Coal Oil Johnny

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Title:     Coal Oil Johnny
Author: Lloyd Osbourne [More Titles by Osbourne]

It was eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and on the veranda of Mrs. Hemingway's house three young girls were gathered in conversation. Below them a garden ran to the water's edge and gave access to a wooden pier projecting some thirty or forty feet beyond. Here, in a mimic harbor formed by a sharp turn of the shore and a line of piles on which the pier was supported, rode the Hemingway fleet at its moorings: a big half-decked catboat, a gasoline launch, an Indian canoe and two trim gigs. Here, too, under the kindly lee of a small boat-house, the Hemingway crew lay stretched in slumber, his head pillowed on an ancient jib, and his still-smoking pipe fallen from his unconscious lips. A Hemingway puppy was stalking some Hemingway tomtits, in the bland, leisurely, inoffensive manner of one whose intentions were not serious; and the picture was completed by a Hemingway cat, with a blue ribbon round its neck, which was purring to itself in a serenity that a stray page of a Sunday supplement never yet afforded man.

The wide, shady veranda was articulate of summer and girls and gaiety, and of all that pleasant, prosperous American homeliness that we see so much of in life and hear so little about in fiction. Hammocks, rocking-chairs and rugs were scattered about in a comfortable, haphazard fashion; a tea-table here was stacked high with novels and magazines; a card-table there bore a violin, a couple of tennis racquets, a silver-handled crop and a box of papa's second-best cigars. (The really-truly best were under the basketwork sofa.) There was also a sewing-machine, a music-stand, a couple of dogs asleep on the floor, a family Bible full of pressed wild flowers, a twenty-two-bore rifle, and the messy remains of a Latin exercise that the son of the house had recently been engaged upon before being called away to play Indian.

Dolly Hemingway, a handsome, fair-haired, imperious-looking girl, was lolling in a hammock, directing the deliberations of Sattie Felton, aged seventeen, who was sitting on the floor holding a dog's head in her lap, and of Grace Sinclair, aged twenty, who was in possession of a stool and a box of chocolate creams. A very important matter was being discussed, and that was why everybody was talking at once, and how it came about that a young man passed unnoticed through the cool darkened rooms of the house and appeared without warning before the little group--a tall, bulky young man, with an air of diffidence on his honest, sunburned face, and a general awkwardness of movement that seemed to betray a certain doubt as to his welcome. He stammered out something like "Good morning," and then stood there, hat in hand, waiting for the massacre to begin.

"Mr. Bassity!" exclaimed Dolly Hemingway, straightening up in the hammock, and staring at him with cold gray eyes. The bulky young man halted, tried to find some reassurance in the no less chilling faces of Sattie Felton and Grace Sinclair, and then said, "How do you do!" in a voice of extreme dejection.

"It is the custom here," said Dolly in cutting accents, "for a gentleman, when he calls upon a lady, to announce himself first at the door--"

"And be told she's out," said Mr. Bassity, timidly defiant. "Call next day, and out, too! Call next week and still out!"

"When you make a closer study of the social system," began Miss Hemingway "our social system, which seems in vogue everywhere except the place you came from--you will discover that such little subterfuges save painful interviews."

"Oh, now, girls, don't be hard on me," said Mr. Bassity, sitting down uninvited and speaking with the most disarming contrition. "We all used to be such good friends once, and now, for the life of me, I don't know, what's the matter. I valued your friendship tremendously--valued it more than I can tell, and now I am losing it without even knowing why. It cuts a fellow; it's humiliating; it is crool, that's what it is, awful crool, and I'll tell you the straight-out truth that I've cried over it!"

He looked quite capable of crying over it again, and his honest, manly face bore mute witness to his words. Though addressing himself to Miss Hemingway, his eyes were more often fixed on Grace Sinclair, and it was plain that it was her good opinion he valued most. But she was as merciless as Dolly, and showed not the least sign of relenting.

"We have decided that we do not care for the further pleasure of your acquaintance," said Miss Hemingway. "It's a disagreeable thing to have to say--but it's the truth! We liked you at first because there was something breezy and Western about you; then you got breezier and Westerner til it was more than the traffic could stand."

