Emily's Runaway Imagination (5 page)

Emily did not like to bring her cousin down to earth by telling her that Lady had not had any real exercise. “It's such a warm sunny day Lady doesn't need a cloth,” she said tactfully, “and she likes nice juicy grass better than mash.”

This satisfied Muriel. “You can ride some more when we come back,” offered Emily, as the cousins ran off to join their parents. “I'll lead you again.”

“Oh, would you?” exclaimed Muriel gratefully.

“Did you have a nice ride?” asked Aunt Irene, when the girls reached the automobile.

“Oh, Mama, it was just wonderful!” said Muriel. “Just think, I have really ridden a
horse. A beautiful white horse!”

Mama and Emily exchanged a little smile. They both knew where the beauty was. Then Emily climbed up into the back seat of Uncle Ben's Maxwell and sat down on the shiny leather cushion. She admired the little vases for flowers and the plaid auto robe hanging on the back of the front seat. She gave a little bounce and discovered that the cushion was springy, which pleased her very much. The road out to the cemetery was good and bumpy.

G
randpa's mind was made up. He was going to buy an automobile! Yes, Grandpa said, times were changing. Horse-and-buggy days were at an end. He wanted to keep up with the times and so he was going to buy a Ford, a Model T Ford.

Emily thought this was terribly exciting—Grandpa keeping up with the times in a new automobile. She had always thought Grandpa was pretty old-fashioned even if he
did not wear a beard. Why, he still called electricity “juice.” “Switch off the light,” he would say. “We don't want to waste the juice.” But now Grandpa was going to change his ways, and Emily was going to be closely related to an automobile. When the boys and girls at school bragged about their families' automobiles, Emily had always said proudly, “We don't have an automobile.
We
have a tractor.”

It seemed as if everyone had a different opinion about Grandpa's buying an automobile. Grandma could not see why he wanted such a contraption. My land, a person could walk any place he wanted to go in Pitchfork and when was he going to find time to drive, with the store open until all hours? Mama said she did hope he wouldn't do anything reckless at his age. Daddy just laughed and said let him have his fun.

Grandpa's customers joshed him about his
plans to buy an automobile. Every morning the old men who came in to sit around the store, while they waited for Uncle Avery to sort the morning mail, asked, “Well, Will, have you bought that Tin Lizzie yet?”

Emily was on pins and needles for fear Grandpa might change his mind about keeping up with the times, but at last the great day came. Mama and Emily went uptown to help Grandma mind the store while Grandpa took the new auto stage to McMinnville to buy the Model T Ford.

Emily practiced trying to shake open a paper bag with a flourish and a snap, the way Grandpa did, so that people would look at her with admiration and say, “The way that girl snaps paper bags!” While she tried and tried, Grandma fussed and worried and declared it was foolishness for Grandpa to drive back from McMinnville in that contraption when he had never driven before.
Late in the afternoon Mama kept going out on the porch and peering down Main Street in the direction of McMinnville. Emily could not see what they were worried about. What was there to driving an automobile besides starting, stopping and, in a pinch, backing up? Old George A. Barbee had explained it all to Grandpa before he left that morning. There was nothing to it except sometimes on a steep hill it was necessary to turn around and back up the hill so the gasoline could run down into the engine.

“Mercy!” Grandma would exclaim, going out to peer down Main Street. “I hope he hasn't hit a cow the way old George A. did that time.”

It was Emily, tired of trying to shake open paper bags, who went out to sit on the front steps and saw Grandpa driving down the road as nice as you please. “He's coming!”
she shouted. “He's coming!”

Mama, Grandma, and all the customers rushed out to the sidewalk to watch Grandpa's arrival. There he came, down the road and across the bridge and up Main Street. Beaming and triumphant, he drew up in front of his store. “Whoa!” he cried as he stopped his new automobile.

“William, you made it!” exclaimed Grandma in relief.

“Of course I made it,” answered Grandpa, climbing over the door on the driver's side, which was not made to be opened.

Everyone clustered around to inspect and admire Grandpa's new black touring car. Old George A. Barbee was there to open the hood and inspect the engine. Old George A., as everyone in Pitchfork called him, was the town's authority on Fords, because he had been the first to own one.

