"Torvald!!!!!!" he yelled "Come drive while I push." Knowing Torvald, he wasn't pushing much anyway. Torvald came around the side, dripping mud and water. He was 13 and learning how to drive anyway and Herman knew he could push a lot harder than Torvald. If they could just get out of this one mud hole they would make it on home. A lot of it would be low pedal but they would make it. At least the sedan had a door on that side instead of like the touring car where Freida had to get out to let him out. God-a-mighty, she'd be mad if she had to get out to let him out here. "Now just wind it up a little and then push as hard as you can on the low pedal, don't let it slip the bands, let it kill the engine." "I'll be right here pushing on the door." "OK, NOW!!!!" Herman yelled. "PUSH!!!" It moved. Torvald stomped as hard as he could on the low pedal. The wheels spun about a turn and a half and got traction and killed the engine. Herman reached in the door and started it again. "AGAIN!!!" he yelled. Torvald reached up and pulled the throttle all the way down and stretched his leg as far as he could to mash the low pedal down. They all pushed!!!! And away it went! Torvald and Freida hanging on for dear life and Henry Herman, Ford Helferstout and Clara Freida yelling at the top of their lungs, "Got Damn Ford, Got Damn Ford, Got Damn Ford!!!" When you're three years old everything is fun. Herman was running after them as fast as he could and yelling to Torvald to let off the low pedal but Torvald was so excited and surprised that the Ford was still running wide open and was slogging up the hill through the mud full throttle. It was slewing all over the muddy road like a fresh worm on a fish hook and Tovald was so busy trying to keep it on the road he couldn't find the presence of mind to shut it off or idle it down or let off the low pedal and there wasn't a chance in Hell Herman could catch him running uphill in the mud. Finally Herman just stood in the road and yelled, "Let your damn foot up, Torvald!!" They must have been 500 feet up the hill before Freida calmed down enough to reach over and turn off the key.

Herman & Einar and the girls slogged their way up the hill. Nobody had much to say. The girls were a muddy mess, their good town coats soaked with the spray from the wheels when the Ford took off, their shoes ruined for anything but work shoes now and their hair and faces covered in thick brown mud. Einar looked like a cat had dragged him in off the manure pile and Herman's boots were soaked and his feet were wet, even though he had missed most of the spray that the kids got from being in the back of the car. "It'll cost me more to buy them new coats and shoes than the Ruckstell would have cost and we'd have been home an hour ago." Thank God the low band was still holding and they should be able to get home on the low pedal even though his left leg would be numb from holding it down by the time they got there. There was still the rest of this long grade to pull and the Jorgenson hill and then the last mile to the farm, but at least they should make it with out having to walk home, or worse yet; sit and wait half the night for Einar or Herman to walk to the neighbors and get a team of horses to come and pull them out.

"I'll have the Ruckstell in before we all go to town again," he thought, "And by Damn, I'll never have another Ford without one." "And if I get a Ford truck this fall I'll have one in it, too." "I should have listened to Freida."

It was a long, quiet ride home except for the triplets who yelled "Got Damn Ford," as loud as they could and then collapsed in giggles no matter how many times Freida told them to quit it. Herman never said a word. Having been married to Freida for 17 years, he knew when it was time to keep his mouth shut and this was damn sure one of those times.