"Now see here," broke out Mr. Bassity in pleading accents, "have I ever done anything caddish or ungentlemanly--intentionally, I mean--anything that could possibly justify my being dropped like this--that could--"

"Perhaps not intentionally," Interrupted Miss Hemingway, "though it's no good your coming around here to say you didn't know any better. You ought to have known better, that's all."

"Known what?" bleated Mr. Bassity. "In Heaven's name, tell me what?"

"Oh, it isn't one thing--it's a thousand," said Dolly. "It's--it's --general social ineptitude!"

Mr. Bassity looked more depressed than ever. He didn't know what the word meant, and it seemed to cover a terrifying accusation. He was seen silently making a note of it for a future reference to a dictionary.

"I'm just a rough, uncouth fellow," said he at last. "I know that well enough without three young ladies' telling me so: An oil man--a successful oil man--hasn't much chance to cultivate the social graces. If he can keep on the right side of common honesty he has done more than most. I guess even our best people out there would give you a shock--and I don't pretend I even ran with them!"

"That's the most redeeming thing you've said yet," remarked Grace.

"Oh, they wouldn't have me," remarked Coal Oil Johnny with fatal truthfulness.

"All you need is toning down," said Miss Hemingway, with a suspicion of kindness in her voice. "You're too exuberant, that's all. You're always rushing in where angels fear to tread, till it has grown on you like a habit. When other people stop you're just beginning!"

"Couldn't you give me another chance?" he asked, still with his eyes pathetically on Grace Sinclair's face. "Just one more chance to try and hit it off better next time? Now, just sit up, every one of you, and tell me frankly what I've done to offend you--stamp all over me--bite my head off--and then let's begin again with a clean slate, and see if I can't buck up"

"I'll leave it to the general vote," said Miss Hemingway. "You certainly have a very winning nature in some ways--and who knows?--you might possibly do better after this awful warning. Only you mustn't come round here next time demanding explanations. The next time will be positive and final. Yes," she went on, "I propose that Mr. Bassity be given a good talking to, and then have his name put on the probation list."

"Poor Mr. Bassity!" said Sattie Felton. "I second the motion for reinstating him temporarily!"

Grace Sinclair was not so quick in giving her decision. In her girlish heart she enjoyed the big man's discomfiture, and was mischievous enough to prolong his suspense. She knew that to him her opinion was the most important of all, and this gave her an added pleasure in withholding her verdict. All three looked at her as she bent her pretty brown head and seemed to weigh the question. She was a Southerner, and her French-Spanish blood betrayed itself in her grace, her slender hands and feet, and the type of her dark and unusual beauty. She was more a woman than either Dolly or Sattie, and the fact that Mr. Bassity was desperately in love with her fanned within her breast a wilful desire to torment him.

"Let me think!" she said.

"'Pon my soul!--" began that unfortunate young man, boisterously attempting to sway her judgment.

"Hush!" exclaimed Sattie Felton.

"She's thinking," said Miss Hemingway severely.

Mr. Bassity noisily subsided.

"I don't know whether it's worth while to forgive him," said Grace at last. "He's so incorrigible--so wild and woolly--that if you're nice to him he's like one of those dogs that want to jump all over you!"

"Oh, Miss Sinclair, please, please--!" cried Coal Oil Johnny.

"Well, I won't hang the jury," continued Grace; "only it must be clearly understood that we have the privilege of making a few remarks"

Mr. Bassity made a pantomime of baring his breast.

"Strike!" he said.

"You first," said Dolly to Grace.

"Last Tuesday I was playing golf at the links," began that young lady vindictively. "Mr. Bassity volunteered to call for me at four and take me home in his French automobile. I knew we were going too fast and said so twice, but he only answered, 'Oh, bother!' or something equally polite and gracious. Then as we raced into Franklin Street we found a rope across it and sixteen policemen waiting to arrest us! Pleasant, wasn't it?--with a million people looking on; and my picture next day in the paper. I was so mortified I could have cried, and I can't think of it even now without burning all over"

"Perhaps the prisoner might care to offer some explanation?" suggested Miss Hemingway.

"Well, really, it was most unfortunate," admitted Coal Oil Johnny. "The fact is, the low gear is chewed up on that car, and I've always been forced to run it on the intermediate--and the most you can throttle down the intermediate to is eighteen miles an hour!"

