The Car That Went Abroad

ne it before. I had left all technical matters to a man hired and trained for the business. No

came to the chapter "Thirty-seven reasons why the motor may not start," and feverishly read what one had better try in

e oiled weekly, some to be oiled monthly, some every thousand miles. There were also places to be greased at all these periods, and some when you happened to think of it. You had to put on your glasses and follow one of the fine

. Now, at Avignon, the new regime must begin. In the bright little, light little hotel garage we would set our car in order. I say "we" because Narcissa, aged fifteen, b

nd polish, and she went at it in her strenuous way, and hosed me up one side and down

grease all the daily, weekly, and monthly, and even the

squirted oil. Some led to a dim uncertainty, into which I squirted or dabbed something in a general way. Some led to mere blanks, and I greased those. It sounds rather easy, but that is due to my fluent style. It was not easy; it was a hot, messy, scratchy, grunting job. Those lines were mostly blind leads, and

't missed any on myself. She said I was a sight and probably never could be washed clean again. It is true that my hands were quite solidly black, and, while I did not recall wiping them on my face, I must have done so. When Narcissa asked how soon I was going to grease the car again, I said possibly in about a thousand years. But t

was said to be finest from across the river. We would then continue up the west bank-there being a special reason for this-a reason wit

in the twelfth century when they used miracles a good deal for such work. Sometimes Satan was induced to build them overnight, but I believe

tle shepherd of twelve, who received a command in a dream t

p, and I have but three

ay," said the voice, "and

op was preaching to the people. There, in the presence of the assembly, Bénézet stated clearly that Heaven had sent him to build a bridge across the Rhone. Angry at the interruption, the bishop ordered the ragged boy to

lemagne has been able to accomplish? Pick up this stone as a beginning

et, for it was a fragment of a Roman wall. It did not trouble Bénézet, however. He said his prayers, and ligh

people, carrying in that easy way a stone that reached up to the second-story windows. Bénézet carri

years the great work was finished, but Bénézet did not live to see it. He died four years before the final stones were laid, w

its original eighteen are standing. Storm and flood did not destroy it, but war. Besiegers and besieged broke down the arches, and at last, more than two hundred years ago, repairs

he right. It was a leafy way, and here and there between the trees we had splendid glimpses of the bastioned wa

we would have been taken in charge at once. At first I said it was only a little of the fresh oil burning off the engine, and that it would stop presently. But that excuse wore out. It would have taken

we found we were not in Villeneuve at all. We had not entirely crossed the river, but only h

minute. Disaster seemed imminent. The passengers were inclined to get out and walk. I said, at last, that we

ing with our gorgeous white tail filling the landscape behind us, a

h oil,"

use they were stopped with dust. Being new and green, I had not thought of that possibility. A workman poked a wire into those little cocks and drew off the fuel we had been burning in that lavish way. So I had learned something, but it seemed a lot of smoke for such a s