we only known it, this fortunate accident probably saved Aggie'slife, for she sat down suddenly on the ground, and said faintly that herskull was fractured.
I was bending over Aggie when I heard a sharp crack from above. I lookedup, and Tish was lying full length on a limb, her arm out to reach forthe skirt and a most terrible expression on her face. There was anothercrack, and our poor Tish came hurtling through the air, landing half inAggie's lap and half in the suitcase.
I was quite unable to speak, and owing, as I learned later, to Tish'shead catching her near the waist line, Aggie had no breath even toscream.
There was a dreadful silence. Then Tish said, without moving:
"All my property is to go to Charlie Sands."
"Tish!" I cried, in an agony, and Aggie, who still could not speak,burst into tears.
However, a moment later, Tish drew up first one limb and then the other,and observed that her back was broken. She then mentioned that Aggie wasto have her cameo set and the dining room sideboard, and that I was tohave the automobile, but the next instant she felt a worm on her neckand sat up, looking rather dishevelled, but far from death.
"Where are you hurt, Tish?" I asked, trembling.
"Everywhere," she replied. "Everywhere, Lizzie. Every bone in my body isbroken."
But after a time the aching localized itself in her right arm, whichbegan to swell. We led her down to the creek and got her to hold it inthe cold water and Aggie, being still nervous and unsteady, slipped on amossy stone and sat down in about a foot of water. It was then that ourdear Tish became like herself again, for Aggie was shocked into saying,"Oh, damn!" and Tish gave her a severe lecture on profanity.
Tish was quite sure her arm was broken, as well as all the ribs on oneside. But she is a brave woman and made little fuss, although she keptpoking a finger into her flesh here and there.
"Because," she said, "the First Aid book says that if a lung ispunctured the air gets into the tissues, and they crackle on pressure."
It was soon after this that I saw Aggie, who had made no complaint aboutTish falling on her, furtively testing her own tissues to see if theycrackled.
Leaving my injured there by the creek, I went back to the tree andsecured my paling again. By covering it with straw from the barn I wasquite sure I could make a comfortable splint for Tish's arm. However, Ihad but just reached the barn and was preparing to crawl through awindow by standing on a rain barrel when I saw Tish limping after me.
"Well?" she said. "What idiotic idea is in your head, Lizzie? Because ifit is more eggs----"
"I am going to get some straw and make a splint."
"Nonsense. What for?"
"What do you suppose I intend it for?" I demanded, tartly. "To trim ahat?"
"I won't have a splint."
"Very well," I retorted. "Then I shall get some straw and start a fireto dry Aggie out."
"You'll stick in that window," Tish said, in what, in a smaller woman,would have been a vicious tone.
"Look here, Tish," I said, balancing on the edge of the rain barrel, "isthere something in this barn you do not wish me to see?"
She looked at me steadily.
"Yes," she said. "There is, Lizzie. And I'll ask you to promise on yourhonor not to mention it."
That promise I am glad to say I have kept until now, when the need ofsecrecy is past, Tish herself having divulged the truth. But at the timeI was greatly agitated, and indeed almost fell into the rain barrel.
"Or try to find out what it is," Tish went on, sternly.
I promised, of course, and Tish relaxed somewhat, although I caught hereye on me once or twice, as though she was daring me to so much as guessat the secret.
"Of course, Lizzie," she said, as we approached Aggie, "it is nothing Iam ashamed of."
"Of course not," I replied hastily. I took my courage in my hands andfaced her. "Tish, have you an aeroplane hidden in that barn?"
"No," she replied promptly. She might have enlarged on her denial, butAggie took a violent sneezing spell just then, pressing herself betweenparoxysms to see if she crackled, and we decided to go home at once.
Here a new difficulty presented itself. Tish could not drive the car! Ishall never forget my anguish when she turned to me and said:
"You will have to drive us home, Lizzie."
"Never!" I cried.
"It's perfectly easy," she went on. "If children can run them, and theidiots they have in garages and on taxicabs----"
"Never," I said firmly. "It may be easy, but it took you six months,Tish Carberry, and three broken springs and any number of dead chickensand animals, besides the time you went through a bridge, and the nightyou drove off the end of a dock. It may be easy, but if it is, I'drather do something hard."
"I shall sit beside you, Lizzie," she said, in a patient voice. "Idaresay you know which is your right foot and which is your left. Ifnot, I can tell you. I shall say 'left' when I want you to push out theclutch, and 'right' for the brake. As for gears, I can change them foryou with my left hand."
"I could do it sitting in a chair," I said, in a despairing voice. "ButTish," I said, in a last effort, "do you remember when you tried toteach me to ride a bicycle? And that the moment I saw something to avoidI made a mad dash for it?"
"This is different," Tish said. "It is a car----"
"And that I rode about a quarter of a mile into Lake Penzance, and wouldlikely have ridden straight across if I hadn't run into a canoe andupset it?"
"You can always _stop_ a car," said Tish. "Don't be a coward, Lizzie.All you have to do is to shove hard with your right foot."
Yet, when I did exactly that, she denied she had ever said it. Fond as Iam of Tish, I must admit that she has a way of forgetting things shedoes not wish to remember.
In the end I consented. It was against my better judgment, and I warnedTish. I have no talent for machinery, but indeed a great fear of it,since the time when as a child I was visiting my grand-aunt's farm andalmost lost a finger in a feed-cutter. In addition to that, Tish'saccident and her secret had both unnerved me. I knew that calamity facedus as I took my place at the wheel.
Tish was still in her petticoat, as we were obliged to leave her dressskirt in the tree, and Aggie was wrapped in the rug to prevent hertaking cold.
"When we meet a buggy," Tish said, "we'd better go past it rather fast.I don't ache to be seen in a seersucker petticoat."
"Fast," I said, bitterly. "You'd better pray that we go past it at all."
However, by going very slowly, I got the thing as far as the gate goinginto the road. Here there was a hill, and we began to move too rapidly.
"Slower," said Tish. "You've got to make a turn here."
"How?" I cried, frantically.
"Brake!" she yelled.
"Which foot?"
"Right foot. _Right foot!_"
However, it seems that my right foot was on the gas throttle at thetime, which she had forgotten. I jammed my foot down hard, and the carseemed to lift out of the air. We went across the ditch, through a stakeand rider fence, through a creek and up the other side of the bank, andbrought up against a haystack with a terrific jolt.
Tish sat back and straightened her hat with a jerk.
"We'd better go back and do it again, Lizzie," she said, "because youmissed one or two things."
"I did what you told me," I replied, sullenly.
"Did you?" said Tish. "I don't remember telling you to leap the creek.Of course, cross-country motoring has its advantages. Only one reallyshould have solid tires, because barbed wire fences might be awkward."
She then sat back and rested.
"Well?" I said.
"Well?" said Tish.
"What am I to do now?"
"Oh!" she said. "I thought you preferred doing it your own way. I don'tobject, if you don't. You are quite right. Roads do become monotonous.Only I doubt, Lizzie, if you can get over this stack. You'd better goaround it."
"Very well," I said. "My own way is to walk home, Tish
Carberry. And ifyou think I am going to steer a runaway automobile you can think again."
Aggie had said nothing, but I now turned and saw her, pale and shaken,taking a sip of the blackberry cordial we always carry with us foremergencies. I suggested that she drive the thing home, but she onlyshook her head and muttered something about almost falling out of theback end of the car when we leaped up out of the creek. She had, sheasserted, been clear up on the folded-back top, and had stayed thereuntil the jolt against the haystack had thrown her forward into