audience ain’t doin’ his duty. So a fool freak hits me to stroll over and poke him up.
“Hey, you!” says I, vaultin’ the fence.
He jerks his head up a little at that, kind of stares in my direction, and then dives into another hill of spuds.
“Huh!” thinks I. “Don’t want any city folks in his’n, by chowder! But here’s where he gets ’em thrust on him!” and I pikes over for a closer view. Couldn’t see much, though, but dirty overalls, blue outing shirt, and an old haymaker’s straw hat with a brim that lops down around his face and ears.
“Excuse me,” says I; “but ain’t you missin’ a trick, or is it because you don’t feel sociable to-day? How’re the murphies pannin’ out this season?”
To see the start he gives, you’d think I’d crept up from behind and swatted him one. He straightens up, backs off a step or two, and opens his mouth. “Why—why——” says he, after one or two gasps. “Who are you, please?”