"Quiet as a swan's feather." They felt him breathe softly in their faces. "Listen." They listened. "The storage batteries are fully charged and ready now! Listen! Not a tremor, not a sound. Electric, ladies. You recharge it every night in your garage."
"It couldn't--that is--" The younger sister gulped some iced tea. "It couldn't electrocute us accidently?"
"Perish the thought!"
He vaulted to the machine again, his teeth like those you saw in dental windows, alone, grimacing at you, as you passed by late at night.
"Tea parties!" He waltzed the runabout in a circle. "Bridge clubs. Soirees. Galas. Luncheons. Birthday gatherings! D.A.R. breakfasts." He purred away as if running off forever. He returned in a rubber-tired hush. "Gold Star Mother suppers." He sat primly, corseted by his supple characterization of a woman. "Easy steering. Silent, elegant arrivals and departures. No license needed. On hot days--take the breeze. Ah ..." He glided by the porch, head back, eyes closed deliciously, hair tousling in the wind thus cleanly sliced through.
He trudged reverently up the porch stairs, hat in hand, turning to gaze at the trial model as at the altar of a familiar church. "Ladies," he said softly, "twenty-five dollars down. Ten dollars a month, for two years."
Fern was first down the steps onto the double seat. She sat apprehensively. Her hand itched. She raised it. She dared tweak the rubber bulb horn.
A seal barked.
Roberta, on the porch, screamed hilariously and leaned over the railing.
The salesman joined their hilarity. He escorted the older sister down the steps, roaring, at the same time taking out his pen and searching in his straw hat for some piece of paper or other.
"And so we bought it!" remembered Miss Roberta, in the attic, horrified at their nerve. "We should've been warned! Always did think it looked like a little car off the carnival roller coaster!"
"Well," said Fern defensively, "my hip's bothered me for years, and you always get tired walking. It seemed so refined, so regal. Like in the old days when women wore hoop skirts. They sailed! The Green Machine sailed so quietly."
Like an excursion boat, wonderfully easy to steer, a baton handle you twitched with your hand, so.
Oh, that glorious and enchanted first week--the magical afternoons of golden light, humming through the shady town on a dreaming, timeless river, seated stiffly, smiling at passing acquaintances, sedately purring out their wrinkled claws at every turn, squeezing a hoarse cry from the black rubber horn at intersections, sometimes letting Douglas or Tom Spaulding or any of the other boys who trotted, chatting, alongside, hitch a little ride. Fifteen slow and pleasurable miles an hour top speed. They came and went through the summer sunlight and shadow, their faces freckled and stained by passing trees, going and coming like an ancient, wheeled vision.
"And then," whispered Fern, "this afternoon! Oh, this afternoon!"
"It was an accident."
"But we ran away, and that's criminal!"
This noon. The smell of the leather cushions under their bodies, the gray perfume smell of their own sachets trailing back as they moved in their silent Green Machine through the small, languorous town.
It happened quickly. Rolling soft onto the sidewalk at noon, because the streets were blistering and fiery, and the only shade was under the lawn trees, they had glided to a blind corner, bulbing their throaty horn. Suddenly, like a jack-in-the-box, Mister Quartermain had tottered from nowhere!
"Look out!" screamed Miss Fern.
"Look out!" screamed Miss Roberta.
"Look out!" cried Mister Quartermain.
The two women grabbed each other instead of the steering stick.
There was a terrible thud. The Green Machine sailed on in the hot daylight, under the shady chestnut trees, past the ripening apple trees. Looking back only once, the two old ladies' eyes filled with faded horror.
The old man lay on the sidewalk, silent.
"And here we are," mourned Miss Fern in the darkening attic. "Oh, why didn't we stop! Why did we run away?"
"Shh!" They both listened.
The rapping downstairs came again.
When it stopped they saw a boy cross the lawn in the dim light. "Just Douglas Spaulding come for a ride again." They both sighed.
The hours passed; the sun was going down.