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Overnight guest

reenbriar Valley lay almost hidden by the lowhanging clouds that spilled
G
intermittent showers. As I plodded through the muddy barnyard preparing to do
my chores, I glanced at the road that led past our place and wound on through the
valley. A car was parked at the side of the road a little way beyond the pasture

corner.

The car was obviously in distress. Otherwise, no man so well-dressed would

have been tinkering with it out in the rain. I watched him as I went about my
chores. Clearly, the man was no mechanic. He desperately plodded from the raised hood back to the
car seat to try the starter, then back to the hood again.

When I finished my chores and closed the barn, it was almost dark. The car was still there. So I
took a flashlight and walked down the road. The man was sort of startled and disturbed when I came
up to him, but he seemed anxious enough for my help. It was a small car, the same make as my own
but somewhat newer. It took only a few minutes for me to spot the trouble.

“It’s your coil,” I told him.

“But it couldn’t be that!” he blurted. “I just installed a new one, only about a month ago.” He was
a young fel low. I would have guessed twenty-one, at most. He sounded almost in tears.

“You see, mister,” he almost sobbed, “I’m a long ways from home. It’s raining. And I’ve just got
to get it started. I just got to!”

“Well, it’s like this,” I said. “Coils are pretty touchy. Sometimes they’ll last for years. Then again
sometimes they’ll go out in a matter of hours. Suppose I get a horse and pull the car up into the barn.
Then we’ll see what we can do for it. We’ll try the coil from my car. If that works, I know a fellow
down at the corner who’ll sell you one.”

I was right. With the coil from my car in place, the motor started right off, and it purred like a new
one. “Nothing to it,” I grinned. “We’ll just go see Bill David down the road. He’ll sell you a new
coil, and you can be on your way. Just wait a minute while I tell my wife where I’m going.”

I thought he acted odd when we got down to David’s store. He parked in the dark behind the store
and would not get out. “I’m wet and cold,” he excused himself. “Here’s ten dollars. Would you mind

very much going in and getting it for me?”

We had just finished changing the coil when my little daughter, Linda, came out to the barn.

“Mother says supper’s ready,” she announced. Then, turning to the strange young man, she said, “She
says you’re to come in and eat, too.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t,” he protested. “I couldn’t let you folks feed me. I’ve got to get going anyway.