The Elk Mountain pilot., 1921-10-13

creased until the two-seated carriage
could not contain them, SO he wished
to selk and buy a more grand one!
could have his gasoline carriage for
1900 francs!
Saint Antoine had answered me!
The miracle had happened"
: The Able Gavois paused, standing
up, his weather-ruddied face aglow,
his eyes upcast, his worn hands
spread out before him.
you see, it was miracle" he said
again very gently, turning to me
with his dear old smile. He waited
for me to answer, so I said "Yes,"
and he proceeded in gayer tone.
$50 l went and bought that gaso-
line carriage, and of course I named
her Antoinett, after good Saint An
thony."
''Of course"
There was more than one miracle,
for, somehow, the Able, driving about
his scattered parishes, grew strong
and we'll. He and Antoinette became
famous thruout the countryside, and
the horseless carriage was a never
failing source of curiosity and won
der. There was no railway anywhere
near Raineville, where the priest
lived, and he was commissioned to do
alg sorts of errands in his trips, from
carrying messages to forwarding chill
dren. In all this time Antoinette
was dependable. She never had a
holiday in her twenty-eight years of
service to the Able and his people.
Little things went wrong with her
occasionally, but the Able always
doctored her back into fitness. The
interviewer asked if there were ever
any accidents. The priest leaned over:
Accidents? All, there were not
many!" The Able thought concen-
tratedly moment. "Once," he re-
membered, "when the roads were very
bad and it was dark, something did
go wrong. The front wheels"
The Able leaped from his chair
and went thru few thrilling jumps
and slides, illustrating what the
front wheels did. I gathered that,
whatever happened to Antoinette's
internal mechanism, the front wheels
just suddenly splayed out "Comme
ca" with wide and astonishing ges-
ture.
"Had / been going fast" said the
Able gravely, Il should have gone
over the box into the road on my
head! But happily we were not max
ing speed, SO it was all right. I re-
paired the carriage myself. can
take it entirely apart and mend
everything"
The "box" is what corresponds on
younger car to the hood Besides
Antoinette's two cylinders, one sees
within the box strange oblong
thing with a gas flame burning DULY
the hot-tube ignition. I thought
perhaps the Able made himself cup
of tea on it, or something. But it
seems it is the spark, in lieu of an
electric one. There is nothing cleo
trical about Antoinette, from her
front lamps (candhes) to her rear
light The radiator is at the back,
behind the vehicles single seat The
wheel is lever SO long that
feared it would dig into the dear
Abbe's stomach, but it missed by an
inch or two
The veteran has two cylinders of
70 by ITO nm. bore and stroke, auto
matte inlet valves, hot-tube ignition,
and wick carburetor. Its timing
gears and its change speed gears are
exposed, its clutch is of the now OBJ
solete brush type, and final drive to
the steel-shod wheels is by a single
chain, the tension of which is regu-
lated by moving the axle and springs
In 1912 the car was completely over
hauled by the Penhard-Levassor COM
pany. without being modernized in
any way, and with this exception has
never received any other attention
than the village priest was capable
of giving it.
A little while before the armistice,
the Able Gavois came upon bunch
of soldiers-Americans, French and
English-playing football with pa
thetic piece of junk which had once
been an officers car. A lombard
ment had laid it low by the roadside
and many after shots had made it
more like sieve than a motor. To
the dear Able, however, it was a hurt
dog which could be nursed to health
and usefulness. He rescued it, towed
it home, and made careful diagno-
sis With bottle of glue, some
court-plaster and string, some tin,
few bits of wire, a handful of nails