You Should Worry Says John Henry | Page 6

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 in an appetizing manner?"
[Illustration]
"Of course," answered Ollie, her lips curling disdainfully.
Then I chipped in with, "Very well, Ollie; the members of this household are vegetarians, for the time being. All of us vegetarians, including the dog, so please govern yourself accordingly."
Ollie smiled in a broad Hungarian manner and whispered that vegetarianisms was where she lived.
She confided to us that she could cook vegetables so artistically that the palate would believe them to be filet mignon, with champagne sauce.
Then she shook the rolling pin at a picture of friend wife's grandfather, and started in to fool the Beef Trust and put all the butchers out of business.
Dinner time came and we were all expectancy.
The first course was potato soup. Filling but not fascinating.
The second course was potato chips, which we nibbled slightly while we looked eagerly at the butler's pantry.
The next course was French fried potatoes with some shoestring potatoes on the side, and I began to get nervous.
This was followed by a dish of German fried potatoes, some hash-browned potatoes and some potato saute, whereupon my appetite got up and left the