Mr Hawkins Humorous Adventures | Page 3

said no more.
I hardly knew what to do. Every minute brought us nearer to the town, where traffic is rather heavy all day.
Up to now we had had a clear track, but in another five minutes a collision would be almost as inevitable as the sunset.
I endeavored to recall the "First Aid to the Injured" treatment for fractured skulls and broken backs, and I thanked goodness that there would be only one auto to complete the mangling of Hawkins' remains, should they drop into the road after the smash.
Would there? I glanced backward and gasped. Others had joined the pursuit, and I was merely the vanguard of a procession.
Twenty feet to the rear loomed the black muzzle of Enos Jackson's trotter, with Jackson in his little road-cart. Behind him, three bicyclists filled up the gap between the road-cart and Dr. Brotherton's buggy.
I felt a little better at seeing Brotherton there. He set my hired man's leg two years ago, and made a splendid job.
There was more of the cavalcade behind Brotherton, although the dust revealed only glimpses of it; but I had seen enough to realize that if Hawkins' brake did work, and Hawkins' mare stopped suddenly, there was going to be a piled-up mass of men and things in the road that for sheer mixed-up-edness would pale the average freight wreck.
Maud maintained her pace, and I did my best to keep up.
By this time I could see the reason for her mad flight. When the explosion, or whatever it was, took place in the brake machinery, a jagged piece of brass had been forced into her side, and there it remained, stabbing the poor old beast with conscientious regularity at every leap.
I was still trying to devise some way of pulling loose the goad and persuading Maud to slow down when we entered town.
At first the houses whizzed past at intervals of two or three seconds; but it seemed hardly half a minute before we came in sight of the square and the court house. We were creating quite an excitement, too. People screamed frantically at us from porches and windows and the sidewalk.
Occasionally a man would spring into the road to stop Maud, think better of it, and spring out again.
One misguided individual hurled a fence-rail across the path. It didn't worry Maud in the slightest, for she happened to be all in the air while passing over that particular point, but when the auto went over the rail it nearly jarred out my teeth.
Another fellow pranced up, waving a many-looped rope over his head. I think Maud must have transfixed him with her fiery eye, for before he could throw it his nerve failed and he scuttled back to safety.
Those who had teams hitched in the square were hurrying them out of danger, and when we whirled by the court-house only one buggy remained in the road.
That buggy belonged to Burkett, the constable. The town pays Burkett a percentage on the amount of work he does, and Burkett is keen on looking up new business.
"Stop, there!" he shouted, as we came up. "Stop!"
Nobody stopped.
"Stop, or I'll arrest the whole danged lot of ye fer fast drivin'!" roared Burkett, gathering up reins and whip.
And with that he dashed into the place behind Enos Jackson and crowded the bicyclists to the side of the road.
Our county town is a small one, and at the pace set by Maud it didn't take us long to reach the far side and sweep out on the highway which leads, eventually, to Boston.
I began to wonder dimly whether Maud's wind and my water and gasolene would carry us to the Hub, and, if so, what would happen when we had passed through the city.
Just beyond Boston, you know, is the Atlantic Ocean.
At this point in my meditations we started down the slope to the big creamery.
The building is located to the right of the road. On the left, a rather steep grassy embankment drops perhaps thirty feet to the little river.
On this beautiful sunny afternoon, the creamery's milk cans, something like a hundred in number, were airing by the roadside, just on the edge of the embankment; and as we thundered down I smiled grimly to think of the attractive little frill Maud might add to her performance by kicking a dozen or two of the milk cans into the river as she passed.
Maud, however, as she approached the cans, kept fairly in the middle of the road--and stopped!
Heavens! She stopped so short that I gasped for breath. All in a twinkling the steel rods dropped into position beside her legs, the cuffs snapped, and the Hawkins Horse-brake had worked at last!
Poor old Maud! She slid a few yards with rigid limbs, squealing in terror, and then crashed to the ground like an