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The Steamer covered the miles like an angel. It would do fifty miles an hour — great then — but I did not push it. I was trying to consider Old A
She must not have been out of Walley for more years than I had been alive. When we crossed the bridge at Saltford (that old iron bridge where there used to be so many accidents because of the turn at both ends), she said that there didn’t used to be a bridge there, you had to pay a man to row you.
“I couldn’t pay but I crossed on the stones and just hiked up my skirts and waded,” she said. “It was that dry a summer.”
Naturally I did not know what summer she was talking about.
Then it was, Look at the big fields, where are the stumps gone, where is the bush? And look how straight the road goes, and they’re building their houses out of brick! And what are those buildings as big as churches?
Barns, I said.
I knew my way to Carstairs all right but expected help from Old A
It was a factory town, not very pretty in my opinion. The Steamer of course got attention, and I was able to call out for directions to the Herron farm without stopping the engine. Shouts and gestures and finally I was able to get us on the right road. I told Old A
“Look there!” Old A
There were enough people around. A couple of visiting buggies were pulled up in the shade, horses tethered and cropping grass. By the time the Steamer stopped at the side veranda, a number were lined up to look at it. They didn’t come forward — not even the children ran out to look close up the way town children would have done. They all just stood in a row looking at it in a tight-lipped sort of way.
Old A
She told me to get down. Get down, she said, and ask them if there is a Mr. George Herron that lives here and is he alive yet, or dead?
I did what I was told. And one of the men said, that’s right. He is. My father.
Well, I have brought somebody, I told them. I have brought Mrs. A
The man said, that so?
(A pause here due to a couple of fainting-fits and a trip to the hospital. Lots of tests to use up the taxpayers’ money. Now I’m back and have read this over, astounded at the rambling but too lazy to start again. I have not even got to Treece Herron, which is the part you are interested in, but hold on, I’m nearly there.)
These people were all dumbfounded about Old A
This ma
We must have arrived just after they finished their di
We were taken to the dining-room which had an unused smell — they must have had their di
Old A
Old A
The woman of the house came back and spoke to me again through the divinity student. She told him that Grandpa was up now and sitting on the front porch. She looked at the children and said, “What did you let all them in here for?”
Out we trooped to the front porch, where two straight-backed chairs were set up and an old man settled on one of them. He had a beautiful full white beard reaching down to the bottom of his waistcoat. He did not seem interested in us. He had a long, pale, obedient old face.
Old A
I SPENT THE afternoon giving rides in the Stanley Steamer. I knew enough about them now not to start in asking who wanted a ride, or bombarding them with questions, such as, were they interested in automobiles? I just went out and patted it here and there as if it was a horse, and I looked in the boiler. The divinity student came behind and read the name of the Steamer written on the side. THE GENTLEMAN’S SPEEDSTER. He asked was it my father’s.
Mine, I said. I explained how the water in the boiler was heated and how much steam-pressure the boiler could withstand. People always wondered about that — about explosions. The children were closer by that time and I suddenly remarked that the boiler was nearly empty. I asked if there was any way I could get some water.