Bud and I rode to the livery stable with some of the Rough Riders. By the time we got back to our hotel room, Dad was already there. Bud and I wrestled over the teddy bear, and Dad finally distracted us by making us name the countries represented by the flags around its neck.
It was apparent that our fame as the “Rough Riding Abernathy Boys” had spread. More importantly to us, however, were the people we’d met, the friendly people who’d been so good to us. And most of all, that we’d done what we set out to do. We’d ridden to New York to meet our friend, Teddy.
We were tired of being celebrities and were
anxious to head back to Oklahoma.
3
THE BRUSH
Dad decided that we’d spend a few more days in New York, resting after the big day of Teddy’s parade, and then we’d take the train back home. So we put Sam Bass and Wylie Haynes on a train to Oklahoma. I was sad to see them go, because they’d been so faithful and served us so well on the long trip. But Bud and I hadn’t meant to ride them back to Oklahoma anyway—we had another plan in mind. We were determined to talk Dad into buying us a car that we could drive home. There weren’t any limits on driving age then.
I had absolutely fallen in love with automobiles, and aeroplanes, and Bud was just about as excited as I was. But when we told Dad, he was skeptical.
“You boys can’t find a machine small enough and simple enough for you to handle,” he said.
“If we could, would you buy it for us?” Bud propositioned.
To our great surprise, Dad said, “Sure.”
Bud laughed and said, “He doesn’t think we can find one.” But even as we spoke, we were running for the hotel elevator. We looked in display windows up and down Fifth Avenue, walked around showroom floors, and talked to countless salesmen. We saw cars that sold for two thousand dollars and some that were ten thousand dollars. Without even asking Dad, we knew that even two thousand dollars was too much.
When Bud heard the price of a Mercedes, he told the showroom manager, “You’d have to be a banker to own one of those!” The man just smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
Things were getting desperate. We’d spent the whole morning looking, and hadn’t come close to a car that would do for us. When we told Dad that at lunch, he wasn’t surprised, and he said that if we didn’t find one that afternoon, we’d have to resolve ourselves to a train ride.
The afternoon was much like the morning. The automobiles we saw were all too complicated, too big, and too high priced. We were headed into the last showroom we planned to visit when I glimpsed a small red car out of the corner of my eye.
“I’ll be right back.” I hollered at Bud, turning to run as fast as I could after the little car. Fortunately, it turned a corner and then came to a stop. When I rounded the corner, I saw a boy not much bigger than Bud, sitting behind the steering wheel. Without even talking to him, I memorized the letters written across the front of the automobile: “B-R-U-S-H.”
I ran every bit as fast to get back to Bud. When I stood in front of him, I tried to spell out the letters and catch my breath all at the same time. “It’s perfect,” I sputtered. “Come on, I’ll show you!”
The boy was still at the car when we ran up, out of breath from hurrying. Bud studied the car for a long moment and then asked the boy where we could buy one, and whether or not it was hard to learn to drive.
“I’ll take you there,” he said, answering the first question. “Pile in the back, and I’ll crank ‘er up.”
We climbed in and watched as he turned the crank in front of the car. Then, jumping in, he pushed two little levers on the steering wheel and one on the side. We were off!
“Pshaw! That’s easy! I could do that,” Bud said.
“Sure you could,” replied our driver. “ A baby could almost do it,” and he winked in my direction.
When we came to the Brush sales office, the boy drove to the curb, pulled a lever beside the driver’s seat, and the car stopped. We shouted our thanks to him as we ran inside.
“This is it, Bud!” I shouted, running my hand over the letters that spelled Brush on the front of the car.
A salesman stood watching us with some amusement.
“How long will it take for me to learn to drive this?” Bud demanded.
“Almost no time at all,” was the answer.
The salesman lifted the hood and showed us the engine and he explained about gas and oil, and pointed where to put in the oil to grease the motor. Next, he demonstrated how to use the steering wheel to change directions.
