Ellis Parker Butler

“ We ran a block at low speed and I could hear no trouble. We ran a block at second speed, and no distressful noise did I hear. We ran two blocks at high speed, with no noise but the soft purring of motors and machinery. As Millington brought the automobile to a stop we looked at each other aghast. It was true, too true, nothing was the matter with the automobile! It sparked, it ignited, it did everything a perfect automobile should do, just as a perfect automobile should do it. We got out and stared at the automobile silently. ”

“ The pig is a delicate creature, and his pen should be where the invigorating rays of the morning sun can strike him. Now my fence is the eastern fence—”
“And this man Rolfs pretends to be your friend!” exclaimed Millington sneeringly.
“Why every one knows that unless a pig has sweet dreams he becomes moody and listless, and loses interest in life. A pig's place of residence should always be where the last rays of the sun can strike him—against the eastern fence. ”

“ You ought to be in our Country Club, and I want you to see it, and I want you to tell me what you think about this automobile of mine. I can't understand it!”
I have often noticed three things: I have noticed that a boy is never really happy until he owns a dog; I have noticed that a flat-dweller is never content until he owns a phonograph; but above all I have noticed that the commuter—the man that lives in the sweet-scented, tree-embowered suburbs—is restless and uneasy until he joins the Country Club. So I accepted Millington's invitation. ”

“ I suppose that when I mentioned automobile Isobel had a vision of a bright-red car about twenty-five feet long, with a tonnage like an ocean steamer, and a speed of one hundred and ten miles an hour—one of the machines that flash by with a wail of agony and kill a couple of men just around the next corner. But Millington's automobile was not that kind. ”

“ I never make a large score there, as it is near the club house and the caddies are afraid of the Board of Governors.
When golf is taken rightly it arouses the instincts of the chase in a man, and I now feel the same joy in running down a caddy and bargaining for found balls that others feel in hunting wild animals. Golf, taken thus, is a splendid game.
And I have found that if I use my putter only, and knock the ball but a few yards each stroke, there is no need of losing a ball from one end of the year to the other. ”

“ Nothing starts the day so well as to see contented creatures, and there is nothing so contented as a pig. If I could have my own way I would beg you to build your pig pen immediately under my window. But I am not a selfish man.”
“I know you are not, Millington,” I said; “but I am not considering the purchase of a pig. Good night!”
“Of course you are not,” said Rolfs, “and I only want to say that if you do keep a pig you can gratify Millington, for every law of pig culture demands that you build your pig house against the western fence, and not against my fence. ”

“ Millington had never urged me to get a pig. Whenever I mentioned pig they mentioned various deadly and popular pig diseases. They had urged me to garden, and to keep chickens, and a horse, and a cow, and even an automobile—Millington urged me to keep his—but never a pig! I would not hint that Rolfs and Millington were selfish, or that they hoped to receive, now and then, milk from my cow, eggs from my chickens, or radishes from my garden, but a neighbour may profit in that way. On the other hand, the neighbour never profits from the suburban pig. ”

“ Millington was always in such a good humour when his car was in a bad one, was because I had told him that I had heard of a man in Port Lafayette who had a fine farm of White Wyandotte chickens, and that I thought I might buy some for my place. Millington does not believe in Wyandottes. He is all for Orpingtons.
It is remarkable how many wives object to chickens. I do not blame Isobel for not liking chickens, for she was born in a flat, and I am willing to make allowances for her lack of education; but why Mrs. Rolfs and Mrs. Millington should dislike chickens was beyond my comprehension. ”

“ I had no greater desire in life than to devote all my spare time to my garden, but a man must give his health some attention, and Isobel pointed out that if I gardened but one half of the garden I would have time to ride to Port Lafayette with Millington in his automobile now and then, and as Port Lafayette is on the salt water the air would be good for me. ”

“ I said. “I know I am passionately fond of gardening, and that some one has robbed me of the pleasure I have looked forward to for years: the joy of weeding my own garden on my own land.”
“Mr. Prawley does not like automobile riding,” continued Isobel, “and he came to me this morning and told me his health was so poor that his doctor had told him nothing but gardening could save his life. When he showed the garden to his doctor, the doctor told him he was not getting half enough gardening—that he must garden twice as much. ”

“ Now, if you intended making a fool of yourself in a friend's house by impersonating Santa Claus and coming down a chimney in a fur automobile coat, and nonsense like that, you would have sense enough to remember which room upstairs had the chimney that led down into the parlour fireplace, wouldn't you? So I blame Jimmy entirely, and so does Isobel. Jimmy says—of course he had to have some excuse—that we might have told him we had given up the idea of having Santa Claus come down the chimney, and that if we had wanted him to come down any particular chimney we should have put a label on it. ”

“ As we stood and watched the automobile and the washing machine and Mary dashing rapidly away in the distance, we felt that the automobile was still a little too wild for household use, but I fully believed the automobile would be tame enough before it reached home again. A young, strong automobile may be able to take cross country runs without ill effects, but an elderly automobile, like the one I bought of Millington, cannot dash across country towing a washing machine and a Polish servant, whose name is Schneider in English, without danger to its constitution. ”

