Categories
- Antiques & Collectibles 13
- Architecture 36
- Art 48
- Bibles 22
- Biography & Autobiography 813
- Body, Mind & Spirit 137
- Business & Economics 28
- Computers 4
- Cooking 94
- Crafts & Hobbies 4
- Drama 346
- Education 45
- Family & Relationships 57
- Fiction 11812
- Games 19
- Gardening 17
- Health & Fitness 34
- History 1377
- House & Home 1
- Humor 147
- Juvenile Fiction 1873
- Juvenile Nonfiction 202
- Language Arts & Disciplines 88
- Law 16
- Literary Collections 686
- Literary Criticism 179
- Mathematics 13
- Medical 41
- Music 40
- Nature 179
- Non-Classifiable 1768
- Performing Arts 7
- Periodicals 1453
- Philosophy 63
- Photography 2
- Poetry 896
- Political Science 203
- Psychology 42
- Reference 154
- Religion 498
- Science 126
- Self-Help 79
- Social Science 80
- Sports & Recreation 34
- Study Aids 3
- Technology & Engineering 59
- Transportation 23
- Travel 463
- True Crime 29
Owen Clancy's Happy Trail or, The Motor Wizard in California
by: Burt L. Standish
Categories:
Description:
Excerpt
CHAPTER I.
ALMOST A RIOT.
No, it was not an earthquake that happened in the city of Los Angeles, California, on that beautiful sun-shiny morning. It was just a tow-headed, cross-eyed youth shaking things up at the corner of Sixth and Main in an attempt to find his father.
And not one corner of the cross streets was involved, but all four corners. The upheaval that followed this search for a missing relative, extended in several directions, so that a very small cause led up to remarkably large results.
It was nine o'clock of a Saturday morning. That Saturday was some sort of a festal day for the Chinese, and at the hour mentioned, a dragon a block long, consisting of a hundred Celestials covered with papier-mâché, was twisting and writhing along Sixth Street.
On one corner, leaning against the side of a building, was a tall man in seedy clothes. A card on his breast bore the sad legend, "Help the Blind." The man's eyes were covered with large blue goggles, and in one hand he held his hat, and in the other a couple of dozen cheap lead pencils.
Across the street, on corner number two, was an Italian with a hand organ. The Italian's assistant was a monkey in a red cap.
Corner number three, among others, held a grocer's boy, carrying a basket with six dozens of eggs. He was very much absorbed in watching the Chinese dragon wriggle along the thoroughfare.
The fourth corner was reserved for Hiram Hill, the tow-headed, cross-eyed chap who was destined to cause all the commotion. While Hill stood on the walk, telling himself that the gaudily painted dragon looked very much like an overgrown centipede, he suddenly caught sight of a man in an automobile.
The auto was headed along Main Street, and was waiting for the dragon to clear the way so it could proceed. Hill looked at the machine across the papier-mâché spine of the chink monster, and he gave a yell of surprise when his gaze took account of the one man in the tonneau of the car.
Undoubtedly that man was Hiram Hill's father–the parent who had been mysteriously missing ever since the first Klondike gold rush! Hiram's eyes were sharp, and to them the beetling brow, the one "squint eye," the very pronounced Roman nose, and the retreating chin which made the face resemble a bird's beak, were all very plain.
After that first yell of surprise, Hiram's astonishing good luck held him speechless. Following a year of a trying town-to-town canvas of the whole Southwest, he had at last come within hailing distance of his long-lost parent.
Only one point remained to make assurance doubly sure. Had the "suspect" a brown mole on the back of his neck? Sharp as Hill's eyes were, they could not determine that.
"Who wants a pencil?" came feebly from the hapless person on the first corner. "Help the blind."
"Jocko," said the son of sunny Italy, on corner two, "maka da bow, taka da mon!"
The monkey lifted his hat and went through motions that passed for a bow. He also looked at his master and showed his teeth, not relishing the way his chain had been pulled....