"The legal speed being eight, I believe," Icily interjected Miss Sinclair.

"I don't know what the silly law is," continued Mr. Bassity, "but the only way to obey it would be to get out and push the car. Couldn't ask a lady to do that, could I?"

"You could have thrown in your intermediate and then thrown it out again, and run on momentum," said Miss Sinclair. "That's automobile A B C!"

"Oh, but my dear girl," protested Coal Oil Johnny, "the clutches on that car are something fierce, and half the time the intermediate won't mesh. When you're lucky enough to get it in, of course you keep it in."

"Yes, and get arrested," said Miss Sinclair, "and give your passenger some disagreeable notoriety, not to speak of shaking up her happy home and getting her allowance stopped for a month."

Mr. Bassity looked acutely miserable. To have brought penury to his lady-love struck him to the heart.

"I'm the most wretched fellow alive," he said. "If ever there was a child of misfortune, it's me. I can only throw myself on the mercy of the court and grovel--yes, grovel --if you'll show me a place to grovel and teach me how!"

"Have you anything else against the prisoner?" Inquired Miss Hemingway of Grace.

"About sixty-five other complaints," assented that young lady. "But I'll let it go at this, which was the worst of all"

"Miss Sattie Felton, what have you against the unhappy wretch who stands trembling at the bar of justice?" asked the self-appointed president of the court.

"Last Sunday I was at the Country Club with papa," said Miss Felton. "The prisoner engaged in an altercation with my male parent on the subject of religion, said parent being a man of strong views and short temper. Said parent, however, being a man of the world as well, tried to evade an argument and escape, but was penned up in a corner for ten purple minutes. Said afterward that he had never been so affronted in all his life; explodes even now at the recollection; calls the prisoner a word that begins with a B, contains a double O and ends with R!"

At this staggering blow poor Coal Oil Johnny covered his face with his hands and groaned.

"It's all true," he said, "only I was kind of goaded into it. It began by my saying that if religious people would only be Christians, too, the world would be a better place to live in!"

"The court is now going to get in its own little knife," said Miss Hemingway. "The court, in a moment of generous weakness, verging on imbecility, invited, or, rather, caused to be invited, the prisoner to dinner. Prisoner, through the absence of one lady from the party, was placed next to a distinguished young sociologist. Of course, in his usual headlong and unrestrained manner, the prisoner had to teach the distinguished young sociologist a thing or two he didn't know about sociology. Roared at him! Yes, ladies of the jury, positively roared at him, and beat on the table, extra, with his fist!"

"But he was such an ass!" said the prisoner.

"No reason at all why you should roar at him," said the court, "and disturb everybody and make them feel uncomfortable."

"An awful ass!" persisted the prisoner.

"The world is full of them," said the court "If you were to roar at every one you meet you'd never have time for anything else. Life would degenerate into one long roar. Everybody knows that Professor Titcombe is a ninny and an idiot, but the decencies of intercourse require you to say, 'How nice!' or 'How interesting!' to his remarks.

"But he had never even been in Colorado," vociferated Coal Oil Johnny. "It was all lies and hearsay and gas. But I have, and I know all about it, and if you want proof I have a scar on my head where a dago shot me at Telluride!"

"Prisoner's motion to show scar overruled," said the court.

"Isn't it about time to let me off?" pleaded Mr. Bassity. "Surely I've listened like a lamb to everything you've said to me? I've been slapped on one cheek and then on the other, and if I haven't always come up smiling it isn't that I haven't tried. It stings a fellow to hear such things to his face; it hurts a fellow more than I think you know; for I may not be up to the general standard of your friends, but I guess my feelings are just as sensitive, and my regard and respect for all three of you is not a whit behind theirs. I dare say this has amused you very much, and I don't grudge for a minute the fun you've had out of it--but suppose we call it off now and be friends again, and--and --talk about something else!" He looked earnestly from one to another.

There was something so naive and affecting in Bassity's plea for mercy that for a moment his three persecutors looked almost ashamed of themselves. Grace Sinclair's eyes filled with tears, and she rose and went over to him and patted his hand.

"Cheer up," she said, smiling. "We've reinstated you now, and like you better than we ever did before."

