“I thought you said it’s too late for that,” Gowan said. “That the one that marries Cousin Gavin will have to be a widow with four children.”
“Maybe I meant too early,” Mother said. “Melisandre hasn’t even got the husband yet.” Then she wasn’t seeing Gowan. “Which is exactly what Manfred de Spain is acting like,” she said. “A high school sophomore.” Gowan said she was looking right at him but she wasn’t seeing him at all, and all of a sudden he said she was pretty, looking just like a girl. “No: exactly what we are all acting like,” and now she was seeing him again. “But dont you dare let me see you doing it, do you hear? Dont you dare!”
“Yessum,” Gowan said. It was no trouble. All he and Top had to do after school was just divide the tacks into their hands and kind of fool around out in the middle of the street like they were trying to decide what to do next while the tacks dribbled down across the tracks of the automobile; Mr de Spain had made nine trips by now so Gowan said he almost had two ruts. Only he and Top had to stay out in the cold now because they wanted to see it. Top said that when the wheels blew up, they would blow the whole automobile up. Gowan didn’t think so, but he didn’t know either and Top might be partly right, enough right anyway to be worth watching.
So they had to stand behind the big jasmine bush and it began to get dark and it got colder and colder and Guster opened the kitchen door and begun to holler for Top then after a while she came to the front door and hollered for both of them; it was full dark and good and cold now when at last they saw the lights coming, it reached the corner of the yard and the cut-out went on and the car ripped slow and loud past and they listened and watched both but nothing happened, nothing at all, it just went on and even the cut-out went back off; Gowan said how maybe it would take a little time for the tacks to finally work in and blow the wheels up and they waited for that too but nothing happened. And now it had been long enough for him to be home.
And after supper, all of them in the office again, but not anything at all this time, not even anything passed the house so Gowan thought maybe it hadn’t blown up until after he was home and now Uncle Gavin never would know when it would be safe to come out of the dark parlor and go upstairs to bed; so that he, Gowan, made a chance to whisper to Uncle Gavin: “Do you want me to go up to his house and look?” Only Father said,
“What? What’re you whispering about?” so that didn’t do any good either. And the next morning nothing happened either, the cut-out ripping slow past the house like next time it was coming right through the dining room itself.
And twice more at noon and that afternoon when Gowan got home from school Top jerked his head at him and they went to the cellar; Top had an old rake-head with a little of the handle still in it so they built a fire behind the stable and burned the handle out and when it was dark enough Gowan watched up and down the street while Top scraped a trench across the tire-rut and set the rake teeth-up in it and scattered some leaves over to hide it and they watched from behind the jasmine bush again while the car ripped past. And nothing happened though when the car was gone they went and saw for themselves where the wheels had mashed right across the rake.
“We’ll try it once more,” Gowan said. And they did: the next morning: and nothing. And that afternoon Top worked on the rake a while with an old file and then Gowan worked on it a while even after they both knew they would still be working on it that way when the Cotillion Club would be planning next year’s Christmas Ball. “We need a grindstone,” Gowan said.
“Unk Noon,” Top said.
“We’ll take the gun like we are going rabbit hunting,” Gowan said. So they did: as far as Uncle Noon Gatewood’s blacksmith shop on the edge of town. Uncle Noon was big and yellow; he had a warped knee that just seemed to fit exactly into the break of a horse’s forearm and pastern; he would pick up a horse’s hind leg and set the foot inside the knee and reach out with one hand and take hold of the nearest post and if the post held, the horse could jerk and plunge all it wanted to and Uncle Noon and the horse might sway back and forth but the foot wouldn’t move.
He let Gowan and Top use his rock and while Top turned and tilted the water-can Gowan held the teeth one by one to the stone until they would have gone through almost anything that mashed against them, let alone an automobile.
And Gowan said they sure did have to wait for dark this time. For dark and late too, when they knew nobody would see them. Because if the sharpened rake worked, the car might not blow up so bad that Mr de Spain wouldn’t have time to wonder what caused it and start looking around and find the rake.
And at first it looked like it was going to be a good thing it was a long December night too because the ground was frozen that they had to dig the trench through, not just a short trench like before to set the rake in but one long enough so they could tie a string to the rake and then snatch the rake back into the yard between the time the wheel blew up and Mr de Spain could begin to hunt for what caused it. But Gowan said at least tomorrow was Saturday so they would have all day to fix the rake so they could be behind the jasmine bush and see it by daylight.
So they were: already behind the bush with the rake-head fixed and the end of the string in Gowan’s hand when they heard it coming and then saw it, then the cut-out came on and it came ripping past with the cut-out like it was saying HAha-HAhaHAha until they were already thinking they had missed this time too when the wheel said BANG and Gowan said he didn’t have time to snatch the string because the string did the snatching, out of his hand and around the jasmine bush like the tail of a snake, the car saying HAhaHAhaclankHAhaHAhaclank every time the rake that seemed to be stuck to the wheel would wham against the mudguard again, until Mr de Spain finally stopped it.
Then Gowan said the parlor window behind them opened, with Mother and Father standing in it until Mother said:
“You and Top go out and help him so you both will learn something about automobiles when your Cousin Charley buys one.”
“Me buy one of those noisy stinking things?” Father said. “Why, I’d lose every horse and mule customer I’ve got—”
“Nonsense,” Mother said. “You’d buy one today if you thought Papa would stand for it. — No,” she said to Gowan. “Just you help Mr de Spain. I want Top in the house.”
So Top went into the house and Gowan went out to the car where Mr de Spain was standing beside the crumpled wheel holding the rake-head in his hand and looking down at it with his lips poked out like he was kind of whistling a tune to himself Gowan said.
Then he looked around at Gowan and took out his knife and cut the string loose and put the rake-head into his overcoat pocket and begun to roll the string up, watching the string where it came jerking out of our yard, his mouth still pursed out like he was whistling to himself. Then Top came up. He was wearing the white jacket he wore when Mother would try to teach him to wait on the table, carrying a tray with a cup of coffee and the cream and sugar bowl. “Miss Maggie say would you care for a cup of coffee while you resting in the cold?” he said.
“Much obliged,” Mr de Spain said. He finished rolling the string up and took the tray from Top and set it on the mudguard of the car and then handed the rolled-up string to Top. “Here’s a good fish line for you,” he said.
“It aint none of mine,” Top said.
“It is now,” Mr de Spain said. “I just gave it to you.” So Top took the string. Then Mr de Spain told him to take off that clean white coat first and then he opened the back of the automobile and showed Gowan and Top the jack and tire tool and then he drank the coffee while Top crawled under the car and set the jack in place and he and Gowan wound up the wheel.
Then Mr de Spain put down the empty cup and took off his overcoat and hunkered down by the crumpled wheel with the tire tool.