“Anyone that can turn a coffee mill could run this machine,” Bud announced, but I remembered all the mountains and terrible roads between New York and Oklahoma.
“Can it climb hills and go through sand?” I asked.
“Just like a regular mudlark,” the man said.
The Brush’s chain drive and fuel pump made it ideal for uphill climbs. Most other cars at the time depended on gravity to get the fuel to the carburetor, so they did a poor job of going uphill. Not that we understood all that, but we were impressed to learn that in 1908, a man named Fred Trinkle had driven his Brush Runabout 23 miles up to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado. Hill-climbing contests were popular then, and the Brush had won its share of them.
One question remained: “How much does it cost?” Bud asked fearfully.
“Four hundred and eighty-five dollars,” the salesman told us.
We were overjoyed. A car we could afford! We told the salesman that we’d talk to our father, and with great confidence, we also told him we were sure we’d be back.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “If that little machine sticks anywhere between here and Oklahoma, you just send it back to me, and I’ll pay the freight and return your money.”
We could hardly wait to tell Dad about the Brush. We burst into the hotel room where he was sitting, studying railroad timetables.
“We got you this time, Daddy!” I hollered, “We got you this time!” But I was too excited to say any more. I just jumped up and down, while Bud told Dad about the car.
“We’ve found an automobile that’s just right for us,” he began. “It’s small enough, and I can drive it easily. Why, even Temp can probably drive it. It’ll pull steep hills and go through deep mud, too.”
I had to throw in my two bits worth. “It’s simple enough that we can fix it ourselves if anything goes wrong.”
When we told him the price, Dad said, “You boys are fooling me.” Finally, after a few more minutes of our enthusiastic sales pitch, Dad agreed to go with us next morning to look at the Brush.
I was too excited to sleep. At four a.m. I woke Dad up, but he told me in no uncertain terms to go back to bed. I obeyed him, but as I laid in bed with my eyes closed, I could see the letters “B-R-US-H” written across the front of that little red car.
Dad did get up early, and said for us to take him to see our brilliant discovery. I think he believed it was something we’d imagined, but when he saw it, he got as excited as we’d been the day before. The salesman probably thought we were all three crazy, but he called for another man to take us on a test drive.
We were on a street crowded with people when the man traded seats with Bud. This was his first driving lesson ever, and Bud was very careful. We both knew our hopes depended on his good performance. He drove for about 30 minutes, stopping, starting, and rounding corners without hitting a single person.
Dad was suitably impressed. He let Bud and me go out with the salesman again that afternoon. Late in the day, when he joined us again, I showed him that I could drive the car too, and he was surprised that we both had learned so quickly. The next day, Bud drove down Broadway without any mishaps, and Dad finally bought the car. Obviously, more adventures were in store for us.
By this time, Dad was getting the car fever too. He hadn’t learned to drive, as we had, but he saw that it was easy. So, he decided to look for a larger car to drive back to Oklahoma—one that would carry
the whole family.
The Maxwell Model E30 Horsepower Touring Car, a real luxury car at the time, turned out to be just what Dad wanted. With a metal body and high grade leather upholstery, it was much heavier and much more expensive than our little wooden car. It also featured a balanced spring suspension for easy riding. Moreover, it had easier starting, a multiple disk clutch, and a double brake design. All of this meant that it was much more complicated than the Brush, so Dad hired a chauffeur to drive him back to Oklahoma. He figured he could learn to drive along the way.
On July 6, friends gave us a party and farewell luncheon at the Astor Hotel. Bud and I did some more of our speechmaking, and then a man gave each of us a 21-jewel pocket watch. Around three o’clock, we were ready to leave.
We paid close attention when Dad lectured us
about safe driving habits.
“Crank ‘er up,” Bud said, very much aware of the crowd gathered around us. I got her cranked up on the second try, and the motor purred like a kitten. Our drive home had begun.