"And oo'll be mamma's little darling and will never be naughty again?" added Miss Hemingway.

"Poor old Johnny!" said Miss Felton sympathetically; "that's the trouble about being a rough diamond and being polished while you wait--makes you sorry you ever came, doesn't it?"

"Now you can smoke a cigar, Mr. Bassity," said Dolly, "and improve your mind listening to us talk!"

"So long as I'm not the subject of it," observed Coal Oil Johnny ruefully.

"Oh, we can't bother about you for always," said Miss Hemingway. "You've had your little turn and must now give way to something mere important!"

"Delighted!" said Mr. Bassity.

"And don't look as though your own cigars were better than papa's," added Dolly.

"But they are," he retorted.

"Will nothing ever prevent your speaking the truth?" cried Miss Sinclair. "There ought to be tracts about the young man who always spoke the truth--and his awful end!"

"Do you want me to listen intelligently or unintelligently?" Mr. Bassity asked Dolly.

"Oh, any old way," she said. "We don't mind particularly which."

"But you might tell me what the next topic's about," he said. "It might improve my mind more, you know, to have some glimmering of what's going on. Possibly--I say it with all diffidence--possibly I might be able to contribute some valuable suggestions."

At this there arose such a chorus of incredulity that even the dogs jumped up and barked.

"It'll be a long time before you'll ever pay your social way," said Miss Hemingway cruelly. "In the meanwhile you're a social pauper, living on crusts, and the most becoming thing you can do is to sit very silent and grateful and self-effacing."

"Yep," said Coal Oil Johnny, pretending to gulp down a manly emotion. "Yep, kind lady, and God bless your purty face, and if a lifetime of humble devotion and--"

"We all three have to do something for the St. John's Home for Incurable Children," Interrupted Dolly, "and the question is, what?"

"Simplest thing out," said Mr. Bassity, feeling for his pocketbook.

"That's just what we're not going to do," continued Dolly. "It's horrid to go around dunning people for subscriptions, and being ten dollars nice to them for three dollars and fifty cents cash. We're all pledged to earn some money--really, truly earn it--and every one of us is going to get out and hustle, and, of course, we want to arrange it so that none of us three will overlap. My own idea is dog-thinning!"

"Dog-what?" ejaculated Coal Oil Johnny.

"Most people's dogs are too fat," explained Miss Hemingway. "Most owners are so slack and good-natured that, though they know they are their own dogs' worst enemies, they weakly go on pampering them in spite of their better judgment. I am going to reduce dogs for ten dollars a dog--not brutally, like a vet, who kicks them into a cellar and leaves them there--but giving up my whole time to it for a month. Plain living, lots of exercise, sympathy, tact, and all the comforts of home! I've already got the promise of four, and there's a Russian Poodle, besides, and a dachshund, who are trying to make up their minds."

"I wish I could have thought of anything so original," cried Sattie Felton mournfully. "It seems so commonplace just to work in papa's office for two weeks, doesn't it?"

"'Specially the way you'll work!" exclaimed Grace Sinclair.

"I am going to help Miss Drayton in the filing department," said Sattie. "Put a letter from an F man into an F drawer, and from a G man into a G drawer, and from an H man into an H drawer, and from an I man into an I drawer--"

"Oh, stop!" cried Dolly Hemingway, warningly.

"And from a J man into a J drawer," continued Sattie drearily, "and from a K man into--"

The hurried passing of the chocolate creams in her direction brought about a welcome silence.

"What's your plan, Miss Sinclair?" Inquired Mr. Bassity.

"Oh, Grace has a snap," said Sattie in thick, chocolate-cream accents.

"My Despardoux car!" exclaimed Grace. "It holds five, you know, and I'm going every day to the I.B.&Q. depot and take passengers. Hang out a little card: Beautiful Stackport, Two Hours' Ride for One Dollar; Children Half-Price!"

"No chauffeur?" asked Coal Oil Johnny.

"Of course not. In that case it would be the money he earned --not mine!"

"I don't think I'd do that," said Coal Oil Johnny.

"It matters so little what you think!" said Grace.

"But all alone?" objected Bassity.

"I told you it holds five," said Miss Sinclair.

"I shall make it a point to go every trip," said Coal Oil Johnny.

