CHAPTER V.
JOHN HENRY GETS EXCITED.
The next day being Sunday, I determined to forget all my troublesand take Peaches out buggy riding.
I felt sure that Bunch was rid of his grouch by this time, and thathe wouldn't have a rock in his hat for me for pulling that "UncleCornelius" gag.
I rather expected he'd show up at Ruraldene some time Sundayevening. At any rate, I was sure Skinski and the Dodo bird hadconned him back to real life, and that by Monday morning he'd beripe for work again.
Peaches and Aunt Martha said very little about Bunch's newrelatives. They decided that "Uncle Cornelius" was eccentric andrather interesting, but when they thought of "Aunt Flora" they bothgot nervous and changed the subject.
When I suggested the buggy ride to Peaches she was delighted, and Imoseyed for the Ruraldene livery stable to get staked to a horse.
Anybody who has ever lived in a suburban town will doubtless recallwhat handsome specimens of equine perfection may be found in thelocal livery stable--not.
The livery man at Ruraldene is named Henlopen Diffenbingle, and helooks the part,
I judged from the excited manner in which he grabbed my depositmoney that morning that he had a note falling due next day.
Then Henlopen shut his eyes, counted six, turned around twice,multiplied the day of the week by 19, subtracted 17, and the answerwas a cream-colored horse with four pink feet and a frightenedface, which looked at me sadly, sighed deeply and then backed upinto the shafts of a buggy with red wheels and white sulphursprings.
The answer was a cream-colored horse which lookedat me sadly.]
The livery man said that the name of the horse was Parsifal,because it seemed to go better in German.
I drove Parsifal up to our modest home, and all the way there weran neck and neck with a coal cart.
Parsifal used to be a fast horse, but quite some time ago hestopped eating his wild oats and now leads a slower life.
When I reached the gate I whistled for Peaches, because I wasafraid to get out and leave Parsifal alone. He might go to sleepand fall down.
My wife came out, looked at the rig, and then went back in thehouse and bade everybody an affecting farewell.
There were tears in her eyes when she came out and climbed into thebuggy. She said she was crying because Aunt Martha wasn't there tosee us driving away and have the laugh of her life.
We started off and we were rushing along the road, passing afence and overtaking a telegraph pole every once in a while, whensuddenly we heard behind us a very insistent choof-choof-choof-choof!
"It's one of those Careless Wagons," I whispered to Peaches, andthen we both looked at Parsifal to see if there was a mentalstruggle going on in his forehead, but he was rushing onward withhis head down, watching his feet to make sure they didn't step oneach other.
Choof-choof-choof! came the Torpedo Destroyer behind us, and Iwrapped the reins around my wrist, in case Parsifal should getuneasy and want to print horseshoes all over that automobile.
The next minute the machine passed us, going at the rate of 14constables an hour, and as it did so Parsifal stopped still andseemed to be biting his lips with suppressed emotion.
I coaxed him to proceed in English, in Spanish and Italian, andthen in a pale blue language of my own, but he just stood there andbit his lips.
I believe if he had possessed fingernails he would have bitten themtoo.
I gave the reins to my wife with instructions how to act if thehorse started, and I jumped out to argue with him.
Just when I had picked out a good-sized rock, which was to be myargument, Parsifal came out of his trance and started off, butPeaches forgot her instructions and spoke above a whisper and hestopped again.
Then I took the reins, cracked the whip, shouted a couple ofbanzais from the Japanese national anthem, and away we rushed likethe wind--when it isn't blowing hard.
The hours flew by and we must have gone at least half a mile, whenanother Kerosene Wagon came bouncing towards us from the oppositedirection.
In it was a happy party of ladies and gentlemen, who were laughingand chatting about some people they had just run over.
Parsifal saw them coming and stopped still in the middle of theroad. Then he hung his head as low as he could, and I believe ifthat horse had been supplied with hands he would have put them overhis ears.
The people in the Bubble began to shout at us, and I began to shoutat the horse, and my wife began to shout at me, while Parsifalstood there and scratched his left ankle with his right heel.
Then the big machine made a sudden jump to the right and hiked byus at the rate of about a $100 fine, while the lady passengers onthe hurricane deck stood up and began to hand out medals to eachother because they didn't run us down.
