Letters of the Motor Girl Part 1

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 shirt-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.

He says I am the light of his eyes. Pa's as much of a boy as I am, only he's grown up. He has beautiful brown hair; he isn't bald on the top of his head. I have always been told when a man is bald-headed it was because his wife was a tartar and robbed his pockets while he slept, and pulled his hair out, if he noticed the loss of his money. Pa has plenty of money. Pa said he settled the money question with Ma's Pa before they were married; he said all men making second marriages should see about the financial end of the game. I never knew just how it ended, but I do know that Pa is considered very swell, and rich, and he says Levey Cohen has his eyes on his pocketbook, but I don't see how that is, for Pa never carries it out of the house. It's in the safe in the billiard-room and Pa has never asked Levey to play billiards because he always calls in the late afternoon, and Pa always plays billiards at noon, or early in the day. Pa says the ice man would be as much of a gentleman as an actor, if he had the free advertising that some of them get. I like actors because they can be anything they like from a beggar to a king, and all they do is to put on different clothes. One would think it was an easy thing to be an actor, but I guess they have their ups and downs; they are not all kings, but I like some of them tip-top, say, for instance, Mr. Edmund Breese and Mr. George Coen. All the girls like them. I heard Pa say that they understood the real act of impersonating as well as any he knew of on the boards-and the women on the stage are all fine, that I have seen. I think Elsie Janis is a darling. I just love her. I would be almost willing to let her marry Levey Cohen if I didn't think I really wanted him myself. I am pretty willing he should take her out in his car. Levey Cohen is a very handsome chap; he is four years older than I am, and Pa says he's doing well for a kid. I don't like to be called a kid, and I don't think Levey does either, but it's Pa's way of talking. My Pa is a cousin to Bill Nye that used to write for the papers so much. Pa said he was better than he looked in the papers; I hope he was, because he looked in the papers, poor man, like a bean-pole with a rubber ball on the top of it for a head. He was a funny man, on paper, but Pa says in his home he was Mr. Edgar Nye, loved and respected by all, and that's saying a good deal in this age of rush and tear.

Well, good-bye, little book, I have told you all my secrets for four weeks past now, and I will say good night. It's 6 P. M. and we are going to the Touraine for dinner as the cook got dopy, Pa says, and let the fire go out in the kitchen. Ma, poor dear, can't cook, so we are going out to dine and then to see some circus on Mars they have here. Pa says I must learn to cook if I want to keep Levey at home after we get married, and I am going to learn. I boiled some eggs for Pa the other morning when the cook went to market. I thought they would cook in three hours, most meats will, in that time, but Pa said, "Nay, nay, Pauline, make it three minutes," so I did. My Pa can cook, but he won't. He says it's the cook's work. Pa objects to doing other people's work for them; he says they must all do it some time, and why not begin here, now, so that's how we stand on the cook-book question.

ELSIE.

P. S. Pa says he's from Missouri when the cook says the air is bad and the coal won't burn. He says it's more likely it's her breath that stuns even the coal and that it's 23 for ourn, as far as dinner goes, that's why we go to a hotel.

ELSIE.

LETTER III

Well, here I am again, little book. Pa and I went to Harvard Cla.s.s Day, out to Cambridge. I took him in my Franklin car. I have never had any trouble since that Brookline adventure, and was towed home. My! but I felt cheap. I would have sold that car that day for 99 cents, but she's all right ever since-has just been making up for past bad behavin', just like a naughty little girl I know of. Pa says of all the colleges in the land Haryard is the best. Pa graduated from Harvard and Levey Cohen is a junior, and they are worse than ten old women about the old days Pa spent at Harvard. Of course I like Harvard because Pa does; I never question Pa's judgment because he says it's so, and there is nothing to do but believe him, especially when Levey Cohen always backs him up.

It's two men against one little girl, and I don't have a bit of a show if I don't side in. Pa is a Democrat and Levey and I are both staunch Republicans-so is Ma-Pa don't dare mention politics in the house, he goes over to South Boston or down to Salem Willows when he feels a political spell coming on. He don't have our company then. Ma says two marriages ought to change any man from a Democrat to a Republican, but it hasn't worked on Pa's const.i.tution yet. Harvard is just a dear, so many really handsome men, and fine fellows. Lots of them have automobiles and they make them hum. They say it's lots more fun driving a car above the speed limit and being chased by a policeman than it is to steal barber poles and store signs; they all have drop numbers on their cars, so no one has ever been caught yet. I have one on my Franklin. I had to use it one day, for I run a race with Harold Hill, of Brookline, and beat him by two miles, but I also beat the policeman, and Pa said he would give me credit for being my father's daughter. But you will laugh when I tell you Pa has been fined three times for fast speeding, but he has forgotten all about that and I haven't the heart to refresh his memory, Pa's such a dear. I went to a football game a year ago, and Alice Roosevelt was there, and a big crowd beside. I don't care for football. I think it's too much of a mush for comfort. I like golf.

