Eleanor H. Porter

“ Whatever it was, spic and span in Dearborn's garage stood the three-thousand-dollar automobile, the admired of every eye.
June had gone, and July was weeks old, however, before the preliminaries of license and lessons were over, and Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Wheeler could enter into the full knowledge of what it meant to be the joyous possessors of an automobile which one could run one's self.
"And now we'll take our friends," cried Jessica. "Who'll go first?"
"Let's begin with the A's—the Arnolds. They 're always doing things for us." ”

“ They did not know that, though the Wheelers had a motor-car, they had almost nothing else; no new clothes, except dust coats and goggles; no new books and magazines, except such as dealt with "the practical upkeep and operation of a car"; no leisure, for the car must be kept repaired and shining; no fresh vegetables to eat, for the garden had died long ago from want of care, and they could buy only gasoline. But they did have an automobile. ”

“ In the eyes of most of the town the Wheelers were objects of envy. They had an automobile. They could ride while others must plod along behind them on foot, blinded by their dust and sickened by their noisome odor of gasoline.
As long as the Wheelers were "decently hospitable" about sharing their car, the townspeople added to their envy an interested tolerance based on a lively speculation as to when one's own turn for a ride would come ”