Homeburg Memories

t Politics as a

around in seven blocks, but what's time to a New Yorker on Saturday afternoon? This nifty little mile-eate

How do you like the wire wheels, Jim? Bad for side strains, I should think. Look at those foxy inset lamps. Listen to that engine purr-two cycle, I'll bet. Say, Fift

n, but to me they're as interesting as a new magazine. I've spent about four days in the sales-rooms since I've been here, and when I get home I'll be the center of breathless attention until I've passed around all the information I've dug u

eekly newspaper, or the new minister, or the latest wedding-it's common property. Since gasoline has been domesticated we're all enthusiasts, whether we are customers or not. The man who can't talk automobile is as lonely as the chap who can't play golf

ery twenty-five people. Figure that out. It only gives each auto five members of the family and twenty citizens to haul around. We're about up to the limit. Of course another one hundred people could buy machines, I suppose; but that would only allow twelve and a half passengers, admirers, guests, and advisers for each car. That isn't anywhere near enough. Why, it wouldn'

. Automobiles don't stand for riches out our way. Blamed if I know what they do represent. Mechanical ingenuity, I guess. Country town people pick up automobiles as easily as poor people do twins. And they seem to support th

inserts himself into his overalls and spends a couple of hours trying to persuade the carbureter to use more air and less gasoline. The interest our automobile owners take in the internals of their cars is intense. That is the only thing which mars the pleasure o

mobile owners pay their bills, and the mortgage records don't tell us anything. There's Wilcox, the telegraph operator. He makes seventy-five dollars a month. He wo

f fatal distension before the job is finished. A thousand dollars would buy stock, fixtures, and good will. But a thousand wouldn't buy the restaurant owner's automobile. He began with two hundred and

made machine and a mule at the same time, and by judiciously combining the two he got a good deal of mileage out of both. He would work all morning getting t

sed it back to health, and I hear that next spring they are going to trade it in for a new machine.... Why do I say machine? Because that's what an automobile is out our way. It's a machine, and we treat it as such. Most of our people couldn't take a lobster to pieces to save their lives, but

r it, with a chauffeur thrown in to drive them home, and they have been under his thumb ever since. He was the only chauffeur who had ever been brought alive in captivity to Homeburg, and the whole t

n around the country a good deal, however, tuning it up and trying it out, and as he was a sociable cuss, some of us always went with him. In fact, about every one rode in the Payley car that summer except the Payleys. Wert Payley us

rters, and I understand that in the Women's Missionary Societies and the afternoon clubs the comparative riding qualities of the various tonneaus about the city have about driven out teething and styles as a subject of debate. For a while during the Wilson campaign, it looked as if politics was going to get a foothold in the town, but some enthusiast organized a flying squa

rfection, and until we have seen each new machine put up the clay hill four miles south of town and have ridden in it over the Q. B. & C. crossing and the other places which show up bad springs, we can't fix our minds on o

y into its internal economy. We crank it to test its compression-half the Homeburg men who have achieved broken wrists by the crank route haven't autos at all. We denounce the owner's judgment on oils and take his machine v

mand for ballast is often greater than the supply. As a result, we have become hideously spoiled. I have passed up as many as six automobiles in an evening on various captious pretexts, waiting all the time for Sim Bone's car, whose to

utomobile as an oppressor of the pedestrian, he would in all probability be kidnaped by some acquaintance before he was half through and carried forty miles away for company

o prejudice and jealousy can move us. Of course, I don't think that an automobile owner should be expected to leave his wife at home in order to accommodate his neighbors, and there may be some just complaint when an owner is called up late at night and asked to haul frien

the town. One of our great diversions during the tourist season is to watch the reckless strangers from some other State dash madly into town at forty miles an hour and hit the crossing at the head of Main Street. There is a crash and a scream as the occupants of the tonneau soar gracefully into the top. There is another crash and more screams at the other side of the street,

ing himself. The driver and his accomplice had not noticed their loss, and when we had brushed off and restored the old gentleman, he said "Thank God!" and went firmly over to the depot, where he took

nd give advice when necessary; and the loafers have abandoned the implement store, Emerson's restaurant, and the back of McMuggins' drug store in favor of the garage, because they find about seven times as much there to talk about. T

oes out nine miles hither or yon to haul in some foundered brother. Gayley has a soft heart and is always going out over the country at night to reason with some erring engine; but since last Apri

drying fast, but he went down the clay hill sidewise and had to go through the bottom on low. At seven, Wimble Horn and Colonel Ackley and Sim Bon

ke the hills on high; says he never goes into low for anything. Bill Elwin, one of our gasless experts, reminds him of the time he couldn't get up Foster's Hill on second and was passed by three automobiles and fourteen road roaches. This is a distin

ry likely the roads are impassable, because the Highway Commissioners have been improving them. Out our way road improvement consists of tearing t

n no rain to the northwest and that he has done sixty miles already this morning, but can't get his carbureter to working properly, as usual. By this time several owners and a dozen critics have assembled, and the morning debate on gasoline versus motor spirit takes place. It ends a tie and both sides ba

boosters say our beautiful rich black soil averages ten feet in depth, but I think this understates the case-at least our beautiful black dirt roads seem to be deeper than that in the spring. What we need in the spring in

s. We sympathize with him, but in the middle of his grief Chet Frazier drives up. When he sees his ancient ene

wares? Horse traders are considerate and tender of each other's feelings comp

ays Chet. "Separa

the machine. "Why, it ain't a separator at

s Amthorne, hauling off a tire. "What's become of tha

the laugh

rty minutes flat this morning," says Chet. "Lucky you were

n miles in thirty minutes. Why don't you get a real

business in the

," says Chet calmly-quite c

he hood and looks in. "Funny engine, isn't

t there with the retort courteous. "Is this an engine or

ept when I run a long time

ty, "I never have t

up Sanders Hill, they have to close

ur broken jack-shaft," snorts Pelty. "You ought to get so

it for tires, I

eage out of my machine; I don't drive around to

g the subject. "Oh, I see; it's a road sprinkler.

meal," says Pelty, busily surveying Chet's machine. "Do you

You're wasteful; I heard your valves ch

on Main Street," snorts Pelty. "You cranked t

who begins carrying hot water out to his machine in a t

k-number with tin springs, glass gears and about as much compression as a bandbox. Give me five hundred dollar

to pull its shadow! You're delirious, Pelty. I'll tell you what I'll do. You give me a thousand dollars for my car, and I'll agr

is over. I've known Homeburg men to give up a trip to Chicago beca

and happy and full of conversation and debate. It pulls our old, retired farmers out of their shells and makes them yell for improvements. It unbuckles our tight-wads and giv

ax for a year. Two of our rural route mail carriers use small machines, except in wet weather, and good-roads societies in our vicinity are the latest fad. We raised one thousand five hundred dollars last spring to bring the Cannon Bal

for most of us is located at the end of a ten-gallon tank of gasoline. Why, in the old days, you had to go fifty miles east and double back to get into the north part of our county, and more of us had cr

blame me for being so interested in a new one? Maybe it wil