Mary Roberts Rinehart

“ If she had a mite of sense she would have gone back to the city in the blue car and let us go home to bed. But when she had come back to the road and the young man suggested it—not to her, of course, but casually to us—she whistled to her dog and started to limp down the road. You can't do anything with a girl in that state of mind. I took her in the tonneau with me, and Aggie, who prefers a love affair to a scandal and always reads the marriage licenses with the obituaries—Aggie went in the blue car to keep Mr. Lewis from being lonely. ”

“ Well, we should have known about the automobile. I had a queer feeling when I started out that morning. Tish had had the car out the day before by herself for the first time—both Aggie and I had had the good judgment to refuse—and she got home safely, although she had a queer-looking mark on her right cheek, and one of the mud-guards didn't look exactly right. She said she had had a lovely ride, and we helped her push the machine into the wash-house, where we had had Carpenter knock out a side, and then she went to bed and had a cup of tea. ”

“ She had been down with the other cottagers, looking across to where the red leather of Tish's machine stuck up above water-level.
"Be careful," Tish said under her breath when she saw her; "she's got something in her hand!"
"What a terrible accident, and how lucky nobody was hurt!" Mrs. Ostermaier began, holding the thing she was carrying against her skirt and staring from the three of us to Aggie's foulard. "The spots did run, didn't they? I told Mr. Ostermaier they would. He thinks you are wonderful women, to go around the country as the three of you do at all hours of the night." ”

“ Aggie whispered to me.
"The gasoline," I told her; "and if it boils it'll explode. I'm no mechanic, but I know that much."
After a few minutes Aggie leaned forward.
"Tish," she said.
"Don't take my mind off this machine!" Tish shouted back. "Isn't that a buggy coming?"
"It's too far off to see. It's either a buggy or a wagon," I said. "Tish, where's the gasoline tank?"
But Tish wasn't listening. "Why doesn't that man turn out? Does he want the whole road?" she snapped. There was a silence while we neared the buggy ahead. Then Tish leaned over and began jerking at levers. ”

“ We heard enough ourselves to know that Robertson was offering the girl, and enough money for Mr. Lewis to marry on, for his vote on something or other. I reckon the balance between a man's honor and his cupidity hangs pretty even anyhow, and when you throw a girl to one side or the other it swings the scale. The Lewis man was yielding and Tish was breathing hard. ”

“ Once, when he had raised the car on the jack and Tish was holding the ends of the boards that he shoved under, while Aggie and I pushed, something gave way and the whole thing settled back with a jerk. Mr. Lewis—that was his name—lifted the broken fence-rails off Tish and helped her to her feet.
"There's something almost alive about automobiles occasionally," he said. "They are so blamed vicious." ”

“ The young man threw up his hands.
"Madam," he said to Tish, "you look like a woman of large mind." Tish stopped putting the bedspread around her and stared at him. "By your unfortunate—er—invasion here tonight you are preventing the discovery of a crime against civic morality. The councilmanic banquet downstairs is over; in a few minutes Robertson—well, probably you don't understand, but I represent the Morning Star. The Civic Purity League has learned that in this room, after the banquet, a bribe is going to be offered. That bureau has been ready for a month. ”

“ BOTH Aggie and I had objected when Tish talked of buying an automobile. But the more you talk against a thing to Tish the more she wants it. It was just the same the time her niece, Maria Lee, went to Europe for the whole summer and offered Tish her motor boat. Aggie and I protested, but the boat came, and Tish had a lesson or two and sent to town for a yachting cap. Then, one day when we were making elderberry jelly and ran out of sugar, Tish offered to take me to the mainland in the boat. ”

“ I am a Christian woman, and Aggie is so gentle that she has to scratch twice to light a match, but I must say we were bitter. We told Tish we didn't care how she happened to do it, and that some day she would be punished for a temper that made her throw away books that she would be sure to need some time; and that, anyhow, an unmarried woman of fifty has no business with an automobile. ”

“ I said, with a bitterness that was natural under the circumstances. "No thanks to you, Tish Carberry. There's no fool like an old fool."
"What do you mean?" Tish demanded fiercely, twisting around in the water with her dust cap over her eye. "Who was it said I ought to buy the dratted thing? Drive it yourself if you think you can do any better."
"Row it," I corrected. "It's finished for good as a touring car, but by putting an awning over it we might make it into a tolerable gasoline launch."
Aggie was crying. ”

“ Tish's face was pallid but resolved.
"It's a great deal easier to go fast than slow," she remarked. "I haven't quite got the hang of going slow. But there's one comfort about going fast: you get around much quicker."
At the foot of the stairs she stopped and called up. "I'm going to take a tablespoonful of blackberry wine," she said. "I feel chilly in the small of my back."
Aggie and I didn't say anything, but we each took a tablespoonful of blackberry wine also.
Tish had written out a list of things to do to start the car, such as "Turn A," "Push forward B," and so on. ”

“ Tish was so excited that she started the car without paying for it, and when we looked back he and the reporter were staring after us; and the reporter distinctly said, "Those women will be wealthy some day."
"Why didn't you let me give him his pin?" Aggie demanded when we were safely out of sight. "I—I feel like a thief."
"Fiddle! And confess?" said Tish. "We'll send it to him. I've got his card."
But all he had written on it after all was, "A. Dresser. Private Bureau." Charlie Sands has promised to return the pin. ”