"Indeed you shan't," protested Grace. "The basis of the whole idea is that no friends are allowed. It's to be genuine money-making without favoritism or the personal element, and I think it's splendidly original and American."

Coal Oil Johnny looked at her and slowly shook his head.

"Don't do it," he said seriously. "Please don't do it."

"But I please will, thank you," she returned; "and I'm going to make more money out of it than anybody."

"What does your father say?" he asked,

"Offered me a hundred dollars not to!"

"Then I suppose it wouldn't be any good offering two hundred."

"Not in the least--nor two thousand!"

Coal Oil Johnny sighed, and puffed away at his cigar.

"See here," he said at last, "why wouldn't it be a bright idea to give me lessons--at so much a lesson--on how to behave, and that kind of thing!"

Sattie Felton clapped her hands together excitedly.

"I take him, I take him!" she cried. "I spoke first, girls, and it beats filing all hollow." In her eagerness she jumped up and ran to Coal Oil Johnny, as though to hold him tight and prevent his being snatched away from her by the others. Poor Bassity had hoped to fall into other hands, and his face showed his disappointment.

"I hoped--" he stammered. "I thought perhaps--"

"No, Sattie spoke first," said Miss Hemingway, detecting incipient rebellion, "and, anyway, she deserves to have you, for her plan wasn't any good and was hardly better than getting a present of the money from her father!"

"What can I charge him?" exclaimed Sattie. "What are lessons worth, Dolly--good long ones?"

"Five dollars each, or fifty for a course of twelve," replied that reliable authority. "Diploma, elegantly tinted for framing, one dollar!"

"It isn't too much, is it?" asked Sattie anxiously of Mr. Bassity. "I don't want to rob you, you know, and even half would be more than I could get by filing."

"Oh, it's cheap," said Coal Oil Johnny, attempting to seem cheerful. "I never expected to become a social favorite for anything under a hundred. Only I wish you wouldn't try your way," he added aside to Miss Sinclair. "I mean it in all earnestness. If I had a sister--"

"You'd keep her in a red morocco case, and only show her in peeps to people of guaranteed respectability," said Grace, continuing his sentence for him. "That's always the way with imaginary sisters. But the real ones like to jump in and help the old world along!"

"Oh, but do take a chauffeur," he pleaded.

Miss Sinclair gave him a mocking smile.

"Would you mind my running my own little show in my own little way?" she observed sweetly.

He blew out a large smoke-ring and did not reply. His honest, sunburned face assumed a far-away expression. Coal Oil Johnny was thinking!

In the line of cabs and omnibuses that stood outside the I.B.&Q. depot was a Despardoux car, dazzling the eye with brass, and reflecting the passing throng in the deep, ruby, red of its highly polished surface. Its only occupant was Miss Grace Sinclair, suffocating in a leather coat, and with her shy, pretty face well concealed behind an automobile mask. At the side of the car, neatly pinned to one of the long rawhide baskets, was the following invitation to the public:

BEAUTIFUL STACKPORT
TWO HOURS' RIDE FOR $1
CHILDREN 1/2 PRICE

But the public who had possibly already seen beautiful Stackport for themselves, or who, maybe, were withheld by the lack of the necessary dollar--the public, jostling past in an intermittent stream, and coy as always in the investment of its cash, disregarded the allurements of the Despardoux, and scarcely deigned even to look its way. A few of its members, however, of a chatty and mechanical turn, were willing to volunteer a vast deal of random conversation with less than no encouragement; but the man with the dollar, the man who desired to see beautiful Stackport, the man who thirsted for a two hours' ride--children half-price--was yet to come.

Grace Sinclair had waited an hour. Her first eager expectancy had given way to a heartbreaking consciousness of failure. She felt herself humiliated, less for herself than for her Despardoux. She had thrown down her pearls, and the swine (true to tradition) were treating them in the time-honored manner. At last, when hope was nearly dead within her breast, it was suddenly revived by the appearance of a rustic gentleman, who, stopping as though he had received a galvanic shock, opened his mouth as he slowly spelled out the notice on the basket. It was plain he was from the country, for his reddish whiskers were untrimmed, his hair long and straggling, his clothes of an extraordinary and antique design; and, moreover, under his arm he carried a coal-oil box, slatted across the front, which contained a live rooster. It was a pity that so sturdy a representative of the agricultural classes should have worn spectacles, and blue ones at that, and he had a troubled, peering, blind look that caused Grace a momentary pang. But he seemed a jolly, hearty fellow in spite of his infirmity, and coming up to her he gave her a broad and confidential smile.

