Volume X Part 3 (2/2)

Through it all I did not lose my coolness. I said: ”Araminta, look out behind, which is ahead of us, and if you have occasion to jump now, do it in front, which is behind,” and Araminta understood me.

She sat sideways, so that she could see what was going on, but that might have been seen from any point of view, for we were the only things going on--or backing.

Pretty soon we pa.s.sed the wreck of the buggy, and then we saw the horse grazing on dead gra.s.s by the roadside, and at last we came on a few of our townfolk who had seen us start, and were now come out to welcome us home. But I did not go home just then. I should have done so if the machine had minded me and turned in at our driveway, but it did not.

Across the way from us there is a fine lawn leading up to a beautiful greenhouse full of rare orchids and other plants. It is the pride of my very good neighbor, Jacob Rawlinson.

The machine, as if moved by _malice prepense_, turned just as we came to the lawn, and began to back at railroad speed.

I told Araminta that if she was tired of riding, now was the best time to stop; that she ought not to overdo it, and that I was going to get out myself as soon as I had seen her off.

I saw her off.

Then after one ineffectual jab at the brake, I left the machine hurriedly, and as I sat down on the sposhy lawn I heard a tremendous but not unmusical sound of falling gla.s.s----

I tell Araminta that it isn't the running of an automobile that is expensive. It is the stopping of it.

THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

I wrote some lines once on a time In wondrous merry mood, And thought, as usual, men would say They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer, I laughed as I would die; Albeit, in the general way, A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came; How kind it was of him To mind a slender man like me, He of the mighty limb!

”These to the printer,” I exclaimed, And, in my humorous way, I added, (as a trifling jest,) ”There'll be the devil to pay.”

He took the paper, and I watched, And saw him peep within; At the first line he read, his face Was all upon the grin.

He read the next; the grin grew broad, And shot from ear to ear; He read the third; a chuckling noise I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar; The fifth; his waistband split; The sixth; he burst five b.u.t.tons off, And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, I watched that wretched man, And since, I never dare to write As funny as I can.

WHEN LOVELY WOMAN

BY PHOEBE CARY

When lovely woman wants a favor, And finds, too late, that man won't bend, What earthly circ.u.mstance can save her From disappointment in the end?

The only way to bring him over, The last experiment to try, Whether a husband or a lover, If he have feeling is--to cry.

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