ADVENTURES WITH A FLIVVER—CONTINUED

“Now we’re coming to a place,” said Townsend, as a brazen sign greeted them with the word GARAGE when they went around a bend. “Now we’ll give Liz her supper, hey, Liz.”

“Y-kks,” said Liz.

“You made it do that?” said Pee-wee astonished.

“And at the next good place we’ll all eat,” said Townsend. “We ought to be able to scare up a grove or something to camp in.”

“I’m going to make a hunter’s stew,” said Pee-wee.

“At your peril,” said Townsend; “I’m going to have an omelet, if anybody should ask you. That’s one great thing about the valve-in-head motor, you can beat eggs with the rocker arms. With a Ford you have to beat them by hand.”

At the garage they were doomed to disappointment. The proprietor, wearing conspicuous suspenders and a straw hat as big as a parachute, told them that the gasoline wagon had not come along that day. He had not, it seemed, enough to take out a grease spot.

“How far is Mideno, or whatever they call it?” Townsend asked.

“Waaal naow, some sez ’ts seven mile n’ some sez eight,” said the proprietor of the shack. “Yer keep right ter this here road. Purty soon yer cum ter a hill n’ yer go up that n’ foller the main road, yer can’t go wrong.”

“They keep gas there?” Townsend asked.

“Waal, they keep it but more’n like they’re closed up. There’s a circus thar—”

“G—long, Liz,” said Townsend impatiently. By the time they reached the foot of the hill it was dark. They started up gayly, their thoughts now bent on supper and camping for the night. The car struggled up, pounding but resolute, a model of indomitable perseverance. But after a while it began to sputter and then it stopped and gave unmistakable evidence of an intention to retreat down the hill again.

“Won’t it make the hill?” Pee-wee asked.

“Get out and put a couple of stones under the wheels,” said Townsend. “The gas is too low, it won’t flow up hill.”

The flivver had balked, not in fear of the ascent, for it would have been glad to walk up where elevators fear to go, but for the good and sufficient reason that the gas tank was under the seat and the small supply of gas within it at a lower level than the carburetor.

“It’s a gravity feed,” said Townsend; “your father’s car has a vacuum pump.”

“Gravity, that means it’s serious, hey?” said Pee-wee.

“No, the situation isn’t grave,” laughed Townsend; “only I don’t know whether we can turn around here or not, the road is so narrow.”

“Are we going home?” Pee-wee asked in great agitation.

“Positively not,” said Townsend. “The trouble with you is you’ve been fed up on Pierce-Arrows and cars like that and you don’t know anything about a real friendly, companionable car. This car is a pal, Kiddo.”

“Like my unknown pal, hey?” said Pee-wee.

“Something like that. We’ll just turn around and go up backwards. Then the gas will flow like water.”

“Can you drive it all the way up backwards?” Pee-wee asked.

“Positively,” said Townsend, maneuvering to make the turn and at the same time keep from ditching the car. “Once headed in the wrong direction and our troubles are over. We’ll go the right way without any trouble. I can even make her laugh going backwards, listen.”

The shabby little tin hero was now lumbering up the hill rear end first, and the alteration of its plane caused several small articles to slide down in the pan. “That’s a spark-plug and a couple of nuts,” Townsend said. “I leave them there because I like to hear her laugh when things go wrong. The Ford with the smile wins. She always starts to laugh when she goes up hill backwards. G’long, Liz, you’ll make it. Laugh and the world laughs with you.”

It was a very long hill and as Lizzie’s cross-eyed lights illuminated the road they had traveled, Pee-wee looked down along the lighted area and saw that the way was bordered with thick woods. As for Townsend, he kept his gaze fixed behind him and steered the car with difficulty up through the darkness.

“The great advantage of traveling this way,” said he, “is that if we run over any one the lights shining down the road below us will show us that we have done so. Keep your eye out down the hill and let me know if I have run over any one.” At last they came to the top of the hill but kept going backwards, because they hoped to find a suitable spot for camping very soon, and it was easier to keep going than to turn.

“We don’t want to go down the other side of the hill this way, do we?” Pee-wee asked.

“No, we’ll camp up here,” said Townsend; “I guess this spot right here is as good as any. What do you say?”

“Gee whiz, it suits me,” said Pee-wee enthusiastically; “it’s nice and lonesome and everything along here.”

Townsend ran the car a little off the road, stopped it and turned out the lights. Then they took their things and entered the thick bordering woods.