Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell [56]
Several automobiles passed them at high speed, going up the hill and coming down, but none of them slowed up or stopped to offer help.
Another car was coming slowly up the hill behind them. It was coming very slowly in low gear, and it was steaming like Bessie’s new car. As it chugged slowly past them, some of the negroes leaned out and looked at the stalled automobile.
One of them called to Jeeter.
“What’s the matter with your automobile, white-folks? It looks like it ain’t going to run no more.”
“By God and by Jesus!” Jeeter said, angrily. “What’s your name, nigger? Where you from?”
“We come from Burke County,” he said. “What you want to know that for, white-folks?”
Before Jeeter could say anything more, the negroes’ car was a hundred yards up the hill, and gaining speed. Jeeter had been going to make them pull Bessie’s car up the hill, if he could have stopped them.
Dude cranked up the engine and put the car into gear. Jeeter and Bessie hopped on the running-board just in time, because Dude soon had the car going fast. The engine had cooled, and they were going faster than the negroes’ car. They gained on the car ahead and were getting ready to pass it, when suddenly the engine began knocking louder than ever, and they came to a stop.
“This is the durndest automobile I ever saw,” Jeeter said. “It don’t do the same thing long enough to make me accustomed.”
They had stopped this time on top of the hill. Dude was getting ready to let it roll down, when Jeeter saw the filling-station, and he told Dude to wait a minute.
“I’ll bring some water and put it in,” he said.
He crossed the road and went into the filling-station. He was back in a few minutes carrying a bucket of water. The man who ran the station came out with him.
While Jeeter was unscrewing the radiator cap, the other man was raising the hood to measure the oil.
“The trouble with you people, brother,” he said, “is you ain’t got a drop of oil in your car. Your bearings is burned out. How far did you come from?”
Jeeter told him they lived near Fuller on the old tobacco road.
“You’ve already ruined your new car,” he said. “That’s a shame. I hate to see people who don’t know no better ruining automobiles.”
“What’s wrong with it now?” Bessie said.
“Your new car is ruined, sister. It’ll take a gallon and a half of oil to put enough in it to run on. Do you want me to fill it up for you?”
“How much does it cost?” Bessie said.
“A dollar and a half.”
“I didn’t aim to pay out money on it.”
“Well, it won’t run no more unless you put oil in it. It looks to me like you didn’t have enough in it to start with.”
“I ain’t got but two dollars,” she said. “I was going to buy gasoline with most of that.”
“Me and Dude ain’t got none,” Jeeter said. “But when I sell this load of wood, I’ll have a dollar and a half, maybe.”
“You pour the oil into it,” Bessie said. “I don’t want to ruin my new automobile. I bought it brand new in Fuller yesterday.”
“It’s already ruint, sister,” the man said, “but you’ll have to put oil in it if you’re going in to Augusta and back to Fuller again.”
They waited while he poured the oil in, and then Bessie gave him the money. She had the bills tied in a handkerchief, and it took her several minutes to untie the hard knots.
Dude started the engine, and they moved slowly off the hill-top and rolled down the long grade to Augusta. The car was running like new again by the time they reached the bottom of the hill, but the engine made more noise than the one in Jeeter’s car. The bearings and connecting rods were so loose they made a jingling sound when the car was going more than fifteen miles an hour down hill.
Chapter XVI
THREE HOURS HAD already been spent in trying to sell the load of blackjack. Apparently there was not a man in Augusta who wanted to buy it. At some of the houses Jeeter went to, the people at first said they needed wood, but after they had asked him how much he wanted for it they were suspicious. Jeeter told them he was asking only a dollar, and then they asked him if he were selling split pine at that small