Part 1 (1/2)

Letters of the Motor Girl.

by Eth.e.l.lyn Gardner.

LETTER I

I am fourteen years old to-day, June 17th, 1905. Pa said he hoped I would live to be at least one hundred, because my Aunt Annie wanted me to be a boy, so she could name me Jack; she had a beau by that name and then married him, and he married some one else, so had two wives at once, and got put in jail. Pa says he's a live wire. I have seen his picture, but I thought he looked too stupid to get two wives at once. I would think a man would have to be very smart and step lively to get two wives at once. Pa says he has stepped over all the good he had in him he reckons.

I am learning to drive a big touring car, the Franklin, Model G. It's a cracker jack car, just let me tell you. The manager is the nicest man I ever saw. He said I looked like Pa-that's why I think he is so nice-my Pa is the very nicest man I ever saw. Then Levey Cohen comes next to the Franklin car manager. If you want a good car that can pick up her feet and fly on the road, you get a Franklin, and you will find that the finest car made is the Franklin. I am in love with my car. Pa says I know a whole lot for my age, almost as much as a boy. I am glad I am a girl, boys are horrid sometimes; they don't like to spend all their money to buy chocolates for the girls. Ma says Pa sent her a five-pound box every Sunday. Pa says nearly all boys are good for is to play ball, and smash windows, and cry, if they have to pay for them. Pa says I will change my mind when I grow up, but I am not going to grow up. I have seen Peter Pan, and I like wings, and angel cake, very much indeed. Next to my Pa, comes chocolates-I like all the good ones. Levey Cohen says I am a sugar-plum, but Pa says I need a whole lot of sugar yet, to be very sweet. I told him I knew flies could tell the boys that were sweet, because some of their mothers put mola.s.ses on their hair to keep it smooth,-Johnnie Alton has lots of flies around his head,-and I wondered why, so one day I put my finger on his hair when he wasn't looking, and pressed just a little, and the hair cracked. My, he was mad. He said, ”Cut-it-out,” and I said, ”Oh, Johnnie, you would look too funny.”

Now about my motor car. I took my first lesson of the manager the other day; he says I will be going up the sides of the houses before long if I don't look to the wheel more. I like to let the machine go after she starts. Surely those lights ought to show the way. My, how she will go.

Levey Cohen says I am a nice girl and when I get big he is going to marry me. Well, I don't think I will get married. Pa says I had better stick to him and Ma, and, anyway, I am having lots of fun. I went out alone in my car. I went all right for awhile, but there always comes a time when a car won't go, and I got that time out in Brookline near Dr.

Jones' house. I went in and telephoned for the manager to come for me-he came in another car and towed me home. I don't like that. I told Pa I hoped that car wouldn't lose its breath again, and now in four weeks she has done fine.

I can't write always every day. I write a whole lot when I feel like it, then I don't think of it again for weeks. Pa says he nearly died laughing reading the diary Ma made. I shall give my diary to Levey Cohen when we are married-I suppose I shall have to marry him some day, just to prove to him that I don't like him any too well. Pa says that you had better not marry any one you really care for, then you won't need to expect to find any letters in their pockets-Pa's pockets are always full of letters, he never thinks to mail them-and every week Ma and I take them to the post-office in a bag. When Pa begins to look like a bundle of straw with a string tied in the middle, Ma will say, ”Elsie, it's mail-time.” Sure as you live, Pa says he's a walking post-office, but Ma says, ”Yes, a dead-letter office out of date.” Now I will go for a spin in my car. It's a fine day and the sooner I get started the longer I can be out, so bye-bye till later on, as we are going to see Barnum's circus.

Pa and Levey Cohen and Ma and I all went to the circus. Really, it was very good-we all enjoyed it very much. Ma fed chocolates to the pet elephant and so did I. Pa and I took in some of the side-shows. What an awful cheat they are! We saw a sign that read: ”Come in and see the $50,000 Horse, his tail where his head ought to be.” We paid our money and went in, and we saw the wonderful horse turned around in his stall-true, his head where his tail ought to be. Pa said he knew it was a big sell, and he laughed; said he would try again. A little further on we saw another sign that read: ”See the wonder Dog-half bear.” Pa said that must be a novelty, so we went in, and saw a big Newfoundland black dog standing on a box half-shaved close. Pa said, ”Which half is bear?”

and the man said, ”The half that was shaved, mister.” We looked up and saw a sign that read ”Sciddoo!” We did. Pa said Barnum was a smart man-said he had fooled more people than any one man on earth, but the best of it all was they were just as eager to be fooled the next year.

Pa says if that law about whiskers gets into force it will be mighty interesting for some good men like Dr. Parkhurst and Anthony Comstock.

Neither of them poor devils will dare go out, except in the evening, and then the cop may get them for carrying about nude faces. Pa says it's a bad place for microbes to settle down in a man's beard. All the wise men I know goes smooth face and that's the best way, I think. We have a Frenchman who is our gardener. He can't talk very good English. He told Pa the other day, speaking of his memory of his childhood, that he could remember backwards very far. When he tried to harness the horse on our little farm he said to the horse: ”You, good huss, just open your face now and take in your harness.” Pa says, brush away and come to dinner, so,

So long, ELSIE.