"About this burd," he began, in a rich, friendly drawl, indicating the rooster. "Be there any trouble about the burd coming, too?"

"Not a particle," said Miss Sinclair.

"Hey?" said the stranger. "Hey?"

"Glad to have it," said Miss Sinclair, trying to suit her English to the intelligence of the plain people.

"But no monkey business?" said the gentleman from the country. "No half-price rung on me later? No extry for live stock?"

"One dollar, and no charge for rooster," said Grace in her most matter-of-fact tones.

From a capacious and inner pocket the stranger produced a venerable wallet, and from the venerable wallet a dollar bill.

"A lot of money for just whizzing through the air," he remarked genially, handing it to her. "I could fall off my barn for nothing, and as like as not be less hurt than when you've got through with me!"

"I'll get you back all right," said Miss Sinclair.

The stranger showed symptoms of wanting to climb into the tonneau by way of the mud-guard; and his enthusiasm was unbounded when he was directed to the door.

"Gosh!" he exclaimed, seating himself luxuriously on the cushions. "Gosh! but they've got these things down fine! I never read the Poultry Gazette of a Saturday night without saying to myself, what next? Every day some new way of being killed, or some old way improved! My! but this is the dandiest of all!"

"There isn't the least danger if people are careful," said Grace, gazing out of the corner of her eye at three very loud and offensively jocular young men, their straw hats tilted at the back of their heads, who had also been arrested by the notice on the basket. They were flashily dressed, with race-tout written all over them, and their keen, impudent, tallowy faces filled her with sudden misgiving.

"Let's try the old hell-wagon," said one.

"If people are only careful," repeated Grace forlornly.

"I dug four automobeelists out of a ditch once," observed the rural gentleman. "One had his leg broke, and the others were scratched something awful--but perhaps they weren't careful!"

"Say, we want to see beautiful Stackport," said one of the touts, clambering into the front seat beside Grace.

"Get out of that and give your place to a handsomer man," cried another, trying to pull him out by the legs.

The scuffle ended in the triumph of number one, who turned to Grace and addressed her in a hoarse, ironical voice.

"Never you mind them," he said. "They're only a pair of cheap skates who've won out a little on the track, and are blowing it in."

"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" exclaimed another, poking his fingers through the bars at the rooster.

"Wind her up, young chafer!" exclaimed the third.

"The fare is one dollar in advance," said Grace Sinclair, whose heart was sinking within her.

Then there ensued a humorous altercation in which they tried to beat her down to seventy-five cents. But Grace, remaining firm, finally received her three dollars, though they made it a point of honor to pay her in the smallest change they could muster. One fun-maker turned in three post-cards and a two-cent stamp; while another convulsed the company on the curb, now five deep and swelling rapidly, by volunteering to give his necktie in lieu of a quarter. It was no small relief to Grace when at last they rode out of the depot amid the cheers of the multitude, and took their swift way down Fairfield Avenue. But the three young rowdies, far from subsiding, egged one another on to fresh enormities. They would whoop at every passing automobile, shout audible remarks about the personal appearance of its occupants, tell an old gentleman, cautiously picking his way across the street, to skin out or they'd take his leg off! It was a wild and mortifying progress, and as the streets gradually gave way to country roads, and Grace anticipated that the worst was over, the three young men discovered a new means of making themselves objectionable. They insisted on stopping at every roadhouse, tooting loudly for the bartender to come out and serve them, and tossing off, in the course of a dozen miles, an uncountable number of glasses of beer.

Had it not been for the presence of the farmer, seated placidly in the tonneau of the car with the rooster on his lap, Grace would have been terrified at her predicament. But his large, friendly bulk, his heavy shoulders, his big hands and honest face were immensely comforting to her. He resisted all the importunities of the others to drink with them, refusing with the greatest good-nature, and maintaining throughout a certain aloofness and detachment. They called him Judge Hayseed, and guyed him mercilessly; but his deep, hearty laugh never showed the least sign of resentment, even when imaginary misadventures, of the blow-out-the-gas order, were fathered on him.