“ As a method of securing pleasure the cost per gallon to each unit of joy was too high, in that machine. Riding in my machine was not what is called “joy riding.” It was more like a malady.
Of course we never attempted a long tour, like that to Port Lafayette, which is eleven miles from Westcote, and it was about the time my tire troubles began that I thought of domesticating my automobile. I remember with what pride I discovered my first puncture. Every automobile owner of my acquaintance had tire troubles, and I had never had any, and I felt slighted. ”

“ Millington takes me to Port Lafayette—”
“Now, John,” said Isobel, “you must not be too hasty. You must be careful. I think the right way to buy a horse is to shop a little first, and see what people have in stock, and not take the first thing that is offered, the way you do when you buy shirts. You know how hideous some of those last shirts are, and the arms far too long, and we don't want anything like that to happen when you are buying a horse. I have been talking to Mrs. Rolfs, and she says it is mere folly to buy the first horse that is offered. ”

“ A horse is just what we need to add the finishing touch to our happiness! With these splendid, tree-bordered roads—”
“A horse that is not afraid of Mr. Millington's automobile,” interposed Isobel.
“Certainly,” I said, “a horse that you can drive without fear—”
“But not a pokey old thing,” said Isobel.
“By no means,” I agreed; “what we want is a young, fresh horse that can get over the road—”
“And gentle,” said Isobel. “And strong. And he must be a good-looking horse. One with a glossy skin. ”

“ I cannot think of anything else that would make it behave as an automobile in good health should, and I give you my word of honour that it is acting in perfect rhythm, never slipping a cog nor missing fire. Of course, with the machine behaving in that unaccountable manner, I would not dare to start for Port Lafayette, but I want to run you around to the Country Club. ”

“ After all there is nothing like motoring. We would roll smoothly down the street, with Millington frowning like a pirate all the way, and then suddenly he would hear the noise he was listening for, and he would stop frowning, and jerk a lever that stopped the car, and hop out with a satisfied expression, and begin to whistle, and open the car in eight places, and take out an assorted hardware store, and adhesive tape, and blankets, and oil cans, and hatchets, and axes, and get to work on the car as happy as a babe ”

“ I have studied the cow, in all her moods and tenses, for years.”
“Nonsense!” said Millington. “A man is foolish to try to keep live stock. Live stock is subject to all the ills—”
“Such as toothache!” sneered Rolfs.
“All the ills of man and beast,” continued Millington. “What you want is an automobile. Now I will sell mine—”
“No!” I said positively.
“You only say that because you do not know my automobile as I know it,” said Millington. “It is a wonder, that machine is. Now, I propose that to-morrow you and your wife take a little run up to Port Lafayette with me and my wife. ”

“ When Millington said to me, in the way members of Country Clubs have, “You ought to be in our Country Club,” I was tickled. I did not know then that Millington was on the membership committee, and his willingness to admit me to fellowship seemed to show that I had been promptly recognized as a desirable citizen of Westcote; a man worth knowing; one of the inner circle of desirables. What more fully convinced me was the eagerness of Mr. Rolfs. ”

“ I had just taken my automobile apart to discover why the engine did not work, and the various pieces of its anatomy were scattered up and down the street for a block or more, and I was hunting up another piece to take out, when I noticed that one of my tires was flat. I had a puncture! I suppose I would have thrilled with joy at any other time, but just after a man has dissected his automobile is no time for him to thrill. He has other things to amuse him. ”

“ Prawley was digging up what remained in our vegetable garden, and when Chesterfield had eaten that I gagged him with the pink veil, and stuffed his head in the sleeve of my rain coat once more.
“Isobel,” I said, “the time has at last come when we must cease keeping pigs. I love to be surrounded by affection, but I believe we have kept this pig long enough. An attic is no place in which to run a modern swine industry. ”

“ I said calmly, “I have no intention of keeping a pig. Such an idea never entered my mind. And as for you, Millington, I know you now. You have shown yourself as you are. Never again, Millington, shall I start to Port Lafayette in your automobile. That is final! Good night, gentlemen!”
Millington and Rolfs went off arm in arm, and when they were out of sight I hurriedly rescued Chesterfield Whiting, in all his wrappings, from under the seat, and rushed him into the house. I let Mr. Prawley continue to unharness the horse. I told Isobel what my neighbours had said. ”

“ The more I studied Chesterfield the more certain I became that if a man wants to win the affection of a pig he can best do so, not by lifting the pig over the edge of a porcelain bath tub every few hours to give it a rub-down, but by standing by with a couple of tons of feed and shovelling it down the pig with a scoop-shovel. The pig's squawker and its swallower are one and the same instrument, and the only way to keep the squawker quiet is to keep the swallower plugged with food. In its idle hours the pig may long for sweetness and light, but it wants meals at all hours of the day and night. ”