Bill," said Gus Wilson to the
youngster who did odd jobs around the Model Garage, "Joe and I have to go
down to the bank this morning. If anybody wants any repair work done
tell 'em we'll be back in an hour.
"Come on, Joe, let's go," the veteran
auto mechanic called to his partner as he climbed into his car and stepped
on the starter pedal.
It was still quite early and only one car
was in sight, far ahead, down the smooth concrete road.
"Gee!" exclaimed Joe. "What a swell
day this is! Always plenty of pep in the air this time of year. Show
me what the old bus can do!"
"Just spoiling for trouble, aren't you,"
growled Gus with a twinkle in his eye. "All right. Here goes -
hold on to your hat!"
He slouched down in his seat and took a
firm, two-fisted grip on the steering wheel. The motor suddenly broke
out in a staccato, singing roar and the wind began to whistle past their
ears. The car ahead was squarely in the middle of the road, which,
while smooth enough, was none too wide. But the driver refused to pull
over so Gus had to take his foot off the accelerator.
"That duck must be deaf," snorted Joe,
"Or maybe he's just one of those confounded road hogs. That's right,
keep tooting at him, "he shouted as Gus suddenly sat up straight with his
gaze intent on the driver ahead and working the horn as if his life depended
on it.
"For the love of Pete!" Gus shouted
despairingly. "He's going to smash on this next turn sure as fate!
I've done my best to save him. There he goes!"
The car ahead, instead of rounding the
sharp curve they were approaching, kept straight ahead, bounced across a
shallow ditch, crashed through an old rail fence and was now coming to a
stop over the ridges of a fresh-plowed field.
As soon as Gus got his car safely parked
beside the road, he and Joe ran toward the other car. The driver stood
gazing at it bewildered.
"What happened? Who hit me?" he
muttered.
Gus reached over and twisted the steering
wheel back and forth. The front wheels responded perfectly.
"You ought to thank your lucky stars it
wasn't any worse," he rasped. "Don't you know better than to fall
asleep while you're driving a car?"
"Asleep?" gasped the victim. "Why I
didn't think it was possible for anyone driving all night and it was pretty
cold. This morning the sun warmed me and I did begin to feel drowsy,
but I only shut my eyes for a second or two to rest them."
"Humph!" Gus grunted. "Pretty
long second. You must have dropped off down the road quite a piece,
because you paid no attention to my horn. If you'd slammed into that
telegraph pole I'd probably be telephoning the hospital or maybe the coroner
right now!"
"Gosh, it sure was a close shave," the
driver mumbled tremblingly as Gus continued examining the car.
"Nothing important is damaged as far as I
can see," Gus announced at length.
"Of course your headlights are smashed up
but I think the running gear is all right. I'll see if I can get it
back on the road."
He pressed the starter pedal and the
motor responded at once. Throwing it into reverse he let in the clutch
very gently and the car slowly started backward. As the front wheels
climbed a ridge left by the plow, there was a sharp snap and the front of
the car, on the driver's side, sagged.
"That last hump must have been the straw
that broke the camel's back," observed Gus as he climbed out and went around
to the front of the car. "Your luck is still with you, though; the
spring is broken off behind the axle pad, so it won't be much trouble to
brace it up. We'll jack up the frame far enough to lash a couple of
pieces of that broken fence rail in between the axle and the frame.
Then you can drive it back to the Model Garage. I think we've got a
spring in stock that will fit."
"Why should it be any easier to fix
because it's broken back of the axle instead of in front?" the owner
inquired.
"The axle is held in line by the front
half of the spring," replied Gus, "and if it breaks at that point, there is
nothing to keep it from swinging back under the car as far as the shackle at
the rear end of the spring will let it. Of course you can lash the
axle to the frame fore and aft with rope to keep it in place, but it's a lot
more trouble.
"Now," Gus continued after he had propped
up the axle, "do you think you can stay awake long enough to drive about a
mile up the road to the Model Garage? You'd better take a nap until we
can get back and fix up that spring."
"I hate to lose the time," protested the
owner, but he agreed, climbed in and drove off.
"How did you know he was asleep?"
Joe asked as the garage-men resumed their
interrupted trip.
"I didn't know positively," answered Gus,
"but it seemed funny that he didn't pay any attention to my horn.
Some fellows are always looking for a
race and hate to let you pass them, but I knew he wasn't in that class
because he didn't speed up and he didn't look around, as he naturally would,
to see what kind of a car was coming up behind. And besides his head
was so far forward that it looked queer."
"What gets me," observed Joe wonderingly,
"is how you had time to reason out all that Sherlock Holmes stuff.
Why, it couldn't have been more than a few seconds from the time you first
blew your horn till the crash. How did you dope it out so quick?"
The veteran smiled. "Blessed if I
know," he said, "unless it's because I've been driving so long. Quick
thinking and being able to figure out the right thing to do in an emergency
are things that you can get only by a whole lot of driving. No
instructor can teach it to you.
And as for that sleep stuff, I'm always
on the watch for it. I nearly got killed myself years ago by dozing
off while driving.
"Of course there's no way of getting
accurate figures, but most people have no idea what a large number of
accidents are due to the driver falling asleep. Most of the fellows
who fall asleep while they're driving and get into an accident either don't
realize what happened or if they do they are ashamed to admit it.
"Sleep is a mighty queer business
anyway," Gus went on. "Sometimes when you want to go to sleep you
can't, and then when you ought not to, you do."
"But why," asked Joe, "should a fellow
who has trouble in getting to sleep even when he's in bed be likely to go to
sleep when he's driving a car?"
"I didn't say that," replied Gus.
"The fact that he doesn't sleep well nights has nothing to do with it.
It all depends on how easily he is affected by monotonous sights and sounds.
When you're driving along a straight road
for miles and miles the steady hum of the motor combined with the
comfortable position and the lack of physical motion seems to lull your
senses into a drowsy state. Of course in heavy traffic where you
are constantly forced to apply the brake, shift gears and steer the car, you
may get tired but you won't get sleepy.
"If you want to find out how hard it is
to keep awake some time," Gus went on, "just ask one of the fellows who did
sentry duty during the World War. Even the certainty of facing a
firing squad in the morning if they fell asleep wasn't enough to keep some
of them awake, and if I remember correctly Charlie Lindbergh claimed that he
was more afraid of going to sleep than anything else on his hop across the
ocean."
Back at the garage an hour later, they
found the victim of the sleep accident curled up on the front seat, snoring
peacefully.
"Might as well let him snooze while we
work," Gus suggested, but the pounding soon woke the sleeper and he climbed
out to watch.
"You can bet I won't go to sleep at the
wheel again," he said.
"How are you going to prevent it - by
giving up driving?" Gus asked as he pulled the end of the new spring into
line.
"Certainly not!" replied the owner
peevishly, "I haven't got cold feet yet, I'll just remember not to go sleep,
that's all."
"Banana oil!" snorted Gus. "Will power
will help, of course, but it's a whole lot better to adopt some definite way
of overcoming the sleepiness. About the best I know of is one that a
salesman friend of mind works when that sleepy feeling creeps over him.
He pulls up at the side of the road out of the way of the traffic and
deliberately goes to sleep for ten or fifteen minutes.
"Then I know another fellow that gets out
and runs up and down the road a bit. The exercise, he says, starts the
blood circulating and seems to break the hypnotic spell brought on by the
steady hum of the motor."
"If you're going to stop anyway,"
suggested Joe, " why not park at a hot dog stand and eat one while you're
waking up again?"
"Humph!" growled Gus. "That ought
to work - indigestion will keep anybody awake!"
END
