Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1911-08-24

EErgvyvxg o begin with, will confess that
4 ~ / coward about automobiles. am not
like some people For there is a
limit don't mind turning
G@ Q CA& sideways, going thank-ye-
HSNMTA|k marms at seventy miles an hour, or
H&ynEH landing in n hedge fence in a
H@ <Ea while because a machine doesn't hap
SISNtS pen 70 be quite as nimble about turning
\ SE~ corners country road Every
HusuS0z,,rg man who rides with the demented
rlass has to get used to these things. and
lure them. But when it racing two miles
for the privilege of slipping slanwise across a
track in front of locomotive as big as the senior
pyramid whooplng past blind street corner, top
Speed trusting to luck that other idiot isn't
whooping down the side street the time;
yanking the high a long, down grade the
theory that If you meet anything it is best to be
going faster than the other feIow-well, all these
are past my dead line
know I'm a coward but can't help it. It makes
me feel creepy TO scrunch live things too, and
when little children running out into the street
in front of machine shut my eyes. Oh, I'm no
real auto fiend! No racing for Give
nice comfortable touring car. 1912 model-they ought
to have the 1912 models out this month--but make
thirty the boueyards and sound like fifteen, and
l don't ask another thing.
Steeplechasiug in gasoline goodwill isn't my line
I avoid the record manelers; and if I can't avoid
them, make them mad they will avoid That s
what Jones and I did to Banbury. It's been six
months since he has asked TO ride-six months Of
peace and safety. What's more he will never ask
again He is afraid if he does will ask him
TO ride in motor boat--there! blamed if didn't
hoist the curtain while the settlers still
the
To begin again. I don't own car You've guessed
much. People who have defense.
They ride in their worrywagons instead Of get
CogElpd 4
III trying punch holes in the horizon But people
who don't have cars have friends who own them aud
they forever getting taken home ria some point
seventeen miles IN the opposite direction. That
Banburys style. He a friend of mine who lived
next door rs three miles from downtown to our
place and three times week Banbury used TO drive
W in his two-ton terriher and shy, Jump in"
That used to make me mad in itself There was
somcthing about Banburys Jump in that made me
boil. 1t so hypnotic ! didn't want jump.
! had great desire to tell the man to take his car
md drive It off the first high spot he could find. But
while l figuring just how to insult him with
losing his friendship 1 also crawling into
the car
Barbury owned the orneries, most abandoned,
most lrunk-aud-disorder automobile in town.
II had sixty horsepower and hind axle like the
underpinnuS Of elephant He always used to
uriv" it with the munler to make it
sound as fatal as possible and it against his
principles to 20 into low speed any pretext what
ever. Forty miles hour everywhere, with laugh
for the poor policeman his platform.
lie the boss tonaorial artist among autonlo-
bilsts He shaved curbstones telegraph poles bug
giles, hearses, and peranbuators, He also some
hair tonic. He raised twenty heads hair a day by
honking past them close that their owners coat
buttons scratched the paint the onnenu.
But at that | always envied the pedestrians and
the horses when rode with hanbury They only
had him for a second had him ten and twenty
miles at dose. You know how You try to steer ar
auto with your leg from the back seat, when tbs
idiot at the wheel is trying to make it loop the street
car l have sat in Hanburys car and stecrcd SC
hard that my leg achcd for hour afterwards.
have wondered vaguely lodged locomotive,
whether l would be presentable the funera--its
such disappointment mt funeral when the corpse
rant appear for inspection. And have figured hor
riby, half hour a stretch, just what would
happen TO the city directory if steering knucklc
should break, wheel should DISH or the machine
Ihould throw shoe crowded corner.
Three times a week. as I said, Banbury kidnapped
me with that undertaken teaser of his and took me
home. He drove hmself-fools of his caber being
scarce and hard to hlreand every time he hit sixty
miles and Just missed hitting something else he would
turn his largo, round face around with a smile o.
perfect bliss and ask: 81 guess this isn't fun hey :?
And ] from the corner Of the tonncau, or the from
rail- or the middle of the air, or wherever | hap
pened to be, would reply in words jerked out Ike
sausage links: "Isnt-t--thOughw
And all the while l was fighting mad to think tha
my bright and promising life, for the mere rental 0
which my firm was paying $1,000 n year was bein
Tipped around in and out Of the jaws Of death Jus
for the amusement of red necked law breaker
may be almost worth while to march up a hin wit
100000 other defenders Of your country and get sho
into a thinly distributed paste by thirteen-uc
she'll, but what possible credit is there in bein
your vest pocket and the other in the transmissio
Of exautomobile and Of being arrested II you ar
alive and called Joy rider by the papers If you ar
dead?
Every week hated Banbury more and every wee
he managed TO get Just about more mile m hou
from his And finally one night / rebeled
mo-" said, when he stonped and said, Jump in.