Emily was a little disappointed because
the Ford did not have a vase for flowers on the dashboard, but it did have a number of features that made up for it—the little brass radiator ornament, and the red, white, and blue cans for extra water, gas, and oil that were mounted on the running board. Because Emily was related to the car, she felt free to climb into the front seat and bounce
up and down on the black leather cushion.

“Come along, Emily,” said Mama. “It's time to go home and fix supper.”

“Mama!” protested Emily. “I want to go for a ride.”

“Not today,” said Mama firmly. “Come along.”

“I'll drive you home,” offered Grandpa.

“No, thank you,” answered Mama. “There are too many customers for Mother to handle alone. Come
along
, Emily.”

Bitterly disappointed, Emily climbed out of the car. “But Mama,” protested Emily, as they turned off the cement sidewalk onto the boardwalk. “I've been waiting all day to ride in Grandpa's Model T.”

“Now, Emily,” said Mama firmly. “You are not to set foot in that automobile for a good long time. I just don't trust your grandfather's driving.”

“Mama!” wailed Emily.

And so, as the days went by, Emily's mother made up excuses to keep Emily out of her grandfather's automobile, and Emily watched wistfully as he rattled around town, keeping up with the times.

Grandpa was not the only person keeping up with the times. The Ladies' Civic Club had found space for a library in a corner of the Commercial Clubrooms upstairs over the Pitchfork State Bank. Two ladies loaned old china closets, with glass doors that could be locked, to be used for book shelves. Mama was appointed librarian. Now all they needed was books.

Mama wrote a letter which was published on the front page of the
Pitchfork Report
. She asked anyone who had a book to give to the library to leave it in a box in Grandpa's store. She also asked anyone about to subscribe to the
Country Gentleman
at one dollar a year to telephone her. If the library could
get five subscriptions, it would receive five new books absolutely free. The seventy-five books loaned by the state library would arrive any day now.

Then one Sunday, when the store was closed and no one had banged on the door to get Grandpa to open up, Grandpa and Grandma drove over to the farm in the new Ford. Grandma was wearing her good serge suit and her best hat. She had a resigned door-die look on her gentle face.

“Come on,” said Grandpa. “We've come to take the whole family for a ride.”

“Good,” said Daddy. “I've been itching to go for a ride.”

This time there was no way out for Mama. Emily and her mother and father climbed into the back seat. Grandpa got out and cranked the car—and cranked it and cranked it. Finally the engine started, with a noise like machinery sneezing, and the automobile
began to shimmy. Grandpa ran around and climbed in fast and off they drove, trailing two brown veils of dust behind them. Fong Quock, who was out tending his vegetable garden, shouted and waved. Grandpa honked his horn in reply—
a-ooga, a-ooga
.

“Mercy!” exclaimed Grandma, as Grandpa whizzed around the corner onto Main Street.
A-ooga, a-ooga
. Grandpa honked at a boy on a bicycle. Mama looked nervous. Daddy beamed. Emily waved to everyone she saw. What a ride they had! Down Main Street, past the school, down an unpaved road trailing dust and scattering chickens, up Depot Road, around to Main Street, back up the road to the farm. They had not had a single accident; they had not hit a cow or even a chicken!

“Say, Emily,” said Grandpa, before he and Grandma drove off, “how would you like to drive out to the old Skinner place with
me in the morning?” The old Skinner place was a piece of land which Grandpa owned and which was farmed for him by a nearby farmer. Several people had owned it since the Skinners had sold it back around 1890, but in Pitchfork land was almost always called after the name of the pioneer who had taken up the donation land claim.

“Oh, Grandpa, I would love to,” answered Emily quickly.

Mama hesitated before she said, “Mrs. Scott phoned to say she had some books to give to the library but no way to get into town. Perhaps you could stop at the Scott place and pick them up.”

It was all right. At last Emily was free to ride in Grandpa's Ford and keep up with the times, too.

The next morning, bright and early, Grandpa drove up to the farm for Emily, who was waiting for him on the gate out
by the catalpa tree. This was going to be even better than Emily had hoped, because Grandpa had put down the top of his car. Mama, still looking worried, came out on the porch to wave good-bye.

