nied she had ever said it. Fond as I
am of Tish, I must admit that she has a way of forgetting things she
does not wish to remember.

In the end I consented. It was against my better judgment, and I warned
Tish. 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 and
almost lost a finger in a feed-cutter. In addition to that, Tish's
accident and her secret had both unnerved me. I knew that calamity faced
us as I took my place at the wheel.

Tish was still in her petticoat, as we were obliged to leave her dress
skirt in the tree, and Aggie was wrapped in the rug to prevent her
taking 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 going
into 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 the
time, which she had forgotten. I jammed my foot down hard, and the car
seemed to lift out of the air. We went across the ditch, through a stake
and rider fence, through a creek and up the other side of the bank, and
brought 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 you
missed 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 really
should 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't
object, 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 go
around it."

"Very well," I said. "My own way is to walk home, Tish Carberry. And if
you think I am going to steer a runaway automobile you can think again."

Aggie had said nothing, but I now turned and saw h