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Page 3
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
THE SCARLET CAR
BY
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
TO
NED STONE
CONTENTS
THE JAIL-BREAKERS
THE TRESPASSERS
THE KIDNAPPERS
THE SCARLET CAR
I
THE JAIL-BREAKERS
For a long time it had been arranged they all should go
to the Harvard and Yale game in Winthrop's car. It was
perfectly well understood. Even Peabody, who pictured himself
and Miss Forbes in the back of the car, with her brother and
Winthrop in front, condescended to approve. It was necessary
to invite Peabody because it was his great good fortune to be
engaged to Miss Forbes. Her brother Sam had been invited, not
only because he could act as chaperon for his sister, but
because since they were at St. Paul's, Winthrop and he, either
as participants or spectators, had never missed going together
to the Yale-Harvard game. And Beatrice Forbes herself had
been invited because she was herself.
When at nine o'clock on the morning of the game, Winthrop
stopped the car in front of her door, he was in love with all
the world. In the November air there was a sting like
frost-bitten cider, in the sky there was a brilliant,
beautiful sun, in the wind was the tingling touch of three
ice-chilled rivers. And in the big house facing Central Park,
outside of which his prancing steed of brass and scarlet
chugged and protested and trembled with impatience, was the
most wonderful girl in all the world. It was true she was
engaged to be married, and not to him. But she was not yet
married. And to-day it would be his privilege to carry her
through the State of New York and the State of Connecticut,
and he would snatch glimpses of her profile rising from the
rough fur collar, of her wind-blown hair, of the long, lovely
lashes under the gray veil.
"`Shall be together, breathe and ride, so, one day more am I
deified;'" whispered the young man in the Scarlet Car; "`who
knows but the world may end to-night?'"
As he waited at the curb, other great touring-cars, of every
speed and shape, in the mad race for the Boston Post Road, and
the town of New Haven, swept up Fifth Avenue. Some rolled and
puffed like tugboats in a heavy seaway, others glided by
noiseless and proud as private yachts. But each flew the
colors of blue or crimson.
Winthrop's car, because her brother had gone to one college,
and he had played right end for the other, was draped
impartially. And so every other car mocked or cheered it, and
in one a bare-headed youth stood up, and shouted to his
fellows: "Look! there's Billy Winthrop! Three times three
for old Billy Winthrop!" And they lashed the air with flags,
and sent his name echoing over Central Park.
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