Gus Wilson, proprietor of the Model
Garage, came across the stalled pickup on a steep grade on the Cedar Creek
route. A blazing summer sun beat down on a startling variety of household
goods. Gus, halting his truck behind the pickup, noted a hutch of white
rabbits resting on the open tailgate and, inside, several baskets of what
appeared to be food, a couple of rolled-up tents, fishing poles, folding
chairs, a folding table, and odds and ends of camping gear.
A tall, spare man uncoiled from the
shade of the truck to peer uncertainly at Gus.
"I'm Gus Wilson," the Model Garage
owner announced. "A passing car told me that you needed a mechanic."
"She won't pull the grade," the man
said, his voice holding a note of complete discouragement. "The kids have
been looking forward to this camping trip out on Eagle Lake for weeks, but
at this rate I don't know if we're ever going to get there. It seems like it
takes a mechanic to get us over every stiff grade the last hundred miles."
"I see," Gus said.
"If that's the mechanic," a woman
called from the cab, "don't you hold him up with jawing at him, Henry
Morgan."
Deciding that he was up against a
routine case of gas starvation, Gus blew out the gas line, checked the tank
for fuel, inspected the fuel pump and carburetor-float setting. He cleaned
the carburetor and filter screen, made sure that the gasket of the ceramic
filter unit wasn't sucking air, blew out the carburetor jets, inspected the
windshield-wiper vacuum line for leaks and tightened the intake manifold.
Then, to make certain that he wasn't scouting the wrong track, he ran a
routine ignition check. After that, he started the motor, moved around to
look into the exhaust pipe. The whitish color of the inside of the pipe
convinced him of good compression and clean firing.
Turning, Gus found himself looking
into the eyes of a half-circle of children, ranging from about three to 10
years old. They stood there, silent and big-eyed, three overhauled and
cow-licked boys and a tiny, honey-haired girl.
"Our rabbits are thirsty," the little
girl said. "They haven't had any water all day."
"Don't bother the mechanic,
children," Mrs. Morgan interrupted as she stepped from the cab, a buxom,
motherly woman, the strain of worry and heat on her pleasant features.
"No bother, lady," Gus told her, his
eyes moving to where the rabbits lay, sides heaving in tortured breathing.
"There's some shade trees over the
hill," he told Morgan. "Let's try to pull over. I'll drive right behind
you."
The pickup started off with a surge of
power. It was about a mile to the top of the Cedar Creek grade and the
pickup almost made it before it faltered to a stop and the engine died.
"Made quite a piece," Morgan remarked,
avoiding Gus's eyes.
The children descended from the car to
swarm around Gus.
"You didn't fix it," the little girl
declared accusingly, her eyes straying to the rabbit hutch.
Gus smiled down at her, touched her
hair with his hand.
"Why don't you kids get some water
from that tank in my service car for your rabbits," he said. "There's a
canvas there, too. Put it over the hutch for shade."
Their eyes lit up as they ran toward
the service car.
"We're country people," Mrs. Morgan
said quietly. "Our kids sort of take to animals."
"I know," Gus told her. He tightened
all fuel-line connections, removed the ceramic filter unit and replaced it
with a new one. Water and other foreign elements sometimes clogged these
units.
"Let's try it again," he told Morgan.
When the motor started, Gus saw the
pulsations of the pump instantly fill the glass bowl of the filter element.
Then, with the children all aboard, the truck pulled to the top of the
grade, where Morgan parked on the shoulder.
"Seems to be all right now," he said.
"I'll pay you and we'll be on our way."
Gus cocked an ear to the nicely idling
motor, eyes wary.
"Let's get this straight," he said.
"You've been calling in mechanics every time you hit a steep grade for the
last hundred miles. They always get you rolling over the grades but the
trouble occurs again. That doesn't sound right to me - there's something
screwy here."
"Seems that way," Morgan said. "You're
the fifth man we've had work on this rig. They all seemed to think that they
had us fixed up for good. We always hoped that they were right. They
weren't."
