The Automobile Girls at Newport Part 5

"You are to take your meals at the inns along the way, when you prefer,"

Mr. Stuart had explained, "but I don't mean to have you run the risk of starving in case you are delayed, or an accident occurs. Be sure to take your picnic lunch along with you, when you start out each day. What you don't eat, feed to the small boys along the road, who will insist on playing guide."

Aunt Sallie was the only one of the hotel party who enjoyed breakfast.

Grace had driven over early, and was breakfasting with Ruth in order to save delay. Both the girls and Mr. Stuart were too excited to take much interest in their bacon and eggs, but Aunt Sallie ate with a resigned expression that seemed to say: "Perhaps this is my last meal on earth."

Yet, secretly, she was almost as delighted as were the girls in the prospect of the trip.

"Now, Sallie, you are not to go if you don't wish to," Mr. Stuart had protested. "You must not let Ruth drag you into this trip against your will."

But all he could persuade his sister to answer was: "If Ruth is going on such an extraordinary excursion, then, at least, I shall be along to see that nothing worse happens to her."

Gladys Le Baron came into the dining-room, stopping in front of Ruth's table. "You dear things," she drawled in her most careful society manner, "how can you look so fresh so early in the morning? I hope you appreciate my getting up to see you off." Gladys wore a lingerie frock more appropriate for a party than for the breakfast room.

But Ruth answered good naturedly. "I do appreciate it, if it is such an effort for you. Did you know Mr. Townsend is going to ride over to the Thurston's with us to see us start? He tells me you and he are both to be in Newport while we are there."

"Yes," Gladys declared with more airs than before. "Mrs. Erwin has asked me to be one of the house-party she's to have for her ball. She told me I could bring a friend along, and I have asked Mr. Townsend."

"Wonderful! We won't expect you to a.s.sociate with us!" laughed Grace.

"Gladys," Ruth asked, "would you like to drive over to Mrs. Thurston's with us? Father is going, and the carriage will be there to bring him back."

"I would like to go," murmured Gladys, "if I didn't have on this old frock. I don't know Mollie and Barbara very well, but I suppose I shall have to see a great deal of them, now you have taken them up. I wonder how they will behave at Newport? They have hardly been out of Kingsbridge before."

Grace and Ruth both looked angry, and Mr. Stuart broke in, quite curtly: "I am sure we can depend on their behaving becomingly, which is all that is necessary at Newport or any other place." Ruth's father was a business acquaintance of Gladys's father, and had known her mother when the latter was a girl, but the airs of Mrs. Le Baron and her society daughter were too much for his western common sense. Only Aunt Sallie was impressed by their imposing manner.

Ruth was very popular at the big summer hotel, and a number of the guests had a.s.sembled to see her off. But Ruth let her father run the car and sat quietly by his side. "You'll turn over the command to me, captain, won't you, when the trip really commences?" and she squeezed his arm with a little movement of affection.

"Yes, lieutenant," Mr. Stuart said quietly.

"Oh, Miss Ruth," called Mr. Townsend from the back seat, "do show all these people how you can handle your car!" But she only shook her head.

"Goodness me, what are all those people doing on Mrs. Thurston's porch?"

Ruth asked, in alarm. "I hope nothing has happened." But, as the car neared the quiet little house, which stood midway between the hotel and the New York high road, she saw the party of young people gathered on the front lawn.

"It's only their friends, come to say good-bye to them," Harry volunteered. In answer to "What a bore!" from Gladys, he continued: "I don't know why you should think it a bore. Miss Stuart enjoys her friends's popularity." Mr. Townsend had been trying, for several weeks, to make himself equally agreeable to Ruth and Gladys. They were both very wealthy, and it seemed wise to him to a.s.sociate with rich people.

But as Ruth was not easily impressed with what she called "just foolishness," he had become very intimate with Gladys Le Baron.

When Mr. Stuart tooted the horn to announce their approach to the cottage a chorus of tin horns answered him from Mrs. Thurston's front garden. As the car drew up to the gate, the boys and girls began to sing, "See the Conquering Hero Comes," while Barbara ran down to the car and Mollie urged her friends to be quieter. "I just don't know what Miss Stuart and Mr. Stuart will think of us!" she blushingly remonstrated.

But Aunt Sallie and Mr. Stuart were in for all the fun going this morning. Barbara was invited to call her seven friends who had come to give the girls a send-off, down to meet the occupants of the car. Even Gladys, as she was forced to get out of the automobile to let the other travelers in, was condescending enough to permit Harold Smith to a.s.sist her. Harold was an old friend of Barbara's, and one of the cleverest boys in the village.

Mr. Stuart went into the house for the suit cases and satchels, which were all the girls were to take with them, as they were to manage with as few clothes as possible. It had been arranged that extra luggage was to be expressed to them along the way.

Barbara had caught Mollie storing away a sample package of cold cream among her most treasured possessions.

"I am sure I don't see why you should laugh so," Mollie urged quite seriously. "It reads on the label 'especially adapted for automobile travelers to remove dust and tan from the face after the drive.' Aren't we going to be automobile travelers?"

"Sure and we a'ire," said Bab, imitating the old Irish washerwoman, "and it shall put grease on its nose if it likes."

"Come, daughter," said Mr. Stuart finally, as Ruth was trying to explain to a group of admiring boys the first principles of running an automobile. She talked as familiarly of an emergency brake and a steering wheel, of horse power and speed-transmission, as most girls talk of frills and furbelows.

