§ 105 The Handiwork of the Amateur
Back about 1905, in the Dark Ages of automobiling a veterinary surgeon in my town, whom I shall call Dr. Jones, bought a second-hand car. It already was beginning to shake itself to pieces before it came into his possession. In fact, so loudly did it rattle, when in motion, that it was known affectionately throughout the county as Jones’ Patent Pea-Huller. When the tires wore out the owner, who was by way of being a mechanical genius, equipped it with ordinary buggy-wheels.
One day an automobile run to a near-by town was organized. Every proud proprietor of a car joined in. As the procession headed out past the corporate limits it was met by a farmer, from the Massac Creek section on his way to the warehouse with a wagon-load of tobacco. His half-grown son rode with him.
As the head of the column loomed through the dust the farmer’s two mules, unused to the sight of automobiles, showed signs of skittishness. The boy leaped down from his seat and held the heads of the team, the mules flinching and trembling as the cavalcade roared past.
Seemingly, the last car had gone by. The youth was in the act of climbing back to his place alongside his father when in the distance there arose a terrific clattering sound and over the crest of the hill appeared Dr. Jones, seated at the wheel of his machine and striving valiantly to overtake the tail of the vanished parade. On he came, with his gears grinding, the tormented vitals of his car shrieking, the wooden wheels clattering on the hard gravel of the turnpike and gusts of smoke issuing from beneath the body.
The astounded agriculturist caught one good look at the approaching apparition. Then as he set the brakes harder than ever and tightened his grasp on the lines he called out to the boy:
“Hold ’em, Wesley, for God’s sake, hold ’em! Here comes a home-made one!”