over and clutch me around the neck; and if we run over anything, try to look as if you didn't know we had."
Luckily she had not noticed my traveling bag. After the affair of the launch I was prepared for anything, and I had packed up three nightgowns, a balsam pillow, a roll of bandage, a bottle of arnica, a cake of soap, my sewing box and a prayer-book. Aggie had some sandwiches; so we felt we were prepared for everything, from sudden death to losing a button.
We got on to the ferry safely enough. Carpenter, who runs the cable drum of the ferry with a gas engine, examined the machine with a great deal of interest on the way over.
"It's a pretty hot day. Miss Tish," he called as we were starting off the boat. "You'll have to watch her; she'll boil."
Tish looked worried, but she said nothing,
"What is there to boil?" Aggie whispered tome.
"The gasoline," I told her; "and if it boils it'll explode, I'm no mechanic, but I know that much."
After a few moments' silence Aggie leaned forward.
"Tish," she said.
"Don't take my mind off this machine!" Tish shouted back. "Isn't that a buggy coming?"
"It's too far off to see. It's either a buggy or a wagon," I said. "Tish, where's the gasoline tank?"
But Tish wasn't listening. "Why doesn't that man turn out? Does he want the whole road?" she snapped. There was a silence while we neared the buggy ahead. Then Tish leaned over and began jerking at levers.
"I can't stop the thing," she gasped, "and there isn't room to pass!"
There wasn't time to pray. I saw Aggie shut her eyes, and the next moment there was a terrific jar. Aggie and I were flung together in a corner of the seat, a man yelled, and the next minute we had leaped out of the ditch again and were going smoothly along the road. I glanced behind. The man had halted his horse and was standing up in the buggy, staring after us.
"I didn't think I could do it," said Tish complacently.
"Only the grace of God took you into that ditch and out again, Tish Carberry," I snapped. "And if you are going to do any more circus performances I want to get out.''
She could stop the car well enough when there was no crying need to, and now, to our alarm, she stopped every now and then and got out and held her hand over the front of the machine, like testing the oven for cake. Finally she said:
It's boiling!"
Aggie got ready to jump.
"It'll explode, won't it?" she quavered.
"I don't see why it should explode," Tish replied, wetting her finger to see if it sizzled when she touched it. "But it's hot enough, in all conscience A good rain would cool it."
The sun was blazing down on us, however, and there was no sign of rain. I said I would just as soon be blown up as melted down, and we got in again. The machine would not start. We all took a turn at the handle in front, but it was like winding a clock with a broken spring.
That is where the man and the girl and the little Pomeranian dog enter the story. For they came along in a blue runabout car just as Tish threw her book called Automobile Troubles over the fence and said she was going to walk home. The book said: "Beginners having trouble with their engines should look under the headings Ignition, Carburation, Lubrication, Compression; Circulation and Timing." As Tish remarked, the only one that was understandable was Circulation, and anybody could tell without a book that the car wasn't circulating to any extent.
Just as Tish threw the book away the young man in the blue runabout stopped and got out.
"In trouble?" he asked. "Can I do anything for you?"
"It was boiling," said Tish. "I suppose something has melted inside."
"Oh, I think not." He looked at the car, pushed something, went round and turned the handle—crank, Tish called it, and it's a good name—and the engine started.
"You didn't have your gas on," said the young man. "And don't worry; you're sure to heat up on a day like this, but nothing will melt"
'Or explode?" asked Aggie. 'Or explode."
He looked at the girl and smiled, and when we started off they were still there, watching us. The dog yelped, and the girl smiled and waved her hand. Aggie, who is far-sighted, turned around a second time. "He reminds me of Mr. Wiggins," she said with a sigh, still looking back. Aggie was engaged years ago to a young man in the roofing business, who fell off a roof.
After a minute, "He's kissing her!" she gasped. After that she nearly broke her neck watching them out of sight. Aggie is romantic. I turned around, but I had on my near glasses.
I don't know how we lost the Noblestown Pike. Tish blamed it on having to drive with one eye shut, on account of something getting into the other. Aggie's nose was sunburned and swelling, and I would have given a good bit for something heavy in my lap to anchor me. When I was a girl I rode horseback, and with any kind of a steady horse you can tell when the next jolt is coming; but Tish's machine has a way of coming up and hitting you when you are off guard, so to speak.
To go back, after an hour or so we found we were on the wrong road. It kept growing narrower, and when at last it became only a dusty country lane Tish realized it herself. There was a rickety farmhouse about two hundred feet from the road, with a woman bending over a washtub outside the door. I stood up and made a megaphone of my hands.
"Which way to the Noblestown Pike?" I yelled, while Tish got out and stuck a wet finger on the hood over the engine.
The woman looked up and pointed sullenly in the direction from which we had come. We looked at the road. There wasn't a spot to turn—not another road in sight to back into. It was hotter than ever. The engine hummed like a teakettle on a hot stove, and there were little clouds of blue smoke coming from somewhere or other about it. Aggie said she thought the gasoline tank was on fire.
"If it is you'll soon know it," said Tish grimly. "It's under the seat. I'm going to back up on to this bridge business over the gutter. I think I can make it."
"Do you know how to back up?" I asked; and just at that minute the woman left her tub and started to run down the walk.
Tish backed. With an awful grinding of wheels she got the right lever finally; the machine gave a jerk that would have decapitated a chicken, and we backed slowly on to the timbers that bridged the gutter and made a road toward the house. When it gave the first crack we shouted—Aggie and I. It might not have been too late, but Tish put on the emergency brake by mistake and for a minute we hung on the verge. Then we began to settle. We went down slowly, with Tish above us and rising; and when we stopped, there we were, Aggie and I and the rear of the machine, a good four feet below Tish and the engine, with something grinding like mad and clouds of smoke everywhere.
When we crawled out the woman who owned the bridge was standing on the bank looking down at us, and her face was something awful.
"You'll fix that bridge before you leave!" she said, shutting her mouth hard on the last word.
"You'll fix that automobile before I'm through with you!" said Tish, pointing at the thing, which looked like a horse sitting down in a gutter.
