Mr. Hawkins" Humorous Adventures.
by Edgar Franklin.
CHAPTER I.
Hawkins is part inventor and part idiot.
Hawkins has money, which generally mitigates idiocy; but in his case it also allows free rein to his inventive genius, and that is a bad thing.
When I decided to build a nice, quiet summer home in the Berkshires, I paid for the ground before discovering that the next villa belonged to Hawkins.
Had I known then what I know now, my country-seat would be located somewhere in central Illinois or western Oregon; but at that time my knowledge of Hawkins extended no farther than the facts that he resided a few doors below me in New York, and that we exchanged a kindly smile every morning on the L.
One day last August, having mastered the mechanism of our little steam runabout, my wife ventured out alone, to call upon Mrs. Hawkins.
I am not a worrying man, but automobile repairs are expensive, and when she had been gone an hour or so I strolled toward our neighbors.
The auto I was relieved to find standing before the door, apparently in good health, and I had already turned back when Hawkins came trotting along the drive from the stable.
"Just in time, Griggs, just in time!" he cried, exuberantly.
"In time for what?"
"The first trial of--"
"Now, see here, Hawkins--" I began, preparing to flee, for I knew too well the meaning of that light in his eyes.
"The Hawkins Horse-brake!", he finished, triumphantly.
"Hawkins," I said, solemnly, "far be it from me to disparage your work; but I recall most distinctly the Hawkins Aero-motor, which moted you to the top of that maple tree and dropped you on my devoted head. I also have some recollection of your gasolene milker, the one that exploded and burned every hair off the starboard side of my best Alderney cow.
If you are bent on trying something new, hold it off until I can get my poor wife out of harm"s way."
Hawkins favored me with a stare that would have withered a row of hardy sunflowers and turned his eyes to the stable.
Something was being led toward us from that direction.
The foundation of the something I recognized as Hawkins" aged work horse, facetiously christened Maud S. The superstructure was the most remarkable collection of mechanism I ever saw.
Four tall steel rods stuck into the air at the four corners of the animal. They seemed to be connected in some way to a machine strapped to the back of the saddle.
I presume the machine was logical enough if you understood it, but beyond noting that it bore striking resemblance to the vital organs of a clock, I cannot attempt a description.
"That will do, Patrick," said Hawkins, taking the bridle and regarding his handiwork with an enraptured smile. "Well, Griggs, frankly, what do you think of it?"
"Frankly," I said, "when I look at that thing, I feel somehow incapable of thought."
"I rather imagined that it would take your eye," replied Hawkins, complacently. "Now, just see the simplicity of the thing, Griggs. Drop your childish prejudices for a minute and examine it.
"Let us suppose that this brake is fitted to a fiery saddle-horse. The rider has lost all control. In another minute, unless he can stop the beast, he will be dashed to the ground and kicked into pulp. What does he do? Simply pulls this lever--thus! The animal can"t budge!"
An uncanny clankety-clankety-clank accompanied his words, and the rods dropped suddenly. In their descent they somehow managed to gather two steel cuffs apiece.
When they ceased dropping, Maud S. had a steel bar down the back of each leg, with a cuff above and a cuff below the knee. Hawkins was quite right--so far as I could see; Maud was anch.o.r.ed until some well-disposed person brought a hack-saw and cut off her shackles.
"You see how it acts when she is standing still?" chuckled the inventor, replacing the rods. "Just keep your eyes open and note the suddenness with which she stops running."
"Hawkins," I cried, despairingly, as he led the animal up the road, "don"t go to all that trouble on my account. I can see perfectly that the thing is a success. Don"t try it again."
"My dear Griggs," said Hawkins, coldly, "this trial trip is for my own personal satisfaction, not yours. To tell the truth, I had no idea that you or any one else would be here to witness my triumph."
He went perhaps three or four hundred feet up the road; then he turned Maud"s nose homeward and clambered to her back.
As I waited behind the hedge, I grieved for the old mare. Hawkins evidently intended urging her into something more rapid than the walk she had used for so many years, and I feared that at her advanced age the excitement might prove injurious.
But Maud broke into such a sedate canter when Hawkins had thumped her ribs a few times with his heels, and her kindly old face seemed to wear such a gentle expression as she approached, that I breathed easier.
"Now, Griggs!" cried Hawkins, coming abreast. "Watch--now!"
He thrust one hand behind, grasped the lever, and gave it a tug. The little rods remained in the air.
A puzzled expression flitted over Hawkins" face, and as he cantered by he appeared to tug a trifle harder.
This time something happened.
I heard a whir like the echo of a sawmill, and saw several yards of steel spring shoot out of the inwards of the machine. I heard a sort of frantic shriek from Maud S. I saw a sudden cloud of pebbles and dust in the road, such as I should imagine would be kicked up by an exploding sh.e.l.l--and that was all.
Hawkins, Maud, and the infernal machine were making for the county town with none of the grace, but nearly all the speed, of a shooting star.
For a few seconds I stood dazed.
Then it occurred to me that Hawkins" wife would later wish to know what his dying words had been, and I went into the auto with a flying leap, sent it about in its own length, almost jumped the hedge, and thus started upon a race whose memory will haunt me when greater things have faded into the forgotten past.
My runabout, while hardly a racer, is supposed to have some pretty speedy machinery stored away in it, but the engine had a big undertaking in trying to overhaul that old mare.
It was painfully apparent that something--possibly righteous indignation at being the victim of one of Hawkins" experiments--had roused a latent devil within Maud S. Her heels were viciously threshing up the dirt at the foot of the hill before I began my blood-curdling coast at the top.
How under the sun anything could go faster than did that automobile is beyond my conception; yet when I reached the level ground again and breathed a little prayer of thanks that an all-wise Providence had spared my life on the hill, Hawkins seemed still to have the same lead.
That he was traveling like a hurricane was evidenced by the wake of fear-maddened chickens and barking dogs that were just recovering their senses when I came upon them.
I put my lever back to the last notch.
Heavens, how that auto went! It rocked from one side of the road to the other. It bounded over great stones and tried to veer into ditches, with the express purpose of hurling me to destruction.
It snorted and puffed and rattled and skidded; but above all, it went!
There is no use attempting a record of my impressions during that first half mile--in fact, I am not aware that I had any. But after a time I drew nearer to Hawkins, and at last came within thirty feet of the galloping Maud.