So Mama filled the tank, kicked the tires, and polished up the horn. At dawn, Mr. Floy, in a racing cap put on backwards, and Aunt Fran, in a linen shroud, were ready…
They left in a belch of smoke. Mama felt sure this time, alone, they would get together. The salt-water taffy would do something to them.
We were to leave by train the next morning. We went to bed to get a goo night's rest, and Papa had just put out the mouse trap (we didn't keep a cat) and come to bed after winding Gramp's best clock… when someone knocked at the door.
Papa went down and then called Mama, and Mama went down and I went down after them. There stood the remains of Aunt Fran… she was covered with car grease, her right eye was closed, and half her clothing was in shreds. She made small, moaning sounds, and a large farmer held her up with a red fist…
“Fran!” said Mama.
“Found her and a dude in my cow pasture about noon…”
“Sara,” said Fran weakly.
“Fran!” said Mama.
“Damndest wreck I ever did see,” sai the farmer. “Ain't enough car left to bait a goat…”
Fran was moaning in Mama's arms. “He's a fiend… a fiend…”
“Sh, sh,” said Mama.
Fran sobbed. “He insisted on going thirty miles an hour all the way!”
Papa took the farmer into the kitchen for a drink. “She all gone, that car?” he asked the farmer.
“Not enough left to patch a bucket…”
Papa sighed. “Well… it's no goo thinking you can't replace the horse… But anyway, in this family, the event has been delayed.” And he had two more with the farmer, and I helped Mama push Fran upstairs.
So passed our first Model T. And Mr. Eloy married the dark-haired girl (who really smoked cigarettes and read Henry James and wanted to collect Gibson girl prints). She made him very happy.
Mama felt Fran would remain an ol maid… nineteen years old and not married yet… but Fran said she could afford to wait until she was twenty-one… and Mama never mentioned the Model T again.
Papa must have felt she had forgotten it… but just before dusk one day, while we were sitting on the front porch watching the fireflies light up, Mama turned to Papa and asked, “Henry, is a Buick something connected with a car? Mrs. Estabrook was talking Buicky all afternoon at tea.”
Papa said he had to see how supper was going and went in to make a sauce…
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