People waved and called our names from the sidewalks as we followed the Maxwell out of the city. The Brush was perfect, and at thirty miles an hour we felt as if we were riding on the wind. We had no trouble keeping up with the Maxwell, and once Bud pulled out and passed Dad, laughing and yelling. Dad didn’t appreciate our daring maneuvers, and told us not to take chances until we became more skilled.
That night we had our first accident. The Maxwell had just pulled up in front of our hotel in Poughkeepsie, New York, where we’d planned to spend the night. Bud was close behind, but before he came to a stop, I jumped out of the car and ran to meet Dad. Bud didn’t see me cut right in front of the Brush, and consequently I was knocked down, and run right over! It was a dumb thing for me to do, and for a minute, Dad thought I must’ve been be killed. Luckily, I wasn’t. The breath had been knocked out of me, my clothes ruined, but no bones were broken.
Then, Dad really gave us a serious lecture about cars and safety. “There’s a responsibility that goes with driving,” he said. “We’re going to obey the rules. Temp, never jump out of a car until it comes to a complete stop. And whoever is driving must be cautious and pay attention to everything. Above all, don’t take any unnecessary chances.”
Bud and I were afraid that Dad would call off the whole adventure, so we were very quiet, and we quickly agreed with everything he said.
The second day we drove from Poughkeepsie to Rochester, New York, and the next day on to Buffalo. We stopped at the Iroquois Hotel there, and drove to Niagara Falls to tour the Cave of Winds, the Maid of the Mist, and of course, the falls. The roads between Niagara and Buffalo were good, and we made exceptional time on that jaunt.
Bud and I were photographed on Broadway just before
heading back to Oklahoma in our little red Brush.
Dad was getting eager to get back to Oklahoma, because he’d used up most of his vacation time. From Buffalo we drove all the way to Cleveland, Ohio, in one day. The roads were dusty, but we had goggles and dusters, so we were prepared. The only real mishap was a flat tire on Dad’s car.
In every small town we passed through, people came out to greet us. In Plainsville, Ohio, they said we attracted more people than the last fire in town, and in those days, everybody in a small town turned out to see a fire.
In Cleveland, we had dinner with a group of people who asked us questions about Roosevelt and Taft, New York City, and especially about our car. I bubbled over with enthusiasm about the Brush, and told them how easy it was to drive.
Bud gave me a turn at the wheel every so often, and I could drive easily except that reaching the pedals was a problem. My legs were so short that I had to sit way up on the edge of the seat, with my body next to the steering wheel. It was awkward, but I still thought driving was just about as much fun as anything I had ever done.
In Cleveland, one man thought I was joking when I said I drove the Brush. “Why, Temple, I thought you were only six years old!”
“Old enough,” I said, rather matter-of-factly.
We drove through rain all the way from Toledo, Ohio, to Detroit Michigan, and the dirt road became one long mud puddle. Bud discovered he could make the Brush skid with fast turns in the mud, and we were having a great time. We sped along in the light-weight Brush, but Dad and his chauffeur in the Maxwell just saw our smoke. We had to wait for them a lot, because they had to stop and get the big touring car unstuck from the mud.
The Brush factory was located in Detroit, and we visited it. I was amazed to see a whole train filled with automobiles. They told us they were shipping a hundred cars a day. Unbelievable!
In Battle Creek, Michigan, we toured the Kelloggs’ plant, where breakfast cereal was being made. Bud pointed to a picture on the wall. It showed a plate of meat labeled 60 cents. The meat would supposedly feed only one person, while the box of cereal beside it would feed 10 people. Bud said a car compared to a horse was just as good a deal as that cereal compared to the meat.
“Just think about the people who say they can’t afford a car,” he said. “They’ll pay over two hundred dollars for a good horse, and about the same for a buggy. Next, they buy the harness and have to feed and care for the horse. In a year’s time they’ve spent more than the price of our runabout, and our machine will run for a year for what it costs to keep a horse for six months. Besides, an automobile doesn’t get the colic and the bots, and finally die of the blind staggers. Anyone who can afford a horse and buggy can better afford a machine like the one we drive.”
