Steve and the Steam Engine Part 3

"Why, if it isn't O'Malley! I did not recognize you, Jake. You are just in time to extricate us from a most inconvenient situation. We are headed for Northampton and find ourselves without gasoline. If you can take my son along to Torrington with you so he can hunt up a garage and ride back with some one on a service car I shall be very grateful to you."

"I'd be glad to go myself, sir."

"No, no! I shall not allow you to do that," protested Mr. Tolman. "You are on your way to work and I could not think of detaining you. All I ask is that you take my boy along to the village."

"I'd really be pleased to go, sir," reiterated O'Malley. "I am in no great rush."

"No, I shan't hear to it, Jake," Mr. Tolman repeated. "Nevertheless I appreciate your offer. Take the boy along and that is all I'll ask.

Come, Steve, jump aboard! O'Malley, son, is one of our railroad people, whose services we value highly. He is going to be good enough to let you ride over to Torrington with him."

Although the introduction compelled Stephen to give the waiting employee a nod of greeting, he did not meet his eye or evince any sign of recognition, and he sensed that the light that had flashed into the man's face at sight of him died out as quickly as it had come. The boy had an uncomfortable realization as he climbed to the seat of the truck and took his place beside its driver that O'Malley must be rating him as a sn.o.b. No one but a cad would accept a stranger's kindness and then cut him dead the next time he encountered him. It was better to endure this misjudgment, however, than to acknowledge a previous acquaintance with the mechanic and thereby arouse his father's suspicion and curiosity.

Hence, without further parley, he settled himself and in silence the truck started off.

For some minutes he waited, expecting that when they were well out of earshot of the family the man at the wheel would turn and with a laugh make some reference to the adventure of the past week. It certainly must have amused him to find the great red car again stalled in the same spot, and what would be more natural than that he should comment on the coincidence and perhaps make a joke of the circ.u.mstance? But to the boy's chagrin the teamster did no such thing. Instead he kept his eyes fixed on the road and gave no evidence that he had ever before seen the lad at his elbow.

Stephen was aghast. It was not possible the workman had forgotten the happening. He began to feel very uncomfortable. As the landscape slipped past and the car sped on, the distance to Torrington lessened. Still there seemed to be no prospect of the stranger at the wheel breaking his silence. If it had merely been a silence perhaps Steve would not have minded so much; but there was an implied rebuke in the stillness that nettled and stung and left him with a consciousness of being ignored by a superior being.

"I say!" he burst out, when he could endure the ignominy of his position no longer, "don't you remember me, Mr. O'Malley?"

The man who guided the car did not turn his head but he nodded.

"I remember you all right," replied he politely. "I just thought you did not remember me."

"Oh, I remembered you right away," declared Steve eagerly.

"Did you?"

There was a subtle irony in the tone that the lad was not clever enough to detect.

"Of course."

"Is that so!" came dryly from O'Malley.

"Yes, indeed! I remembered you right away," Steve stumbled on. "You are the man who gave me the gasoline when I was stuck here Wednesday."

"I am."

"I knew you the first minute I saw you," repeated Stephen.

"I did not notice any sign that you did," was the terse response.

"Oh--well--you see, I couldn't very well speak back there," explained Steve with confusion. "They would all have wanted to know where I--I mean I would have to--it would just have made a lot of talk," concluded he lamely.

For the first time the elder man, moving his eyes from the ribbon of gleaming highway, confronted him.

"So your father did not know you had the car out the other day?" said he.

"N--o."

The workman showed no surprise.

"I guessed as much," he remarked. "But of course you have told him since."

"Not yet," Steve stammered. "I was going to--honest I was; but things kept interrupting until it got to be so late that it seemed silly to rake the matter all up. Besides, I shan't do it again, so what is the use of jawing about it?"

He stopped, awaiting a response from the railroad employee; but none came.

"Anyhow," he argued with rising irritability, "what good does it do to discuss things that are over and done with? You can't undo them."

The man at the wheel vouchsafed no answer.

"It is because I forgot to stop for more gas when I went home the other day that we are in this fix now," Steve finally blurted out, finding relief in brutal confession.

Still the only reply to his monologue was the chugging of the engine.

At last his voice rose to a higher pitch and there was anger in it.

"I'm talking to you," he shouted in exasperation.

"I am listening."

"Well, why don't you say something?"

"What is there to say?"

"Why--eh--you could tell me what you think."

"I guess you know that already."

Stephen's face turned scarlet.

"I did intend to tell my father," repeated he, instantly on the defensive. "Straight goods, I did."

The man shrugged his shoulders.

"It was only that it didn't seem to come right. You know how things go sometimes."

He saw the workman's lip curl.

"You think I ought to have told."

"Have I said so?"

"No, but I know you do think so."

"I wasn't aware I'd expressed any opinion."

"No--but--well--hang it all--you think I am a coward for not making a clean breast of the whole thing!" cried Stephen, now thoroughly enraged.