Sinclair Lewis

“ The calf of your leg begins to ache from the pressure on the foot-brake, and with an unsuccessful effort to be courteous you bellow at the passenger, who has been standing beside the car looking deprecatory, "Will you please block the back wheels with a stone--hustle up, will you!"
⁠All this routine Claire thoroughly learned. Always Milt bumbled up, said cheerful things, and either hauled the Gomez over the pitch by a towline to his bug, or getting out, pushing on a rear fender till his neck was red and bulgy, gave the extra impetus necessary to get the Gomez over. ”

“ He dragged it to the Gomez and hitched it to the back axle. The knuckles of the branches would dig into the earth, the foliage catch at every pebble.
⁠"There! That anchor would hold a truck!" he shouted.
⁠It held. She went down the next two hills easily. But she was through. Her forearms and brain were equally numb. She appealed to Milt, "I can't seem to go on any more. It's so dark, and I'm so tired----"
⁠"All right. No ranch houses anywheres near, so we'll camp here, if Mr. Boltwood doesn't mind."
⁠Claire stirred herself to help him prepare dinner. It wasn't much of a dinner to prepare. ”

“ She forgot that, before breakfast, Milt had filled the oil-well for her. When she stopped for gasoline, and the seller inquired, "Quart of oil?"--she absently nodded. So the cylinders filled with surplus oil, the spark-plugs were fouled, and the engine had the power of a sewing machine.
⁠She could not make Mount Washburn--she could not make even the slopes of the lower road. Now she knew the agony of the feeble car in the mountains--most shameful and anxious of a driver's dolors: the brisk start up the hill, the belief that you will keep on going this time ”