Pa is a cracker jack on golf; he has friends in New Jersey who are fine players. Pa won a cup one year. It's a beauty. I like that sport. I can beat Levey Cohen every time. I rather play with him because I always get the game. Pa says Levey knows his business, but I don't care, so long as I get the game. Pa says: "Just wait, little girl, till you are married, and you will be surprised how much faster Levey will pick up his feet in golf than he does now." That's about the meanest thing Pa ever said to me in all his life. He won't get but two kisses, for saying that, this day. I usually count 80, but he will see that kisses have had a big slump since this morning, and he will be out altogether. He won't have margin enough to cover, I'll bet you, he'll be taken so off his feet. Pa has dabbled in stocks enough to know all the points of loss. He says he was a hoodoo on the market; when he sold stock went up, and when he bought they slumped, so he will say it's his regular luck. Poor, dear Pa, no one will ever know how much I love my father. He's the dearest man on earth-except Levey Cohen-he is next best. It would be an awfully bad thing if I didn't marry Levey Cohen, after all, but I will; he's the only right sort. I know others are good, but-he is goodiest of all. He always lets me have my own way and any girl likes that. My Pa thinks it's just awful to put any money on a horse, but my Uncle Smith from Buffalo is a live wire, and he took me to a race at Readville this spring and he put a thousand, 10 to 1, on b.u.msh.e.l.l, for me, and a thousand dollars for himself. When he gave me the $10,000 I took it home and showed it to Pa and he said: "Elsie, where did you get that money?"

and I said, "Off b.u.msh.e.l.l, he won the race." "Did your Uncle Smith back you?" "Sure he did, Pa" "Thunder! What does he mean? My daughter learning to gamble on the racetrack? Your Uncle Smith ought to know better than that." "Well, Pa, he said if we lost it would be a gamble, but if we won, why, it was O. K., so we won." Well, Pa put the money in the Charity box on Sunday and said he hoped it would do some poor cuss good, for I didn't need it, neither did he. I don't know what he will say to Uncle Smith when he sees him, but I am going to write and tell him to wait a little till Pa cools off. Ma said I had better tell Uncle Smith that Pa had suddenly gone up above par in gambling stock, and to wait till the excitement was over before he came in. Well, I telephoned him instead, and he waited two weeks and then asked me to ask Pa how the market was. That was too much for Pa. He laughed and said, "Tell Uncle Smith to come over to dinner now the cook's breath don't put the fire out." So we will have a jolly dinner and go to Keith's this evening.

So good-bye, for I hear Pa asking where his little girl is.

ELSIE.

LETTER IV

Well, dear little book, here I am again. We have all been down in Maine for six weeks. What a fine place "In the Good Old Summer Time." We went first to Rockland, then to Portland and Bangor. We used the Eastern Steamship Co. boats. They are certainly very nice, and have all the comforts of home, except bath-tubs. Pa says if they would only put in bath-tubs the public would call them blessed forever. At Bangor we were introduced to Mr. Lorison Appletree Booker; he is one of the youngest and smartest lawyers in New England. Pa says he knew his father and they were of fine stock. I had my Franklin car, so Pa asked Mr. Booker to show us about the city. Bangor is a nice city, but it don't have any barrooms in sight like most cities do. Pa says it's a matter of legislation whether they are in sight or not. Pa says a gla.s.s of their whiskey down there will make a man think he owns the State. Pa says he has never delivered any lectures on the temperance question, so he won't begin now. Pa says if you want to shoot big game go to Maine; if you want the finest trout in the world you will find them at Moosehead Lake, Maine; and if you want to tramp miles over hills and dales after golf b.a.l.l.s, go to Kineo, Maine, it's one of the grandest of all places in New England. If you want to see the ugliest woman on earth go to Lowell, Ma.s.s., she's there. I saw some fine automobiles in Bangor and Portland.

The people down there are all up-to-date; they know a good thing when they see it advertised. Pa says you can't do anything, these days, in business, if you don't advertise. Pa is great on advertising business of all sorts, he has helped many a firm out on ads to sell and display goods. Pa has his own ideas, and when he has sold them they have come high, but the one that followed them got a big pile of dough. Pa says the business man to-day must spend money to make money, and the one who places the best and most judicious advertising gets the most business.

Pa says even a business that's no good can be made good by advertising.

