There is a "straight stretch" of road "about a half mile long a few miles out of town" where, according to Lucius, Boon can get the car "up to twenty-five" miles per hour (according to Boon, who doesn't understand what a speedometer measures, it's closer to sixty, 40). This is where Grandfather inadvertently spits tobacco on his wife.
Lucius notes in passing that Delphine is the wife Ned has in 1904, and that during his lifetime he "ran through four wives" (31). This entry represents the other three, none of whom are given names, or individualized in any way. The narrative doesn't even indicate Delphine's place in the sequence of four.