Unfortunately, Emily and Grandpa had to pass old George A. Barbee's house on the way out of town. When the old gentleman heard them approaching he crawled out from under his own Model T Ford and hailed them. Naturally Grandpa had to stop, although he did not turn off the engine. Old George A. came over and leaned against Grandpa's automobile. Emily could see he had settled down for a good long talk about the insides of Fords. Emily squirmed around on the leather seat while the two old men discussed such tiresome things as spindle-joint anti-rattlers, slipping clutches, low bands that might burn out, the advantages of a Ruxtell axle…. It seemed to her that
the chugging motor was as eager to be off as she was.

Finally Emily simply could not stand it. “Grandpa,” she said urgently above the noise of the engine, “don't you think we'd better go?”

“Yes, Emily, I expect we'd better,” agreed Grandpa. “Well, thanks for the advice, George A.”

At last they were on their way! It was a beautiful day for a drive in the country in an automobile with the top down. The fields were green; the sky was blue with whipped-cream clouds; wild roses and Queen Anne's lace bloomed along the fences. Blackbirds glistened in the sun. If Grandpa's automobile had not been making so much noise they could have heard the meadowlarks.

The road was good and bumpy, and Emily enjoyed every bump they hit. “Can you go faster, Grandpa?” she asked.

Grandpa pulled down the gas lever on the steering wheel. The Ford leaped ahead. Emily jounced and bounced around on the leather seat, but she managed to look at the needle on the speedometer which Grandpa had had installed. “Grandpa!” she shrieked. “We're going twenty-five miles an hour!” The joy and the wonder of it! Tearing along at twenty-five miles an hour.

They stopped under the old maple in front of the Scott place while Mrs. Scott ran out with her books for the library. Emily was much disappointed, although she was careful not to let Mrs. Scott, a tired, wispy little woman, know it. There were only three books, all of them very old, with yellowed paper and fine print.
Kenilworth
and two books of sermons. No
Black Beauty
. Emily thanked her. It was nice of her to give her books, the only books she had.

Farther out in the country the wagon road
to the old Skinner place wound through several farms and at each farm Grandpa had to stop and climb out over the door. He opened the gate, climbed back into his Ford, drove through, got out and closed the gate, climbed back in, and drove on to the next gate. The first section of the road led them through a barnyard, where Grandpa had to swerve to avoid some chickens and a calf.

Finally they reached the old Skinner place. How quiet it was with the engine of Grandpa's car turned off! Grandpa climbed out to examine his alfalfa crop while Emily picked a bouquet of wild columbine growing along the fence, to take home to Mama.

“Come on, Emily,” Grandpa called at last. “Time to go. I don't like to leave your grandmother alone with the store all morning.”

Emily started to climb up on the running board with her bouquet of columbine
when she heard a sound. At first she thought it was a tractor, but then she realized it was not. It was an airplane! “Look, Grandpa!” she cried, pointing. “An airplane!”

“By George, you're right!” exclaimed Grandpa, shading his eyes with his hand.

“Grandpa, I can see the aviator!” cried Emily ecstatically. And she could! She could see his brown leather jacket and helmet and even his goggles. What an exciting morning this was! She waved frantically. The man in the airplane waved to her over the side of the cockpit. It was almost too much to bear. She had been waved at by an aviator! “Grandpa, he waved!” Emily could hardly believe it. She stood watching until the airplane disappeared in the distance. Then she climbed into the Ford and slammed the door. The things she had to tell Mama!

Emily and her grandfather were not even
near the first gate when Grandpa began to work the clutch pedal up and down. It seemed lifeless under his foot.

“Grandpa!” Emily was alarmed.

“Great Scott!” Grandpa was alarmed, too. “Now what the Sam Hill was it old George A. said to do in a case like this?” He pumped the clutch once more before it came to him. “He said if this ever happened I'd better not stop, because I couldn't get started again unless I was on a hill.”

“Then don't stop,” begged Emily. Right here all the hills were in the distance, where they could do no good.

“We're coming to the gate!” yelled Grandpa.

“You can't stop!” shouted Emily. The gate seemed to be flying toward her. “Grandpa, don't stop!”