Hippomobile! Read Online Free PDF Page A

Thousands.
    Then Grandpa Homer and Grandpa Virgil took us around the corner into the back room. The windows weren’t so dusty back there, so this time we could see right away what we were standing in front of. It looked like a giant horse carriage on three big wood wheels, and the wheels were as tall as us. Up front we saw a big horn attached to it that looked like it could blow your ears off. There was a tall steering wheel that didn’t look like it could ever do a driver any good, and it was sticking straight up in front of the bench where you drove at. All in all, it was a strange contraption, but it was also the coolest thing to play on we’d ever seen in our lives. We didn’t even mess with asking and climbed right up it faster than a squirrel up a tree.
    The horn just coughed out dust and didn’t work none, and the steering wheel was all stuck. But that just meant we had to make our own noises instead, and that had never been much of a problem for us.
    We yelled, “Watch out, grandpas!” like we were heading straight for them. But it didn’t seem like they even heard us.
    Grandpa Homer was saying, “Ain’t she somethin’?”
    Grandpa Virgil said, “A real beaut, Homer. A real beaut.”
    â€œThe pride of Wymore back when we was kids.”
    â€œDon’t I know it, Homer. Don’t I know it.”
    Then Grandpa Homer and Grandpa Virgil pulled out their hankies and blowed their noses so loud, we thought the horn was working after all.
    â€œWould be somethin’ to see her run again,” Grandpa Virgil said.
    â€œYou can say that again,” said Grandpa Homer.
    But Grandpa Virgil didn’t have a chance to, because we said it first.
    No telling how long we stayed there playing on the hippomobile and how long Grandpa Homer and Grandpa Virgil stood down there reminiscing. That’s what you call it when old people talk about the olden days and wipe their eyes and blow their noses.
    We ended up having such a good time that on our walk back into town when Grandpa Homer and Grandpa Virgil decided to sing their song again, we even sung right along with them.

 
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    NOW, IT AIN’T LIKE we never saw the hippomobile again after that first day. Once we grew up another notch on the wall, Mom agreed we were finally old enough to go down there and play on it by ourselves. We’d found out that playing on the hippomobile was just part of growing up here in Wymore. Pops told us he didn’t do no different when he was our age, and even Mom had to admit that she played on it once or twice when she was just a girl in pigtails. The only problem was summer. Mom didn’t want us leaving the square when she was off working, and Grandpa Virgil wouldn’t give up that knucklebone key for nothing in the world, not even for a barbershop full of long-haired customers with long bushy beards. Like Grandpa Homer sometimes says, life ain’t always a bed of roses.
    That’s why we were as excited as a hen house about that letter we found in
The Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing
. Because we was counting on it saying at least a little something about the hippomobile, and anything having to do with the hippomobile always made our eyes see stars and our hearts beat quick. Plus, we were sure as eggs is eggs that a few of our grandmas and grandpas would be interested right along with us. So we jumped right off Old Tom Wood to go and tell them. Stella scraped her prayer bones 1 some upon landing, but that didn’t matter. And when Jimmy landed, he said, “Ow!” but that didn’t seem to matter none at the time, neither. We just both brushed ourselves off and raised a good deal of dust on our way back over to Mabel’s.
    Now, by that time of day, you could usually find our grandpas and grandmas out and about in town. Grandma Winnie would be zooming around town in her golf cart at five miles an hour, and Grandma Pearl would be