She was right, he knew it, and he knew she knew he knew she was because she hadn't said one word about it. They got home and Freida got the girls cleaned up and he and the boys got the chores done and they had supper and nobody said a word about getting a Ruckstell. He figured the girls didn't know, Einar was smart enough to keep his mouth shut and Torvald was still so proud of driving the T out of the mud hole he hadn't given any thought as to why they got stuck to begin with.

Herman had started the light plant before they went out to milk and instead of shutting it off after they got done eating and lighting a lamp to save on the gas to run the light plant he let it run. What the Hell. He could throw away more money by accident than most men could when they were trying to spend it. After supper Einar and Torvald went out to feed the pigs and shut them and the chickens up for the night, the girls were in the back room taking a bath and trying to get the last of the mud out of their hair before they went to bed, Freida had put the triplets to bed and the house was pretty quiet for once, so Herman reached up on the top of the cabinet and got down the Monkey Ward catalog and turned to the pages on the Ford Accessories. He hadn't looked there for a while, since the crops had been a little better he'd been buying a new Ford every year or two and had just been having the Ford man put on the Hasslers when he bought it instead of putting them on himself and hadn't been adding the things like he did a few years ago. He saw somebody had been writing in the catalog on the Ford pages, it must be Einar. He'd been telling Herman he wanted a Ford of his own and Herman could see how he was going to fix it all up with speed equipment and fancy fall-der-all. "Well," he thought, "It won't be long and he'll be wanting to run around nights on his own and be taking Tillie dancing, I'd better be thinking about getting him an old Ford to fix up on his own."

He looked down the page and there it was, just what the Ford man in town had been talking about. FOUR SPEEDS FOR FORD--RUCKSTELL It had been a while since he'd read the Monkey Ward catalog and didn't realize they had Ruckstells. "By Cripes," he said to himself, "Here's the way to get out of the whole deal." "Instead of taking the Ford in and having the Ford man put one in, I'll order one from Monkey Ward and the boys and I will put it in ourselves." "I can tell Freida I really didn't need one but thought it would be good for the boys to learn to do a little mechanic work on a Ford, since they both know how to drive." Then too, it was a little cheaper from the catalog and he was going to have to buy new coats and shoes for two girls and that was going to cost, too.

It came in a wooden crate and weighed enough it took him a good toss to get it in the back seat. Ruckstell Axle--Four Speeds for Ford. Right there on the side of the box. He could hardly wait for the boys to get home from school. Herman almost opened it a couple times but decided he'd better wait for the boys. He went and did some of their chores so they could get started. He swept the floor of the barn down and ran the Ford in, got some blocks from the wood pile, got his tools out and laid them on the bench and stood in the door of the barn and rolled a Prince Albert and waited for them to come. When he saw them come up out of the draw he yelled at them to hurry up and come and change their clothes and come help.


Einar pried open the wooden crate and there it was. There was a whole new left housing, a bunch of gears and plates and a big bearing and a book on how to do it. Torvald grabbed the