"It's ten-thirty," Mr. Stuart continued, "and, if this party is to be a strictly on time affair, you must be off! You couldn't have a more wonderful day."

It was late in the month of June. The summer clouds were sailing overhead, great bubbles of white foam thrown up into the blue depth of the sky. The sun shone brightly and the whole atmosphere was perfumed with the bloom of the honeysuckle, that hung in yellow cl.u.s.ters from Mrs. Thurston's porch.

Barbara and Mollie flung their arms around their mother until she was completely enveloped in their embrace. Ruth kissed her father, and put her hand to her trim leather cap with a military salute. "It's all right, captain," she said; "I'll bring my crew and good ship 'Bubble'

safely into port."

Aunt Sallie was anxious to be off. She could see that Mrs. Thurston was on the verge of tears at the thought of parting with her daughters.

Still the young people were laughing and talking, and storing their little gifts under the seats in the car, as though they had all day before them.

"Hurry, child," Aunt Sallie urged, reaching out a hand to Mollie. "Jump up on the back seat with Grace and me. We will let Mistress Barbara sit with Ruth for the first of the journey." Aunt Sallie was very imposing in a violet silk traveling coat, with a veil and hat of the same shade; indeed, Miss Sallie had a fancy for a "touch of lavender" in everything she wore. With her snow-white hair, and commanding appearance, she would add prestige to the party, Mollie thought, no matter how dusty and wind-blown the rest of them might appear.

The girls hopped gayly in. Toot, toot, toot! the horn blew three times.

Chug-chug-chug! and the great machine began to breathe with deep, m.u.f.fled roars. Mr. Stuart gave the starting crank a strong turn, and the car slid gracefully along the road, red, blue, pink and violet motor veils floating behind in the breeze.

"Here's good luck to you!" shouted Harold Smith, and roses and flowers of every kind were flung after them. Mollie and Grace picked up those that fell into their laps, and turned to wave their hands and throw kisses for good-bye.

"They look like a rainbow," said Mr. Stuart, turning to Mrs. Thurston, who was no longer trying to hide her tears. Then he smiled at her gently. She was such a tiny, girlish-looking little woman, it was hard to think of her as the mother of two nearly grown-up daughters. "I expect," he continued, "that that rainbow holds most of our promise of sunshine."

They were still watching the car!

Down to the gate, at the furthest end of the road, a baby boy, chubby and fat, had crawled on two round, turned-in legs. There was something unusual going on down the street. He could hear strange noises, but, though he stuck his small nose through the fence, he was still unable to see. Just as Ruth's car was almost in front of the house, open flew the stubborn old gate, and the child flung himself out in the middle of the road, just in front of the wonderful red thing he could see flying toward him. The baby was too young to understand the danger.

From the watchers at Mrs. Thurston's came a cry of horror. A thrill of terror pa.s.sed through the occupants of the car. Ruth's face turned white. Like a flash, she slowed a little, turned her steering wheel and with a wide sweep drove her motor to the far side of the road, then straight on out of the path of the wondering baby.

Mr. Stuart's, "Bravo, daughter!" was lost in his throat. But the little group of waiting friends gave three cheers for the girl chauffeur, which Ruth heard even at such a distance. Truly "The Automobile Girls" were fairly started on their adventures.

CHAPTER VI-WHAT HAPPENED THE FIRST DAY

The car flew along by sunny meadows and farms. New York was the first day's goal.

"Barbara," Ruth said to her next-door neighbor, "you are hereby appointed royal geographer and guide-extraordinary to this party! Here is the route-book. It will be up to you to show us which roads we are to take. It is a pretty hard job, as I well know from experience; but then, honors come hard. You don't need to worry to-day. I know this coast trip into New York as well as I know my A.B.C.'s. I have often come along this way with father. Let's have a perfectly beautiful time in New York.

We'll make Aunt Sallie chaperon us while we do the town, or, at least, a part of it. Have you ever been to a roof garden?"

Barbara's eyes danced. It didn't sound quite right somehow-a roof garden-but then they were out for experiences, and Miss Sallie wouldn't let them do anything really wrong.

Ruth glanced out of the corner of her eye at Barbara. Miss Stuart was a good little chauffeur who never allowed her attention to be distracted from running her car, no matter what was being talked of around her, nor how much she was interested, but she couldn't help laughing at Barbara's expression; it told so plainly all that was going on inside her head.

"I do a.s.sure you, Miss Barbara Thurston, that a roof garden may be a fairly respectable thing, quite well suited to entertaining, without shocking either Miss Sallie Stuart or her four charming protegees." Ruth called back: "Aunt Sallie, will you take us up on the Waldorf roof to-night? You know we are going to stay at the Waldorf Hotel, girls.

Father said we might enjoy the experience, and it would be all right with Aunt Sallie for chaperon."

Grace pinched Mollie's arm to express her rapture, and that little maiden simply gasped with delight. It was Mollie, not Barbara, of the two sisters, who had the greatest yearning for wealth and society, and the beautiful clothes and wonderful people that she believed went along with it. Barbara was an out-door girl, who loved tennis and all the sports, and could swim like a fish. An artist who spent his summers at Kingsbridge, once called her a brown sea-gull, when he saw her lithe brown body dart off the great pier to dive deep into the water.

Aunt Sallie had been taking a brief cat-nap, before Ruth's question, and awakened in high good humor. "Why, yes, children," she answered, "it will be very pleasant to go up on the roof to-night, after we have had our baths and our dinners. I am quite disposed to let you do just what you like, so long as you behave yourselves."