The Magnificent Ambersons · Chapter 7 (2/2)

Coming toward them, black against the snowy road, was a strange silhouette. It approached moderately and without visible means of progression, so the matter seemed from a distance; but as the cutter shortened the distance, the silhouette was revealed to be Mr. Morgan’s horseless carriage, conveying four people atop: Mr. Morgan with George’s mother beside him, and, in the rear seat, Miss Fanny Minafer and the Honorable George Amberson. All four seemed to be in the liveliest humour, like high-spirited people upon a new adventure; and Isabel waved her handkerchief dashingly as the cutter flashed by them.

“For the Lord’s sake!” George gasped.

“Your mother’s a dear,” said Lucy. “And she does wear the most bewitching things! She looked like a Russian princess, though I doubt if they’re that handsome.”

George said nothing; he drove on till they had crossed Amberson Addition and reached the stone pillars at the head of National Avenue. There he turned.

“Let’s go back and take another look at that old sewing-machine,” he said. “It certainly is the weirdest, craziest⁠—”

He left the sentence unfinished, and presently they were again in sight of the old sewing-machine. George shouted mockingly.

Alas! three figures stood in the road, and a pair of legs, with the toes turned up, indicated that a fourth figure lay upon its back in the snow, beneath a horseless carriage that had decided to need a horse.

George became vociferous with laughter, and coming up at his trotter’s best gait, snow spraying from runners and every hoof, swerved to the side of the road and shot by, shouting, “Git a hoss! Git a hoss! Git a hoss!”

Three hundred yards away he turned and came back, racing; leaning out as he passed, to wave jeeringly at the group about the disabled machine: “Git a hoss! Git a hoss! Git a⁠—”

The trotter had broken into a gallop, and Lucy cried a warning: “Be careful!” she said. “Look where you’re driving! There’s a ditch on that side. Look⁠—”

George turned too late; the cutter’s right runner went into the ditch and snapped off; the little sleigh upset, and, after dragging its occupants some fifteen yards, left them lying together in a bank of snow. Then the vigorous young horse kicked himself free of all annoyances, and disappeared down the road, galloping cheerfully.