“ Tish fumed. "Oh, why haven't women the vote? I tell you"—she fixed Aggie and me with a gesture—"the day of conscience is coming. Women stand for civic purity, for the home, for right against might!"
It was the "right against might" that we repeated to her afterward, when we had stolen—but that is coming soon.
"But he loves the girl," said Aggie, beginning to sniffle. "I—I think as much of ci-civic purity as you do, Tish Carberry, but I th-think he is just p-pig-headed."
"The girl's a fool and so are you," said Tish, beginning to take the counterpane off the reporter. ”

“ He happened to find a menu from the Sherman House at Noblestown floating in the body of the car, and the good-for-nothing took a trip to the city and traced us.
He did not say anything, but about a week later he came to the cottage and put a package on the table in the kitchen.
"Come Out," Said Tish to the Bureau "Make No Resistance: We are Armed!" ”

“ People of Penzance still speak of that day, for we figured out that we had enough gasoline to run one hundred and sixty miles, and after Peter Miller, at Point Lena, had lassoed us and was dragged for a quarter of a mile before he caught hold of a buoy and could let go of the rope, we got desperate. I was at the wheel and Tish was trying to stop the engine, pouring water over it and attempting to stick an iron rod in the wheels. And just as she succeeded, and the rod shot through the awning on the top of the launch like a skyrocket, I turned the thing toward shore, where it looked fairly flat. ”

“ Ostermaier. I think they threw gravel through the window. They wanted to be married."
"For Twenty Dollars I'd be Willing to Swallow My Tongue Backward" Tish sat up and tried to look scandalized.
"I hope your husband didn't do it," she said. I had to pinch Aggie; she was leaning forward with her eyes bulging.
That put Mrs. Ostermaier on the defensive. "Why not?" she demanded. "They had a license, and they were of age. I believe in encouraging young love; Mr. Ostermaier says it is the most beautiful thing in the world. ”

“ Aggie said she thought the gasoline tank was on fire.
"If it is you'll soon know it," said Tish grimly. "It's under the seat. I'm going to back up on to this bridge business over the gutter. I think I can make it."
"Do you know how to back up?" I asked; and just at that minute the woman left her tub and started to run down the walk.
"Ninety-Five Degrees of Heat, Seven Inches of Dust, Five Miles to a Telephone and Ten Miles to Town. With an Automobile Sittin' Down in Your Front Yard—That's All the Hell I Want"
Tish backed. ”

“ That is where the man and the girl and the little Pomeranian dog enter the story. For they came along in a blue runabout car just as Tish threw her book called Automobile Troubles over the fence and said she was going to walk home. The book said, "Beginners having trouble with their engines should look under the headings Ignition, Carburation, Lubrication, Compression, Circulation and Timing." As Tish remarked, the only one that was understandable was Circulation, and anybody could tell without a book that the car wasn't circulating to any extent. ”

“ Ladies, I implore you, go back to the other room!"
It was too late. At that moment there were voices in the hall and somebody put a key into the lock of the door. There was no time to put the light out. The young man dropped behind the foot of the bed, the door swung open and a red-haired man stepped into the room.
"Suffering cats!" he exclaimed, and stared at us.
"Go out immediately!" I said, pointing to the door. Tish was unwinding herself from the counterpane. She took it off airily and flung it over the foot of the bed, so that it covered the young man. ”

“ And she had pasted bits of paper marked A and B on the levers and plugs. So I read:
"Turn A; push up B, crank, and release C."
It started nicely.
"Just one thing," Tish said over her shoulder as we passed the Ostermaier cottage, and they waved to us from the porch: "Don't scream in my ears; don't lean over and clutch me around the neck; and if we run over anything try to look as if you didn't know we had." ”

“ She saved him!
At a crossroads near Penzance Tish made them get out, and we directed them to a landing where they would find a rowboat. We all kissed the bride; and Mr. Lewis said he had nobody to cheer him on his way, and wouldn't we kiss him too. So we did, and after they had gone we prepared for Carpenter's sharp eyes by going into the bushes and putting on the rest of our clothes.
It was the first thing Carpenter said that caused the accident. He brought in the ferry-boat and came up the bank to us. ”

“ C., sez I, 'It ain't possible,' I sez. 'She sez she lost her shoe when the automobile went into the water, and she's a truthful woman; and yet, two days after, the chambermaid at the Sherman House finds it high and dry under a bureau, forty miles away. It's spooky,' I sez."
Aggie was pouring hot water into the teapot, and she kept on pouring till it went all over the place.
"Nonsense," said Tish. "That shoe doesn't belong to Miss Lizzie." ”

“ And as for Lewis——" He shut his notebook with a bang, and there was something in his face besides exultation. "To buy a girl like that!" he said—and I knew. He wanted the girl himself.
Aggie was to ask to see the notebook and then toss it over the transom into the corridor. While the reporter was trying to get out the locked door into the hall we could escape into the adjoining room, lock the connecting door, walk around easily and get the notebook, and then make our escape comfortably. ”

“ For automobiles, five dollars a bucket."
The woman came out and pumped some. The water ran cool and clear into a trough and then spread over the ground in dreadful waste. I could have lapped it up out of the trough; every bit of skin on me and lining membrane in me yelled "Water!" ”