You Should Worry Says John Henry | Page 5

down," I
volunteered. "Know how to run it?"
"I guess so; I was always a good hand at machinery," Uncle Gilbert
answered.
"Don't you think you should have a chauffeur?" Peaches suggested.
"Chauffeur! Why?" Uncle Gilbert snapped back; "what do I want with
one of those fellows sitting around, eating me out of house and home."
Now you know why he has so much money.
"We'll be back in a little while," Aunt Miranda explained; "just make
yourselves at home, children."
Uncle Gilbert continued to eye the car for another minute, then he
turned to me and said, "Want to try it, John?"
"Nix, Uncle Gilbert," I protested; "what would the townspeople say?
You with a new motor car, afraid to run it yourself, had to send to New
York for your nephew--nix! Where's your family pride?"
"My family pride is all right," answered Uncle Gilbert; "but there's a lot
of contraptions in that machine I don't seem to recognize."
"Oh, that's all right; you're a handy little guy with machinery," I
reminded him. "Hop in now and break forth. Don't let the public think
that you're afraid to blow a Bubble through the streets of your native

town. The rubber sweater buttoned to the chin and the Dutch awning
over the forehead for yours, and on your way!"
Finally and reluctantly Uncle Gilbert and Aunt Miranda climbed into
the kerosene wagon and I gave him his final instructions.
"Now, Uncle Gilbert," I said, "grab that wheel in front of you firmly
with both hands and put one foot on the accelerator. Now put the other
foot on the rheostat and let the left elbow gently rest on the deodorizer.
Keep the rubber tube connecting with the automatic fog whistle closely
between the teeth and let the right elbow be in touch with the
quadruplex while the apex of the left knee is pressed over the spark coil
and the right ankle works the condenser."
Uncle Gilbert grunted. "Why don't you put my left shoulder blade to
work," he muttered; "it's the only part of my anatomy that hasn't got a
job."
"John," whispered the nervous Aunt Miranda, "do you really think your
Uncle Gilbert knows enough about the car?"
"Sure," I answered, and I was very serious about it. "Now, Uncle
Gilbert, keep both eyes on the road in front of you and the rest of your
face in the wagon. Start the driving wheels, repeat slowly the name of
your favorite coroner, and leave the rest to Fate!"
And away they started in the Whiz Wagon.
Before they had rolled along for half a mile through town the machine
suddenly began to breathe fast, and then, all of a sudden, it choked up
and stopped.
"Will it explode?" whispered Aunt Miranda, pleadingly.
"No," said Uncle Gilbert, jumping out; "I think the cosmopolitan has
buckled with the trapezoid," and then, with a monkey wrench, he
crawled under the hood to see if the trouble was stubbornness or
appendicitis.

Uncle Gilbert took a dislike to a brass valve and began to knock it with
the monkey wrench, whereupon the valve got mad at him and upset a
pint of ancient salad oil all over his features.
When Uncle Gilbert recovered consciousness the machine was
breathing again, so he jumped to the helm, pointed the bow at Tampico,
Mex., and began to cut the grass.
Alas! however, it seemed that the demon of unrest possessed that
Coal-oil Coupe, for it soon began to jump and skip, and suddenly, with
a snort, it took the river road and scooted away from town.
Uncle Gilbert patted it on the back and spoke soothingly, but it was no
use.
Aunt Miranda pleaded with him to keep in near the shore, because she
was getting seasick; but her tears were in vain.
"You must appear calm and indifferent in the presence of danger,"
muttered Uncle Gilbert as they rushed madly into the bosom of a flock
of cows.
[Illustration]
But luck was with them, for with a turn of the wrist Uncle Gilbert
jumped the machine across the road, and all he could feel was the sharp
swish of an old cow's tail across his cheek as they rushed on and out of
that animal's life forever.
Aunt Miranda tried to be brave and to chat pleasantly. "How is Wall
Street these days?" she asked, and just then the machine struck a stone
and she went up in the air.
"Unsettled," answered Uncle Gilbert when she got back, and then there
was an embarrassing silence.
To try to hold a polite conversation, on a motor car in full flight is very
much like trying to repeat the Declaration of Independence while

falling from a seventh-story window.
Then, all of a sudden, the machine struck a chord in G,