The weekly Alaska citizen., 1918-06-24

The first thing I can remember was being shoveled out of great incubator, called factory, along with several hundred brothers and sisters. All the men in that factory wore diamond shirt-studs.
 While I was wondering at this, an old motor-truck named Mercury said to me with feeling:
 "Ah, if all the wOrkmen in the world could be as we'll off as the ones here, there would be no more poverty, and no people so poor as have to ride in fords!"
 was loaded on freight-car and carried many, many miles. The car jolted so terribly that should have gone all to pieces had I not been built for jarring. None of the train. crew showed me any sympathy. They were wicked men, and used language that frequently sent tinkle of shame to my mud-guards. l did not then know, as I do now, that the purest.minded automobile has to en- dure all its life words and tones of the most shocking sort.
 My first master was careful and conscientious man. He had a large garage full of lords, and lie always kept a sharp eye on the door to make sure that nobody who walked out carried off one of us.
 One day man came in with a twenty dollar bill that he wanted changed.
 Sorry" said my master, but all have in my cashdrawer is $2.96. I'll have to give you the rest in fords."
 Whereupon he handed him me and one of my brothers and three extra tires. which just made up the amount.
 This new master, whose name was MT. Pious, was very good and hu- mane. He drove me with a gentle foot. and he would say to his chil- dren: Be kind to Black Jitney. Never scratch him or bend him." The chubby little fellows grew so fond of me that before long they would trot sturdily beside me.
 Their mother, however. was a cold, imperious woman. She cared nothing for the feelings of ford. She would drive me at a grueling pace till my radiator was parched with thirst and my gears fairly cried out for oil. Speed was her one de- sire, and naturally I could not satis- fly her. Even when l ran so fast that the effort made me shake from top to tires and l was in danger of losing my lamps. she would call me lice wagon" and "rattle-trap" and other cruel names, and refer unkindly to the fact that she could count the palings of the fences that we passed. Finally, this hard-hearted woman prevailed upon her husband to sell me and buy big sixteen cylinder Pope-Gregory. This car. as afterward learned, was so vicious that the very first time she took it out for an airing it assaulted three helpless chickens and a pig.
 My next master was a young man whose private life was such as no well-brought-up automobile could have approved of. Every evening, after he had kept me in the garage all day long fuming with impatience and spilled gasoline, he would make me carry him for hours and hours with some young woman who ought to have known better.
 What sights and sounds l had to endure-l who had always kept the strictest decorum! Worst of all, his deplorable conduct began to affect me. I found myself thinking thoughts which I had never permitted to enter my mind before and, looking with more interest than I should at se- ductive, satin-trimmed limousines. My morality was in danger of skid. ding.
 One evening while my master was dining with young woman at a roadside inn I was left to wait in the adjoining garage. But l was not alone; for close beside me stood a little French landaulet, the most dis concertingly> alluring car I had ever seen. Her lines were exquisitely shapely; she was goddess on wheels.
 Good evening"" she sparked en- ticingly. Aren't you the car that stood next to me at the country club last Thursday night?
 There was a daredevil gleam in her lamps which set my carbureter a.splutter.
 "Yes," answered, infatuated.
 'I knew yau. even though you tried to hide your name. Wasn't 1t lovely-just us two in the moon light, touching tires!"
 A nutvar ram thrO,ph mo I knAw