Part 2 (1/2)
”Stuck?” he inquired, not very intelligently. ”How much is Adolph charging you?”
”He wants three-fifty, and his harness broke, and he wants two dollars----”
”Oh! So he's still working that old gag! I've heard all about Adolph. He keeps that harness for pulling out cars, and it always busts. The last time, though, he only charged six bits to get it mended. Now let me reason with him.”
The young man turned with vicious quickness, and for the first time Claire heard pidgin German--German as it is spoken between Americans who have never learned it, and Germans who have forgotten it:
”_Schon s.e.x_ hundred times _Ich h.o.r.e_ all about the way you been doing autos, Zolzac, you _verfluchter Schweinhund_, and I'll set the sheriff on you----”
”Dot ain'd true, maybe _einmal die Woche kommt_ somebody and _Ich muss die Arbeit immer la.s.sen und in die Regen ausgehen, und seh' mal_ how _die_ boots _sint mit_ mud covered, two dollars it don't pay for _die_ boots----”
”Now that's enough-plenty out of you, _seien die_ boots _verdammt_, and _mach' da.s.s du fort gehst_--muddy boots, h.e.l.l!--put _mal ein_ egg in _die_ boots and beat it, _verleicht_ maybe I'll by golly arrest you myself, _weiss du_! I'm a special deputy sheriff.”
The young man stood stockily. He seemed to swell as his somewhat muddy hand was shaken directly at, under, and about the circ.u.mference of, Adolph Zolzac's hairy nose. The farmer was stronger, but he retreated.
He took up the reins. He whined, ”Don't I get nothing I break de harness?”
”Sure. You get ten--years! And you get out!”
From thirty yards up the road, Zolzac flung back, ”You t'ink you're pretty d.a.m.n smart!” That was his last serious reprisal.
Clumsily, as one not used to it, the young man lifted his cap to Claire, showing straight, wiry, rope-colored hair, brushed straight back from a rather fine forehead. ”Gee, I was sorry to have to swear and holler like that, but it's all Adolph understands. Please don't think there's many of the folks around here like him. They say he's the meanest man in the county.”
”I'm immensely grateful to you, but--do you know much about motors? How can I get out of this mud?”
She was surprised to see the youngster blush. His clear skin flooded.
His engaging smile came again, and he hesitated, ”Let me pull you out.”
She looked from her hulking car to his mechanical flea.
He answered the look: ”I can do it all right. I'm used to the gumbo--regular mud-hen. Just add my power to yours. Have you a tow-rope?”
”No. I never thought of bringing one.”
”I'll get mine.”
She walked with him back toward his bug. It lacked not only top and side-curtains, but even winds.h.i.+eld and running-board. It was a toy--a card-board box on toothpick axles. Strapped to the bulging back was a wicker suitcase partly covered by tarpaulin. From the seat peered a little furry face.
”A cat?” she exclaimed, as he came up with a wire rope, extracted from the tin back.
”Yes. She's the captain of the boat. I'm just the engineer.”
”What is her name?”
Before he answered the young man strode ahead to the front of her car, Claire obediently trotting after him. He stooped to look at her front axle. He raised his head, glanced at her, and he was blus.h.i.+ng again.
”Her name is Vere de Vere!” he confessed. Then he fled back to his bug.
He drove it in front of the Gomez-Dep. The hole in the road itself was as deep as the one on the edge of the cornfield, where she was stuck, but he charged it. She was fascinated by his skill. Where she would for a tenth of a second have hesitated while choosing the best course, he hurled the bug straight at the hole, plunged through with sheets of gla.s.sy black water arching on either side, then viciously twisted the car to the right, to the left, and straight again, as he followed the tracks with the solidest bottoms.
Strapped above the tiny angle-iron step which replaced his running-board was an old spade. He dug channels in front of the four wheels of her car, so that they might go up inclines, instead of pus.h.i.+ng against the straight walls of mud they had thrown up. On these inclines he strewed the brush she had brought, halting to ask, with head alertly lifted from his stooped huddle in the mud, ”Did you have to get this brush yourself?”