If Bud was telling me all that, he was preaching to the choir. I loved the Brush. In fact, I told one reporter, “This machine is a little wildcat.” The name stuck. The Brush became the Wildcat.
We drove west across Illinois and into Iowa. At the Chamberlain Hotel in Des Moines I ran into that old problem again—girls who wanted to kiss me. Several of them ganged up on me in the hall outside our room and stole a kiss or two. I was outraged, all the more so when Bud teased me.
“You’re afraid of girls,” he said. “You’re just scared of a bunch of girls.”
Unlike our horses, the Brush required special
maintenance.
That made me madder, and to prove him wrong, I walked straight up to the prettiest girl of the bunch and planted a big kiss on her cheek. She blushed and giggled, while Dad’s chauffeur and Bud howled with laughter. For my part, I was glad we’d be leaving the next morning. I didn’t want to have to do any more kissing if I could help it.
From Des Moines to Kansas City, the road crossed one muddy hill after another. Bud and I had to wait for the Maxwell again. South of Kansas City though, the roads were dry, even if they weren’t in good condition. We made better time for awhile until we had a terrible mishap. Just north of Wellington, Bud and I were ahead of the Maxwell when I heard Dad holler, “Stop!”
We looked back and saw the Maxwell in flames. The teddy bear and a suitcase full of treasures from our trip were going up in smoke. Dad and his chauffeur threw sand on the fire and soon got it put out, but Dad’s beautiful Maxwell was practically ruined. When we got to Wellington, we got it fixed enough to make it home, but the Maxwell was never the same again.
Bud and I were terribly disappointed to have our treasures from the trip burn. But we figured our memories and the things we had learned were the most important keepsakes of the trip.
As we drew near Oklahoma City, about 20 cars came to meet us. We were amazed to discover that there were that many cars in all of Oklahoma, and even more amazed to find out that 12 of them were Brush Runabouts like ours. The caravan escorted us into the city, where people crowded the streets and sidewalks to welcome us home.
Bud drove straight to the Lee Huckins Hotel, where our family and friends had gathered to greet us. There was a luncheon and then we spent all afternoon at the fairgrounds, watching car races sponsored by the new Oklahoma Auto Club.
Paved roads were virtually non-existent outside the
ci
ties. Roads often crossed property lines and I
usually opened the gates while Bud drove the Brush.
We drove in front of the grandstand and the master of ceremonies went on and on about what brave little boys we were. Bud gave a speech: “We saw Roosevelt! He remembered us, too. We rode in the parade with Teddy and had a bully time. I never saw so many people in my life. We enjoyed the trip to New York on horse-back. Sam Bass and Wylie Haynes, our broncos, acted fine all the way. They were a little shy in the cities, but didn’t give us too much trouble. We shipped them back home from New York, so we’ll be glad to get back to the farm to see our ponies.”
When my turn came, I just said, “Hello, everybody! We’re sure glad to be home.”
We had driven for 23 days and registered 2,512 miles on our speed thermometers, as they were called in those days. We’d set a cross country record on that trip home, and we’d made a big leap ahead into the future with our speedy drive back. But it was really good to be surrounded by familiar faces. We were ready to enjoy being home for awhile.
We set a crosscountry record on our speedy trip
home in the Brush, traveling 2,512 miles in 23 days.
From a perspective of 80 years, it’s clear that there
were many lasting lessons learned on our rides.
January 1, 1911, Bud and I appeared at a two-week
automobile show in New York City. We
sat in a booth and told people how easy it was
to drive a Brush “Wildcat.”
4
THE ELEPHANT & THE DONKEY
While we were in New York, the State of Oklahoma moved its capital from Guthrie to Oklahoma City. That meant Dad had to move our family, too. We came home to a two-story house on Tenth Street in Oklahoma City. Aunt Annie and the girls were already there, and we were mighty glad to see all of them, even if Pearlie still dogged every step I took.
Bud & Me Page 7