P. S. Pa says here are some questions that half of the Public are asking the other half: Question-What is an automobile? Answer-A wagon with big rubbers on its feet. Name two uses of the automobile? Ans. To run people down and to run them in. What is the horn used for? Ans. To frighten the life out of one, so he will stand still and get run over. What's the difference in running over a dog and a man? Ans. If you run over a dog it costs you $5, or if a man, 5 years. What is a constable? A man with the hoe who is too lazy to work, so arrests every man he sees in an automobile.

Pa says these are all for now.

E.

LETTER II

Well, what do you think! I have been to Atlantic City for the Automobile races. Had I been older Pa says I could have entered my Franklin car for the race, but he said ”no use for a girl to try,” so I just looked on. I fell in love with Miss Rogers, she is a smart woman, a real thoroughbred, Pa says. Ma don't dare to drive a car; she is a 'fraid-cat, won't even shoot the shoots at Coney Island. Why, they don't make anything I wouldn't try! I got old Deacon Weston to ride the flying horses with me at Coney Island, and the band played ”There will be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night.” Deacon Weston's coat-tails blew out behind him like the American flag in a gale of wind, and the boys nearly died to see how hard he held on. It's jolly fun to live! I heard Pa say Mrs. Pat Campbell and her poodle had solved the joy of living, but I don't believe she has half the fun I do. Why, I can climb a tree if I like to. Pa says I shouldn't, else I'll be a tomboy. I don't see how I can be a tomboy when I am a girl, but Pa says that there are lots of things you don't learn in school. I like school pretty well, but like most girls, I am more fond of vacations. In vacation, in summer, we go to grandpa's in the country, out in Pennsylvania. I stepped on a b.u.mblebee one day-that is, I tried to, but I didn't step heavy. He saw my foot coming and it was bare, and he made me dance good, for a little.

I don't think I'll walk in the dewy gra.s.s any more in the morning. Pa told Ma it would keep me always young, and as I don't want to grow up I just went out to try it, but I believe I will even be willing to wear long dresses and grow up, if I have to dance to a b.u.mblebee sting; I don't like the music at all, too much pain in it, for harmony.

My grandma has a pet little cow. Pa says it's a calf, and I got the pony's harness and put it on the calf, and he didn't like to be a pony at all. He just kicked and tipped me all over the yard. Ma screamed and Pa laughed. Pa said, ”Let them alone, both those kids are just alike,”

meaning me and the calf. We are better friends than when I first came here, for he would run when I came in sight, but now he runs to meet me, 'cause he expects me to give him some sugar. He likes it just as well as my pony does. I often feel sad to think that I can't feed sugar to my automobile-don't it seem a real shame?-but they are built to live on electricity or gasoline. I just pity them. Think of not being able to eat ice-cream and chocolates. My Uncle Smith is coming to see me from Buffalo. He is the dearest man. He has a camera and the first time I saw him he had on a brown suit and his camera slung over his shoulder, and oh, my! but he looked the professional. I was almost scared of him, but he is a mighty nice man. He has taken lots of pictures of me with my Franklin car, and he got a snap shot of Deacon Weston on the flying horses, and I nearly died myself when I saw it. He looked worse than a scotcher after a highball, Pa said. I never saw a highball, but Pa says it's a live wire, so I shall keep in the middle of the good path. I heard a Salvation Army man say that, so it is on the level. Pa says slang forms too great a part of the present-day conversation, but I don't think I am any joke, only I know my Pa knows all that is worth knowing. My Pa is a very wise man for his years-he's been married twice, and he says two marriages will either make or break a man, depends on his disposition. Pa says he made a mess of his first marriage, but the second one was good. I belong to the second house. Pa says a man who is married twice can learn to manage the worst kind of an automobile. He says none of them could have more kinks than some women, and do such unexpected stunts. I guess the man I read about in the automobile magazine that never swears under any condition has been married twice.

Pa says two marriages will smooth out a man's disposition as nice as a hot iron will a s.h.i.+rt-bosom. They asked Pa to run for Governor of New York State; said he could govern anything, but Pa is very modest. He said his wife didn't like society and he considered her happiness first; said all men should. Pa knows which side his bread is b.u.t.tered on, Ma has all the money I I sang that song one night called ”Everybody Works but Father,” and Pa nearly lost his temper. He took it personally to himself, so for the last few days he gets up at five o'clock and goes up Commonwealth Ave. with his car and blows his Gabriel horn for all he is worth all the way. Once I heard him say as he went out: ”Yes, everybody works but Father, do they? Well, I guess they will think Father's working some to-day.”

Isn't life a queer problem? My, I wonder what it all means! Sometimes it seems like a continuous vaudeville show, then it changes and becomes serious, clouds and tears, and, oh, dear, I don't understand it at all.

I will try to be a good girl, but being a real Sunday girl isn't any fun. I think I am a little related to Buster Brown, anyway, I would like to have his dog. Levey Cohen said he would get him for me, but I thought Buster would be lonesome, and I have my Pa, and automobile. Why is it that girls like their Pas so much? I have got a beautiful mother, she is too handsome and queenly for anything, but I seem to be Pap's own girl.