"Any mechanic worth his salt," Gus
said, "would spot this as gas trouble the minute he laid eyes on it. Any
mechanic would undoubtedly do the same things I did, and someone has put on
a new gas pump recently. What has me puzzled is why these fellows, including
myself, got your load over a steep grade if they didn't fix whatever was
wrong. Now if you'll pull down into the shade of those trees, I'll
take another look."
It was hot, and as Gus walked back to
his service car he found himself hungering for a cold, thick, malted milk,
so thick that when you tried to suck it up with a straw, the straw flattened
and you had to use a spoon. Gus smacked his lips and drove beneath the
trees.
He approached the job now with an air
of fresh determination. Under the watchful eyes of the children Gus cut the
valve stem out of an old inner tube, together with a portion of the
surrounding rubber. He removed the gas-tank cap, placed the opening of the
bottom of the valve over the tank filler pipe and wound the balance of the
rubber tightly about the pipe, tying it securely. He then attached a tire
pump to the valve stem and had Morgan pump vigorously as he crawled about
under the pickup. He traced the gas line from tank to carburetor for leaks
but found none.
He crawled out, lifted the hood and
looked at the motor, a baffled expression on his face. He shook the dirt
from his graying hair, and with a stubborn look got a jack from the service
car.
"Pump a bit more, will you, Morgan?"
he said, as he jacked up the rear wheel and rammed his head under the
fender.
Slowly, a barely perceptible spot of
moisture appeared on the line. It was something that a person almost
imagined he saw, disappearing in the heat of the day as fast as it showed.
"Ah!" Gus grunted, pulling his head
from beneath the fender, moving to get a hacksaw and brass tubing connector
from his kit. He released the air from the line, sawed it in two, coupled it
together again.
"I have an idea that she'll take you
now," he told Morgan.
"We'd admire to have you eat a bite
with us," Morgan said, nodding to where Mrs. Morgan had spread a picnic
lunch.
Gus was about to decline the
invitation when the honey-haired little girl came to slip her hand in his.
"You're the nicest mechanic we ever
had," she declared solemnly. "You saved our rabbits."
"Thank you," Gus told her, smiling.
"It's been a long time since I picnicked with a pretty girl."
Sitting in the shade with a sandwich
in hand, Gus explained to the Morgans what their trouble had been.
"Lack of gas on steep grades," he
said, "is such a common occurrence in this business that we mechanics have
pretty well adopted a routine trouble-shooting schedule for it. When I found
that several mechanics had worked on your rig, and all muffed it, I knew
that it had to be something out of the ordinary. Holes and leaks in gas
lines are, of course, common - most mechanics would spot such a thing at
once. But this hole was so small that it was practically nonexistent. It
neither leaked gas nor sucked air, except when you got on a very steep, long
grade with a load.
"You see," Gus went on, "a motor
naturally requires more gas on a heavy pull. The gas pump takes a longer
diaphragm stroke, creates more vacuum pull on the line. It is also pulling
the gas uphill, against the pull of gravity. Only under these conditions did
this pinhole in your line cause trouble. I first suspected it when I thought
I saw tiny air bubbles in your glass filter bowl just as we topped the
trade.
Such tiny bubbles, if the grade were
long enough, would build up an air lock in the line and starve out the
motor."
"Why didn't those other mechanics find
it?" Morgan wanted to know. "They fixed us enough to pull the grades."
"Because," Gus told him, and he
grimaced, "of routine procedure in a case like this. Each mechanic
immediately uncoupled the gas line and spun the motor to see if the gas pump
was working. In doing this they pumped out the air lock and fixed you up so
you could pull the grade. Naturally, they did this and that also, and when
you pulled the grade they took it for granted that they had corrected the
trouble."
"How come you didn't?" Morgan asked.
"I didn't want to be just another
mechanic who got the Morgans over a hill," Gus said. "And then I got to
thinking about a nice, cold, thick, malted milk, so thick that the straw
would flatten when you tried to suck it up and you had to use a spoon. Your
gas line couldn't flatten under extra-heavy suction, Morgan, but it could
suck air, even through a pinhole."
"I'd like a malted milk, right now - a
real thick one," the honey-haired tot said. "Strawberry flavor."
"Stop at the Model Garage as you
pass," Gus told her as he left, "and the malted milks will be on me. In
fact, I think I'll even have one myself."
