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ARAMINTA
AND THE AUTOMOBILE
Thornton, gesticulating wildly, disappeared round the corner
ARAMINTA
AND THE AUTOMOBILE
BY
CHARLES BATTELL
LOOMIS
With Illustrations by
OTTO LANG
New York
Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
Publishers
Copyright, 1903,
By Henry Holt & Co.
Copyright, 1907,
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
The stories in this volume were copyrighted separately, as follows:
“Araminta and the Automobile,”
Copyright, 1903,
By The Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia
“The Deception of Martha Tucker,”
Copyright, 1901,
By The Century Co.
“While the Automobile Ran Down,”
Copyright, 1900,
By The Century Co.
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
Mr. Reviewer and My Dear Readers,
I have been asked to say a fewwords to you before you get busy withmy little book that is filled with“Cheerful Americans” going out forautomobile rides.
A generation or two ago, there wasa poor writer (I mean poor in thisworld’s goods, of course) and he sawpeople riding about in automobiles asif they owned them, and it made himwish he could ride about in one asif he owned it. But he lacked thenerve, so he had to be content withtrolleys.
After a while he made believe thathe had bought an automobile, and herode around in it with “Araminta,”and enjoyed the motion so much thathe set others to riding in automobilesthat he made himself in his study, andhe was much pleased at the way they“went.”
After a while he made a collectionof these stories and they went somemore, and now they are off for a crosscountry trip that will undoubtedlyresult in the critics saying of the writer,“He has the pen of a Charles Dickens;”or “he reminds one of RobertLouis Stevenson at his best;” or “hesucceeds, as no man since