Three Speeds Forward
told papa that if he had a coachman, that was all the care it needed; and so it was given over to Albert, whose one idea was to shine it up beautifully and keep it tight in the barn. In the morning he took papa to the railway station, three miles off, and called back for him every afternoon at five; and this baby-carriage performance was supposed to leave it exhausted for all the intervening hours. On Sundays, Albert would take us all for a solemn drive on the second speed, and if we covered forty miles, he acted as though we had crossed the continent. Between papa, who was mortally afraid of Albert, and Albert, who was mortally afraid of the car, our bubbling was a good deal of the hearsey-hearse order, and not as satisfying as a ride on the trolley.
What I wanted was a little car of my own, in a little house of my own, with my own grease, my own cotton waste, my own gasoline supply—and all this as far away from Albert as it could possibly be put. And the sicker
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