Читать книгу Roy Blakeley on the Mohawk Trail - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 3

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I didn’t write any story last summer—that’s one thing to be thankful for, my sister says. It wasn’t because anything didn’t happen, because things happened even two at a time last summer. My father said he didn’t see how I’d get them into a story unless I used a shoe-horn. “You leave it to me,” I told him.

My sister said, “Well, you’ll be kind enough not to use any more of my stationery writing your stories.”

“You should worry about your writing paper,” that’s what I told her. “Because, anyway, all you ever use it for is writing to Harry Donnelle and he’s going away on an endurance test and he won’t know where he’s going to be at, so you can’t write to him, anyway.”

“I think you’re an endurance test,” that’s what she said.

“Now, just for that I won’t tell you what an endurance test is,” I said to her. So then I told her what it is. I said, “You think you’re so smart, I bet you don’t know what it is anyway. You know what my funny-bone hike was, don’t you? Well, this is the same, only different. An endurance test is just a hike, only it happens to an automobile. It has to be sealed up tight.”

“I never knew that to happen to you,” she said.

“If it wasn’t for me talking, who’d interrupt Pee-wee Harris, I’d like to know?” I told her. “You ought to be thankful to me because I talk and keep him from talking; besides, anyway, that shows you don’t know a good turn when you see one. When I keep still it’s not because I’m sitting on the porch swing holding somebody’s hand, anyway. An endurance test is to see how long an automobile will run without stopping the engine.”

She said, “Well, the farther you run the better I’ll like it, only don’t write about it on my pink stationery.”

“Even I’m going to have my picture in the Motor Magazine,” I told her. “And, anyway, you won’t see Harry Donnelle for a good long time. Maybe you’ll never see him again, thank goodness. We’re going all in and out around through mountains and everything without stopping; we’re going to not stop as many as a thousand times—maybe even a hundred—what do we care?”

She said, “I thought Hervey Willetts was coming to visit you before you go to camp.”

“So he is,” I told her, “and he’s going with us. Hervey Willetts and Pee-wee, and Brent Gaylong and Harry Donnelle and me—I mean I—correct, be seated. We’re all going in a new Hunkerjunk touring car; the starter is going to be taken out and we’re not going to have any crank along; we have cranks enough teaching us in school. I guess maybe we’ll send you a post card from the North Pole. This endurance run is to show how the Hunkerjunk will stand up.”

“What does Dad say?” she wanted to know.

“He doesn’t say a single thing,” I told her. “Do you know why? Because he doesn’t know it yet. Harry’s going to ask him; he’s going to give him a dandy big cigar, then he’s going to ask him.”

Anyway, I didn’t bother talking to her any more because whatever I’m going to do she wants to know if I asked Dad. One thing, she never asks him herself and she forgets to turn the light out when she comes home from the Golf Club dances, but anyway an endurance test is a special kind of a dandy thing to write a story about, because you keep going and going and going till you get to the end—then you stop. I guess if it wasn’t for the back cover of the book, I’d keep right on going.

So now I’m going to start and tell you about it only first I wanted to get rid of my sister. Maybe you know Harry Donnelle—he’s a big fellow. He has charge of the Hunkerjunk agency on Canter Place—that’s where all the automobile places are. The only place on that block that isn’t a regular automobile place is the Ford agency—that’s what he says. But anyway, Henry Ford should worry. Harry Donnelle, he says the flivver is a joke. But believe me, I’m always ready to take a joke—you ask Westy Martin.

If I wasn’t willing to take a joke do you suppose I’d ask Pee-wee to go along on this trip? He’s the Ford among scouts, that’s what my father says. Not only because he’s small but because he makes so much noise.

So now I’ll tell you about the endurance test. The people that make the Hunkerjunk car say it’s the strongest car in the world—gee whiz, they ought to know, they made it. They say you can drive it year in and year out—I’d rather drive it out, there’s no fun inside. You can drive it out, but you can’t wear it out. The car has so many fine things said about it that it’s blushing—maybe you noticed its red color.

So Harry Donnelle said he was going to prove that the Hunkerjunk car could run thirty thousand miles without the engine being stopped—even after that it would be good. It would be just starting to be good. I bet all that fellow wanted was adventure—anyway, we had a lot. Do you know where the Berkshires are? Well, anyway, they were underneath us most of the time. Brent Gaylong said we manufactured them because we made the hills. Gee whiz, I’ll say we did!

The way he was going to prove that the engine wouldn’t be stopped or touched in thirty thousand miles was to take the starter off, then he was going to start the engine with the crank, and then he was going to throw the crank away. After that he was going to seal the hood shut and have a seal put on by Mr. Conner, he’s in the Rotary Club. He said when we came back only Mr. Conner could break the seal and that would prove we hadn’t touched the engine all the while. Maybe you wonder how we were going to get oil into the engine. On account of that Harry had a hole bored in the hood and a pipe sticking up through it from the place where you put oil.

He said if we came back after running thirty thousand miles without the engine stopping once it would prove that the Hunkerjunk is the strongest car in its class. That’s the only thing I didn’t like about it, he was always talking about being in a class and that reminded me of school. He talked a lot about first grade oil and that reminded me of the grade I’m in, because I wanted to forget it on account of it being vacation.

So now pretty soon we’re going to start.