Phineas and the Motor Car

Phineas used to wonder, sometimes, just when it was that he began to court Diantha Bowman, the rosy-cheeked, golden-haired idol of his boyhood. Diantha’s cheeks were not rosy now, and her hair was more silver than gold, but she was not yet his wife.

And he had tried so hard to win her! Year after year the rosiest apples from his orchard and the choicest honey from his apiary had found their way to Diantha’s table; and year after year the county fair and the village picnic had found him at Diantha’s door with his old mare and his buggy, ready to be her devoted slave for the day. Nor was Diantha unmindful of all these attentions. She ate the apples and the honey, and spent long contented hours in the buggy; but she still answered his pleadings with her gentle: “I hain’t no call to marry yet, Phineas,” and nothing he could do seemed to hasten her decision in the least. It was the mare and the buggy, however, that proved to be responsible for what was the beginning of the end.

They were on their way home from the county fair. The mare, head hanging, was plodding through the dust when around the curve of the road ahead shot the one automobile that the town boasted. The next moment the whizzing thing had passed, and left a superannuated old mare looming through a cloud of dust and dancing on two wabbly hind legs.

“Plague take them autymobiles!” snarled Phineas through set teeth, as he sawed at the reins. “I ax yer pardon, I’m sure, Dianthy,” he added shamefacedly, when the mare had dropped to a position more nearly normal; “but I hain’t no use fur them ‘ere contraptions!”

Diantha frowned. She was frightened--and because she was frightened she was angry. She said the first thing that came into her head--and never had she spoken to Phineas so sharply.

“If you did have some use for ‘em, Phineas Hopkins, you wouldn’t be crawlin’ along in a shiftless old rig like this; you’d have one yourself an’ be somebody! For my part, I like ‘em, an’ I’m jest achin’ ter ride in ‘em, too!”

Phineas almost dropped the reins in his amazement. “Achin’ ter ride in ‘em,” she had said--and all that he could give her was this “shiftless old rig” that she so scorned. He remembered something else, too, and his face flamed suddenly red. It was Colonel Smith who owned and drove that automobile, and Colonel Smith, too, was a bachelor. What if--Instantly in Phineas’s soul rose a fierce jealousy.

“I like a hoss, myself,” he said then, with some dignity. “I want somethin’ that’s alive!”

Diantha laughed slyly. The danger was past, and she could afford to be merry.

“Well, it strikes me that you come pretty near havin’ somethin’ that wa’n’t alive jest ‘cause you had somethin’ that was!” she retorted. “Really, Phineas, I didn’t s’pose Dolly could move so fast!”

Phineas bridled.

“Dolly knew how ter move--once,” he rejoined grimly. “‘Course nobody pretends ter say she’s young now, any more ‘n we be,” he finished with some defiance. But he drooped visibly at Diantha’s next words.

“Why, I don’t feel old, Phineas, an’ I ain’t old, either. Look at Colonel Smith; he’s jest my age, an’ he’s got a autymobile. Mebbe I’ll have one some day.”

To Phineas it seemed that a cold hand clutched his heart.

“Dianthy, you wouldn’t really--ride in one!” he faltered.

Until that moment Diantha had not been sure that she would, but the quaver in Phineas’s voice decided her.

“Wouldn’t I? You jest wait an’ see!”

And Phineas did wait--and he did see. He saw Diantha, not a week later, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, sitting by the side of Colonel Smith in that hated automobile. Nor did he stop to consider that Diantha was only one of a dozen upon whom Colonel Smith, in the enthusiasm of his new possession, was pleased to bestow that attention. To Phineas it could mean but one thing; and he did not change his opinion when he heard Diantha’s account of the ride.

“It was perfectly lovely,” she breathed. “Oh, Phineas, it was jest like flyin’!”

“‘Flyin’!’” Phineas could say no more. He felt as if he were choking, --choking with the dust raised by Dolly’s plodding hoofs.

“An’ the trees an’ the houses swept by like ghosts,” continued Diantha. “Why, Phineas, I could ‘a’ rode on an’ on furever!”

Before the ecstatic rapture in Diantha’s face Phineas went down in defeat. Without one word he turned away--but in his heart he registered a solemn vow: he, too, would have an automobile; he, too, would make Diantha wish to ride on and on forever!