In the midst of an unceasing and vociferous hilarity, as they were bowling along at twelve miles an hour, which Grace would have made twenty if the engine hadn't worked so queerly, she felt the sharp dig of a finger against her back, and one of the young men cried out: "Say, young chafer, you've plunked a tire!"

She stopped the car and got out, and there, sure enough, one of the rear tires presented itself to her view in a state of melancholy collapse. It had picked up a horseshoe together with the three jagged nails adhering to it, and was patently, hopelessly, irretrievably punctured. Grace had seen a hundred repairs made on the road, but up to now she had never put her hands to the task herself. She brimmed over with the most correct theory, but had invariably relegated the practice to a skilful young man. As she dejectedly scanned the faces of her passengers, and met nothing in return but blank and dispirited stares, she manfully got out her little jack and started in on her own account. But she had hardly raised the wheel free from the ground, and was in the act of unscrewing the valve, when the wrench was suddenly taken out of her hand by Judge Hayseed, who asked in a very businesslike manner if there was an inner tube in the kit.

"I took notice of a feller doing this on my farm once," he drawled, "and it's kind of stuck in my head ever since." It had certainly stuck remarkably well, for the farmer attacked the shoe with the precision of a veteran. Loosening the lugs, and using the two strippers against each other with adroitness and strength, he quickly reached the point where he could easily draw out the inner tube.

When the tire was pumped up, and Grace was again about to take her place at the steering-wheel, the farmer sprang a fresh surprise.

"Hold on a minute," he said. "What's been making you miss so horribly on the off cylinder?"

"Oh, the whole engine has been acting like the dickens," she returned distressfully. "It hasn't been developing half its power. It's in one of its mean humors to-day, and behaving like a pig."

"Couldn't you take off that front thing and let's see what's the trouble?" said the countryman, jumping back into his drawl.

And then, wrench in hand, he made a prolonged examination of the machinery. Then he turned over the engine and listened; then he turned over the engine again and listened some more. Then he crawled in under the wagon, reappearing with a lick of grease over one eye.

"It gets me," he said. "I ran a little oil out of the crank-case on general principles, and chased up the magnets--but everything's tip-top as far as I can see!"

"Suppose you crank up and let's try again," said the girl.

But the car went worse than ever. Instead of missing occasionally the engine began to run now in gasps. Just when Grace waited for it to die altogether it would give another cough and take another spurt ahead, progressing the car in a series of agonizing little rushes, every one promising to be the last. To add to Grace's discomfiture there was a fairly steep hill looming in front of them, and she foresaw their being stalled at the bottom. They made another stop. A pair of new spark-plugs was put in, but, instead of improving, the gasping got gaspier than ever. Still another stop, to replace the high tension wires.

But no improvement was effected. A weird, whizzling sound added itself to the other noises. Every gasp brought them nearer the hill, where, at the foot, the engine gave one awful hiccough and died dead.

"We might manage to crawl home the way we came," said Grace, at her wits' end.

"No, there's only one thing to do," said the farmer decisively, "and that's to start all over again and ferret out the trouble."

He got out again. So did Grace. So did the three touts. So did the rooster. It was a depressing moment.

Grace took off her long coat, laid it on one side of the road, and deposited her cap, mask and gauntlets. It would take time to put the car to rights, and she didn't wish to be hampered. Her dark, glowing, girlish face came as a revelation to the three sports. She had been hidden behind so much glass and leather that the transformation was startling. The horsy gentlemen uttered murmurs of surprise and gratification. One of them sidled up to her with a leer.

"We've had a bum ride in your bum wagon," he said, "and now you've stuck us down here nine miles from the nearest beer! You've a lot to answer for, you have."

"I shall certainly return your money," returned Grace coldly. "I can't do more than that, can I?"

"Oh, yes, you can, you wicked little chafer," he said, giving a wink over his shoulder to his companions. "What's the matter with a kiss?" And with that he passed his arm around her waist.