Ten minutes later Parsifal came to and looked over his shoulder atus with a smile as serene as the morning and once more resumed hismad career onward, ever onward.
We were now about two miles from home, and suddenly we came acrossa big red Bubble which stood in front of a road-house, sneezinginwardly and sobbing with all its corrugated heart.
Parsifal saw the machine before we did.
We knew there must be an automobile somewhere near, because hestopped still and quietly passed away.
I jumped out and tried to lead him by the Coroner's Delight, but heplanted his four feet in the middle of the road and refused to becoaxed.
I took that horse by the ear and whispered therein just what Ithought about him, but he wouldn't talk back.
I told him my wife's honor was at stake, but he looked my wife overand his lips curled with an expression which seemed to say,"Impossible."
It was all off with us.
Parsifal simply wouldn't move until that sobbing Choo Choo Wagonhad left the neighborhood, so I went inside the road-house to findthe owner.
I found him. He consisted of a German chauffeur and eight bottlesof beer.
When I explained the pitiful situation to him the chauffeurswallowed two bottles of beer and began to cry.
Then he told the waiter to call him at 7:30, and he put his headdown on the table and went to sleep with his face in a cute littlenest of hard-boiled cigarettes.
I rushed to the telephone and called up the liveryman, but before Icould think of a word strong enough to fit the occasion hewhispered over the wire, "I know your voice, Mr. Henry. I supposeParsifal is waiting for you outside!"
Forthwith I tried to tell that liveryman just what I thought abouthim and Parsifal, but the telephone girl short-circuited my remarksand they came back and set fire to the woodwork.
"My, my!" I could hear the liveryman saying. "Parsifal'shesitation must be the result of the epidemic of automobiles whichis now raging over our country roads. The automobile has a strangeeffect on Parsifal. It seems to cover him with a pause and giveshim inflammation of the speed."
I thought of poor Peaches sitting out there in that blushing buggystaring at a dreaming horse, while in front of her a Red DevilWagon complained internally and shook its tonneau at her, and oncemore I jolted that liveryman with a few verbal twisters.
"Don't get excited," he whispered back over the phone. "Parsifalis a new idea in horses. Whenever he meets an automobile he goesto sleep and tries to forget it. Isn't that better than runningaway and dragging you to a hospital? There must be something aboutan automobile that affects Parsifal's heart. I think it is thegasolene. The odor from the gasolene seems to penetrate his mindto the region of his memory and he forgets to move. Parsifal is afine horse, with a most lovable disposition, but when the airbecomes charged with gasolene he forgets his duty and falls asleepat the switch."
I went out and explained to my wife that Parsifal was a victim ofthe gasolene habit, and that he would never leave that spot untilthe Bubble went away, and that the Bubble couldn't go away untilthe _chauffeur_ could wake up, and that the chauffeur couldn't wakeup until his mind had digested a lot of wood alcohol, so she jumpedout of the bug
gy and we walked home.
Parsifal may be a new idea in horses, but the next time I go buggyriding it will be in a street car.
When we reached home that afternoon I found a note from Bunch whichcheered me up wonderfully.
The note read as follows:
CITY, Sunday Morning.
DEAR JOHN--Sorry we had the run in but it was all my fault. Amsending you two rosebuds this evening as a peace offering.
Yours, BUNCH.
"Two rosebuds!" I snickered. "That boy Bunch is a honey-cooler allright. But I'm sorry he didn't make it two cigars."
"Oh! John!" Peaches said to me a little while later, when we wentover to Uncle Peter's villa to take dinner with them and spend theevening. "I _do_ wish I could tell you about the surprise, butUncle Peter made me promise not to say a single word."
"Well, if you feel tempted to give the old gentleman the doublecross and tell me, why I'll lock myself up in the doghouse till hegives you the starting pistol," I chimed in. "Who is that draggingthe works out of the clock in the sitting room?"
"It isn't any such thing!" Peaches exclaimed indignantly. "It'sUncle Peter, and he has a dreadful cold, but Aunt Martha has itnearly cured now, she says."