Advertising makes people think-some think right, some wrong, some look and wonder. Pa says there is only one sure way to get rich quick, and that is to marry a rich woman, any other way is a snare and delusion. Pa knows by experience that this is true, so he gives his knowledge free to save others from expensive experiences. Pa says that women should be very careful about getting married to strangers that can't really account for their silver and their business. He says to especially beware of any slick good talker you might meet in a bank where your hard earnings are deposited and you are afterwards made acquainted with the same man you saw hanging around at the bank. You remember noticing him because he looked pleasant and dressed nice. Well, Pa says look out and don't think of getting married to such a man, for he's only another hawk, and is after your bank-book; perhaps he's had twenty or fifty wives, one cannot tell. If you want to marry, grow up with the man, Pa says, as I have with Levey Cohen. I have known him ever since I was five years of age and I know he's the best and dearest boy that was ever-even Pa thinks Levey is a sparkling light, and I know I do, for he brings so many boxes of chocolates. I don't know which kind I like best yet, but sometime I will decide.

Well, so long, we are going to Bar Harbor in our car from here, so I won't write again for some days.

ELSIE.

LETTER V

We didn't go to Bar Harbor; we came back to Boston, for Pa had to see about one of his inventions-Pa's a wonderful man, he has invented lots of things-I don't dare record the name of his motor car, for he has arranged by phonography and electricity a whole band, and when he goes out by himself always turns on the power and a band plays wonderfully clear-sounds as if it were just coming up the street. People rush to the doors and throw up the windows, and look up and down the street, but no band appears, and as Pa rides up the street the sound gets fainter and fainter, till it vanishes into silence; then he will put on the echo, and they hear it all over again as distinct as before. They never connect Pa with the band, and I have been with him several times early in the morning and Levey Cohen has gone in the evening, and people are wondering what it all means. They wrote it up in the papers, but no one has yet found out what it is, or where it comes from. When they do I don't know what will happen. I am very sure I don't want to be around.

The other night we were coming home real late from a trip to Wonderland (say, that's a good name for that place; I have wondered a whole lot since I saw it). We had had a wonderful day, Pa and I (Pa is a dear. He will shoot the shoots, ride the roller coaster or stand on his head if I say so to have fun). Well, we were riding real slow in Pa's automobile, the nameless wonder, when all of a sudden I heard something that scared me. I heard a man's rough voice shout, "Hi, there! stop or I'll shoot!"

Pa stopped so quick that it shook the machine good and the band struck up "Where Is My Wandering Boy To-night?" The burglar listened for a moment, spellbound, took off his hat and bowed his head and said, "That's my sainted mother's favorite song, I have always been bad and my poor mother has died of a broken heart." Then as he proceeded with his story, Pa pulled out a second stop and the cornet played the second verse and a fine sweet tenor voice sang with such feeling that I nearly cried myself. The burglar was entirely broken up, and when the song ended and one of Sousa's marches began, the man pulled himself together and said, "Well, that song saved your garl darned neck, for I intended murder to get money. Good-bye, that band will be in sight in a minute and I don't care to be seen." So off he went; then we moved on. Pa put on the echo and it all came back, the moon came out and it was the most dreamy thing you ever heard. The burglar waited some moments by the roadside in the bushes for the band to appear, but none came. He pondered a moment, then said, "Strung, by gosh." When I got home I told Ma she had missed the best fun of her life, for I had had dreamland all day and all the way home besides. We didn't tell Ma about the burglar, she would have had a real fit. Pa says Ma is too timid for a real modern 1906 woman-said she should have been born in ye olden days, but I don't think so, my Ma is a darling and no one knows it better than Pa, either.

Sometimes I sing, "Where Is My Wandering Boy To-night," and Pa always laughs, and Ma don't see the point at all. She says it's sad, but Pa gets a fit of the giggles just like a girl and Levey Cohen and I have our hands full to keep Ma pleasant, for she thinks Pa is making fun of that poor wandering boy, when in reality Pa's only giving thanks in a vocal way of his scalp and pocketbook being saved by his wonderful invention of a band. We have a fine burglar-alarm, Pa made it. It's a cracker jack, I tell you what. When it is set, woe be to the one who tries to rob our house, he won't try only once. A stranger is sure to b.u.mp into a wire, but they are very small, yet they work wonders; they run about the walls and floors so close that no one sees them, but we put down the plates under the rugs at each door. When one steps on one of them plates it turns on the lights, opens the telephone to the police station and in three seconds any burglar would wish himself electrocuted for the things that happen before he can say Jack Robinson. If he isn't out of the house before three minutes the police get him, and there you are. Our gate has a red mark on it, small, but distinct. Pa says it is a warning for tramps and burglars to go by and not take the trouble to call. No one of that profession has ever called on us but once, and the police got them. They got 20 years and it is not time for them to call again for 19 years, they won't be out till then. All of that profession know that, and they think that the Shaw Mansion is a very nice place to let alone, so we surely are blessed. We don't put the silver away at night, for we feel sure it will be right where it was left the night before, even if that were out on the piazza.-or under the trees. Pa is a big man so he can do anything he likes.