"Gets cur'user an' cur'user" and more

The Cape Cod Mystery, Phoebe Atwood Taylor, 1931

He looked at me curiously. "Gets cur'user an' cur'user, don't it."

Despite his Cape Cod accent, what Mayo is saying is "Curiouser and Curiouser." That is a phrase made famous from the book Alice in Wonderland. Alice says it after she has eaten a cake labeled "Eat me" and begins to grow and grow.

"If wishes was hosses, beggars'd ride."

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride" is an English language proverb and nursery rhyme, originating in the 16th century, which is usually used to suggest that it is useless to wish and that better results will be achieved through action.

Common modern versions include:

If wishes were horses
Beggars would ride:
If turnips were watches
I would wear one by my side.
And if ifs and ans were pots and pans,
The tinker would never work!

OriginThe first recognisable ancestor of the rhyme was recorded in William Camden's (1551–1623) Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine, printed in 1605, which contained the lines: "If wishes were thrushes beggers would eat birds". The reference to horses was first in James Carmichael's Proverbs in Scots printed in 1628, which included the lines: "And if wishes were horses, pure [poor] men wald ride". The first mention of beggars is in John Ray's Collection of English Proverbs in 1670, in the form "If wishes would bide, beggers would ride". The first versions with close to the modern wording was in James Kelly's Scottish Proverbs, Collected and Arranged in 1721, with the wording "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride". The modern rhyme above was probably the combination of two of many versions and was collected by James Orchard Halliwell in the 1840s.

Betsy jumped on the running board before we drew up in front of the house.
A running board is a car or truck accessory part, a narrow step fitted under the side doors of the vehicle. It aids entry, especially into high vehicles. Typical of vintage cars which had much higher ground clearances than today's cars, it is also used as a fashion statement on vehicles that would not require it.

But, why "running board"?
I can't find anything on the web that really addresses it. Since most definitions just term it a "step" why wouldn't it be called a "step board"? Since it's called a "running board" I'm thinking it's because these vintage cars sometimes needed to be pushed for a while to get started, and those pushing it would then speed up and jump onto the "running board" so they could climb into the car as it was still going.