I went in and jollied the old chap along a bit, and little bylittle I heard his awful story.
He caught the cold about three days previously, but, after takingthe prescription of every loving friend within a radius of fourmiles, the cold had almost disappeared. In place of the cold,however, Uncle Peter now had acute indigestion, nervousprocrastination, delirium tremens and a spavin on his off fetlock.
All this was caused by a rush of home-made medicine to his brain.
Aunt Martha is a great believer in the simple life, so when UnclePeter acquired a simple cold she got a simple move on and pouredenough simple medicines into him to float a simple tug.
Every friend she had in the world suggested a different remedy, andshe tried them all on Uncle Peter.
The cold got frightened and left on the second day, but a woman hasto be loyal to her friends, so Aunt Martha kept on spraying UnclePeter's system with dandelion tea and fried peppermint until everymicrobe heard about him and dropped in to pay him a long visit.
The first thing Aunt Martha wanted to do was to rub Uncle Peter'schest with goose grease.
"Goose grease is such a noisy companion," Uncle Peter remonstrated.
"Goose grease may be loud, but it is never vulgar," said AuntMartha, and she went after it.
In about ten minutes she came back with the painful news that theonly thing in the neighborhood which looked like a goose was aquill toothpick, and that was ungreasable.
"But, my dear," Aunt Martha whispered, "I have something Just asgood. I found this box of axle grease in the barn."
Uncle Peter shuddered and said nothing.
"My idea is to rub it on your chest and call it goose grease,because the moral effect will be the same," Aunt Martha told him.
Then that loving wife rubbed so much axle grease into Uncle Peterthat for hours afterwards he thought he had a pair of shafts onhim, and every time he saw a horse he felt like making fiftyrevolutions a minute.
I suppose the axle grease gave him wheels in the noddle and madehim buggyhouse.
Then Aunt Martha said to him, "Now, Peter, we could cure that coldin five minutes if we can get a woolen stocking to tie around yourthroat."
After a little while she found out that the only woolen stocking inour village was owned by the night watchman.
The night watchman said he liked Uncle Peter well enough, but he'dbe switched if he was going to walk around all night with one barefoot even to let the Mayor use his stocking for a necktie.
Selfish watchman.
The next morning Uncle Peter's cold was much worse, but the axlegrease had cured his appetite.
About nine o'clock his friend Dave Torrence came in, and afterUncle Peter had barked for him a couple of times Dave decided thatthe trouble was information of the lungs and he suggested thatUncle Peter should tie a rubber band around his chest and rub hisshoulder blades with gasolene.
Uncle Peter told his friend that he had no desire to become a humanautomobile, so Dave got mad, kicked the piano on the shins and wenthome.
An hour later Deacon Ed. Sprong, the Mayor's next-door neighbor,came in and in ten minutes he had Uncle Peter making signs to anundertaker.
Deacon Sprong decided that Uncle Peter had the galloping asthmawith compressed tonsilitis, and a touch of chillblainous croup onthe side, aggravated by asparagus on the chest.
Deacon Sprong told Uncle Peter to drink a pint of catnip tea, takeeight grains of quinine, rub the back of his neck with benzine,soak his ankles in kerosene, take two grains of phenacetine, anddrink a hot whiskey toddy every half-hour before meals.
Deacon Sprong volunteered to run over every half-hour and helpUncle Peter drink the toddy if it tasted bitter.
Then Deacon Sprong went home, and Uncle Peter's temperature camedown about ten degrees, while his respiration began to sit up andnotice things.
During the rest of the day every friend and relative Uncle Peterhad in the world rushed in, suggested a couple of prescriptions,and then rushed out again.
Aunt Martha tried them all on Uncle Peter.
Before the shades of evening fell that day Uncle Peter was turnedinto a human medicine chest.
And to make matters worse, he took some dogberry cordial and itchased the catnip tea all over his interior from Alpha to Omaha.
Then Aunt Martha gave him some hoarhound candy to bite thedogberry, so it would leave the catnip alone, but blood will tell,and the hoarhound joined with the dogberry and chased the catnip upUncle Peter's family tree.
But it cured the cold. Now all Uncle Peter had to do was to curethe medicine.