ADVENTURES WITH A FLIVVER—CONTINUED

Townsend would never sing any of these verses when Pee-wee wanted him to. Pee-wee’s appetite for them soon became voracious. It was usually when something went wrong (which was about every ten minutes) that Townsend would edify his small companion with a new verse while making some small repair or adjustment. At such trying moments his affection for the car seemed to pass all bounds. His plaintive query would then take wings and his loving soul burst into song, greatly to Pee-wee’s amusement.

The flivver ran true to form to a point a mile or two south of Kingston, keeping up a series of weird noises which Townsend called the Orphans of the Storm chorus, the uncanny sounds being caused by the flivver’s recent exposure to the rain. He then predicted new squeaks which would soon join in the chorus and they did.

They were stopped once by a rural official who was on a hay wagon, with a vast load of hay as a pedestal for his dignity. Townsend, for the fun of the thing, kept tooting his horn for the hay load to get out of the way (a thing manifestly impossible), upon its failure to do which he drove up close behind it to give Pee-wee a demonstration of how the Ford could eat hay by drawing it in through the radiator openings.

The flivver’s mouth was about full of this luscious refreshment, the hay streaming out of it, when the driver emerged over the mountainous load and demanded to know, “Who told you you cud drive a car anyways, I’d liketerknow.”

“No one had to tell us,” said Townsend; “we always knew it.”

Upon which, presto, a strand of green suspender was drawn aside, like a boudoir curtain, revealing a coy and modest official badge on the gingham shirt. Upon which, presto, out came Justice Dopett’s letter, which drove the constable back into the fastness of his hay load again. Townsend quietly got out and pulled the hay out of the radiator openings, and that was the end of the incident.

It proved, however, but the suggestive prelude to a series of troubles. Indeed, the nearer they approached to Kingston the farther away it seemed. They had a puncture, then a blow-out, then a detour. And scarcely had they regained the main road in the neighborhood of the New Paltz and Highland Turnpike, when something happened which was beyond Townsend’s ministrative powers; the Ford went wrong in a new and wholly original place.

“That’s one thing I like about her,” he said, as he closed the hood after a fruitless inspection. “When anything goes wrong that I can’t fix, it always happens near a garage. This seems to be the fan belt.”

“Gee whiz, I should think you could fix that,” said Pee-wee, peering down through the glassless windshield; “fan belts are simple.”

“They’re simple, Kid,” said Townsend; “and that’s where they’re deceiving. You trust them and then they disappear. This one was as simple as a little lamb, but it’s gone. I can’t fix a belt when it’s gone. Do you want to trot back along the road and see if you see it anywhere? If you find it tell it to come back—all is forgiven.”

Pee-wee went scout pace back along the road for a hundred yards or so but there was no sign of the elusive fan belt. He picked up a dead snake which had been run over and was so covered with dust that at first glimpse he thought it might be the truant belt. He brought it back with him on the supposition that it might possibly do.

“Couldn’t you use my scout belt either?” he asked.

“Your scout belt has important duties to perform, Kid. No, we’ll have to go to the garage, much as I hate to do it. Now you begin to appreciate this flivver. Where would you find another car—Cadillac, Pierce, I don’t care what—that would break down almost in front of a garage? Look at that garage not a hundred yards ahead of us! Some car, hey? Can you beat her?”

Pee-wee could not see the logic of this, though indeed he had learned to love Townsend’s Ford. It did seem to have a kind of mulish intelligence.

It must have been approaching noontime when Townsend, proudly complacent, steered his hobo of a car majestically into the little country garage which was but a few yards ahead of them, and tooted the horn.

It may be added that the one thing about Townsend’s Ford which always worked was the horn. Perhaps this was because it was not a Ford horn at all. It was a Winton horn which he had adopted and it had a melodious, commanding voice full of aristocratic richness. Gasoline boys, and mechanics, storekeepers even, rushed pell-mell when they heard it as if they expected to find the president of the United States waiting without.

“What kind of a horn have you got connected with that car?” the astonished proprietor of the little garage inquired as he made his appearance from a yard in the rear.

“You mean what kind of a car have I got connected with this horn,” said Townsend. “I’ve been using this car on this horn for a couple of years; I suppose I’ll have to get a new car put on it soon. Have you got any fan belts?”

“Your belt bust? Gosh, she’s steamin’ain’t she?”

“It left the party,” said Townsend.

“It’s a quitter,” said Pee-wee.

“Guess I can rig you up somethin’,” said the man. “Are you in any hurry?”

“Tell him no,” Pee-wee whispered. He was by now so thoroughly in the spirit of travelling that he began to dread reaching their destination. He wanted to extend their journey, or the time of it, and be alone with Townsend for another whole day. With all his ingenuity he had not thought of any way of fixing this. But now the companionable flivver seemed disposed to fix it for him.

From their last camping place they had averaged about three miles an hour. It was altogether characteristic of Pee-wee that he had forgotten all about his famous relay race and his unknown pal. Townsend was his pal and he was having the time of his life and that was enough for him.