What happened next happened quicker than it takes to write it. The farmer's right hand descended on the young man's collar, and his left executed a succession of slaps on the young man's countenance, which, for vigor and swiftness, could not have been done better by machinery. Then he trailed him to one side of the road, still shaking him in an iron grasp, and kicked him into the ditch.

"Help!" roared the young man repeatedly in the course of these proceedings. "Help!"

This brought to the rescue his two friends, who, for the last instant, had been too spellbound to move. The farmer squared his fists and received the newcomers on his knuckles. He was a clean hitter, and from the way he pirouetted and skipped you would have said he could dance, too. The three young sports, considerably the worse for wear, fled pell-mell for the barbed-wire fence that bordered the road, and went over it in the twinkling of an eye. Only a few bits of what they would probably have called "nobby pants," speckled here and there on the barbs, betrayed to later wayfarers this new instance of man's inhumanity to man.

"Do you know, we have never looked at the contact-box," said the farmer, returning to the car quite calmly to take up the interrupted thread of his conversation.

The tears were streaming down Grace's face, and her voice was scarcely controllable.

"It's a b-brush s-s-system," she said, "and it has always worked b-b-beautifully, and I never could have f-f-forgiven myself if they had h-h-hurt you!"

The farmer did not hear more than half the sentence. He was on his knees peering down into the works. Suddenly he raised his head with an expression of triumph.

Bing! A stone struck one of the kerosene lamps with a vicious crash.

Bing! Another just missed the countryman's rumpled hair.

Bing! A mud-guard shook with a loud and tinny reverberation.

The enemy, lined up in the neighboring field, and yelling shrilly, were opening up a rear-guard action with artillery.

"The contact-box is upside down," cried the farmer. "I can't see how it ever worked at all. Yank me out a screw-driver quick!"

The contact-box was on the exposed side. The farmer tried to hunch himself into the least compass possible, but his broad back and powerful frame interfered with his efforts to make a human hedgehog of himself. He was hit twice, once by a grazing shot that brought out blood on his cheek, the other a stinger on the hand.

"Scratch up a few rocks," he called to Grace, doggedly continuing his work, and keeping a careful eye on the screws he was taking out.

She got a dozen or so, and passed them over to him in a piece of chamois leather taken from the tool kit. He caught it up and ran for the fence, the enemy retiring precipitately out of range. But if he made no bull's-eyes he had a pleasant sense, for a moment or two, of dominating the situation. Then he returned hurriedly to the car.

"I wonder if you and I couldn't push her around," he said to Grace. "They'll be back again in a minute, and then it will be altogether too sunny on this side." The pair of them laid on to the spokes of the driving-wheels, and with a yeo-heave-yeo managed to head the Despardoux in the direction of its native Stackport. Then the farmer settled to work again, Grace scurried about searching for ammunition, and the three young touts rained shower on shower of stones. If ever delicate adjustments were made under difficulties, it was on that Despardoux on that fateful occasion. The only alleviation of an otherwise intolerable situation was the magnificent behavior of the contact-box, which now, right side up and readjusted, showed every symptom of meaning to do its duty.

It was anxiously put to the test, and, on the engine being started, the farmer and Grace were rewarded by the chippetty, chippetty, chippetty, chippetty of perfect sparking and combustion.

The farmer rolled back the enemy, recovered Grace's coat and his own rooster, seated himself at the wheel, gave the girl a hand in, threw in his clutches and speeded up.

"Slow down!" cried Grace. "Slow down, please. I want to leave their horrid money on the road."

"Not on your life," said the farmer. "That three dollars belongs to the St. John's Home for Incurable Children!"

"You oughtn't to know anything about the St. John's Home," said Grace.

"Oh, I forgot--I don't," he retorted brazenly. "Only that three dollars is going to stay on board this car. If anybody ever earned three dollars by the sweat of their brow I guess it was you and me!"

Grace put her hands up to his head and deliberately drew off his hat, drew off his red wig, drew off his red whiskers, and tossed them all back into the tonneau.

"Are you sorry I came?" said Coal Oil Johnny.

"There are some emotions that can not be put into words," she answered. "I won't try to say anything. I can't. But if I should ever seem unkind, or distant, or forgetful, or anything but the joy of your whole future existence--just you say contact-box, and I'll melt!"

[The end]
Lloyd Osbourne's short story: Coal Oil Johnny

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