You Should Worry Says John Henry | Page 6

and started for
Newfoundland at the rate of 7,000,000 miles a minute.
Aunt Miranda threw her arms around Uncle Gilbert's neck, he threw his
neck around the lever, the lever threw him over, and they both threw a
fit.
Down the road ahead of them a man and his wife were quarreling. They
were so much in earnest that they did not hear the machine sneaking
swiftly up on rubber shoes.
As the Benzine Buggy was about to fall upon the quarreling man and
wife Uncle Gilbert squeezed a couple of hoarse "Toot toots" from the
horn, whereupon the woman in the road threw up both hands and
leaped for the man. The man threw up both feet and leaped for the
fence.
The last Aunt Miranda saw of them they were entering their modest
home neck and neck, and the divorce court lost a bet.
Then the machine began to climb a telegraph pole, and as it ran down
the other side Aunt Miranda wanted to know for the tenth time if it
would explode.
"How did John tell you to handle it?" she shrieked, as the Rowdy Cart
bit its way through a stone fence and began to dance a two-step over a
strange man's lawn.
"The only way to handle this infernal machine is to soak it in water,"
yelled Uncle Gilbert as they hit the main road again.
"I don't see what family pride has to do with it; there isn't a soul
looking," moaned Aunt Miranda.
"Oh if I could only be arrested for fast riding and get this thing
stopped," wailed Uncle Gilbert as they headed for the river.

"Let me out, let me out," pleaded Aunt Miranda, and the machine
seemed to hear her, for it certainly obliged the lady.
I found out afterwards that in order to make good with Aunt Miranda
the machine jumped up in the air and turned a double handspring,
during the course of which friend Uncle and his wife fell out and
landed in the most generous inclined mud puddle in that part of the
state.
Then the Buzz Buggy turned around and barked at them, and with an
excited wag of its tail scooted for home and left them flat.
Late that evening Uncle Gilbert explained that there would have been
no trouble at all if he had removed a defective spark plug.
But I think if Uncle Gilbert would go to Dr. Leiser and have his
parsimony removed he'd have more fun as he breezes through life.
Peaches thinks just as I do, but she won't say it out loud--she's a fox,
that Kid.
CHAPTER III
YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT DIETING
I was complaining to some of my friends in the Club the other evening
because a germ General Villa had begun to attack the outposts of my
digestive tract when a nut in the party began to slip me a line of talk
about a vegetable diet.
I didn't fall for it until he proved to me that Kid Methuselah had
prolonged an otherwise uneventful life and was enabled to make funny
faces at the undertakers until he reached the age of 914 simply because
he ate nothing but dandelion salad, mashed potatoes and stewed prunes.
Then I went home and told friend wife about it. She approved eagerly
because she felt that it might solve the servant problem.

Since we started housekeeping about eight months ago we've averaged
two cooks a week. Tuesdays and Fridays are our days for changing
chefs. The old cook leaves Monday evening and the new cook arrives
Tuesday morning. Then the new cook leaves on Thursday evening and
the newest cook arrives on Friday, and so on, world without end.
Friend wife decided she could herself dip a few parsnips in boiling
water without the aid of a European kitchen mechanician.
Vegetarians! What a great idea!
Now she could get out into the sunlight once in a while, instead of
standing forever at the hall door as a perpetual reception committee to a
frowsy-headed Slavonian exile demanding $35 per and nix on the
washing.
But it was Friday and our latest cook was at that moment annoying the
gas range in the kitchen, so why not experiment and find out what merit
there is in a vegetarian menu?
The ayes have it--send for the Duchess of Dishwater.
Enter the Duchess, so proud and haughty, with a rolling pin in one hand
and a guide to the city of New York in the other. During her idle
moments she studied the guide. Even now, and only three weeks from
Ellis Island, she knew the city so well that she could go from one
situation to another with her eyes closed.
"Ollie," said friend wife, "do you know how to cook vegetables