CORA AND HER CAR
"Now you've got it, what are you going to do with it?" asked Jack
Kimball, with a most significant smile at his sister Cora.
"Do with it?" repeated the girl, looking at her questioner in
surprise; then she added, with a fine attempt at sarcasm: "Why, I'm
going to have Jim break it up for kindling wood. It will make such a
lovely blaze on the library hearth. I have always loved blazing
autos."
"Now, sis," objected the tall, handsome boy, as he swung his arm
about the almost equally tall, and even handsomer girl, "don't get
mad."
"Oh, I'm not in the least angry."
"Um! Maybe not. Put I honestly thought--well, maybe you would like
some of the boys to give you a lesson or two in driving the new car.
There's Wally, you know. Ahem! I thought perhaps Wally--"
"Walter can run a machine--I'm perfectly willing to grant you that,
Jack. But this is my machine, and I intend to run it."
The girl stepped over to a window and looked out. There, on the
driveway, stood a new automobile. Four-cylindered, sliding-gear
transmission, three speeds forward and reverse, long-wheel base, new
ignition system, and all sorts of other things mentioned in the
catalogue. Besides, it was a beautiful maroon color, and the leather
cushions matched. Cora looked at it with admiration in her eyes.
An hour, before, Jack Kimball and his chum Walter Pennington, had
brought the car from the garage to the house, following Mrs.
Kimball's implicit instructions that the new machine should not be
driven an unnecessary block between the sales-rooms and the Kimball
home.
"The car must come to Cora on the eve of her birthday," Jack's
mother had stipulated to him, "and I want it to come to her brand
new, with the tires nice and white. Hers must be the first ride in
it."
So it was, after "digesting her surprise," as she expressed it, and
spending the intervening hour in admiring the beautiful machine,
climbing in and out of it, testing the levers, turning the steering
wheel, and seeing Jack start the engine, that Cora was able to leave
it and enter the house.
"It's--it's just perfect;" she said, with a longing look back at the
car.
"Yes, and isn't it a shame mother won't let you go out in it
to-night?" spoke Jack as he joined his sister at the window. "If
they had only unpacked it a little earlier--it's too bad not to have
a run in it while it's fresh. But," he concluded with a sigh, "I
suppose I'll have to push it back in the shed."
"Yes," assented Cora, also sighing. "But mother must be humored,
and if she insists that I shall not take a trial spin after dark,
I'll simply have to wait until daylight. Jack, you're a dear! I know
perfectly well that you influenced mother to give me this," and Cora
brushed her flushed a cheek against Jack's bronzed face.
"Well, I know a little sister when I see one," replied the lad; "and
though she may want to drive a motor-car, she's all right, for all
that," and Jack rather awkwardly slipped his arm around his sister's
waist again, for she did seem a "little sister" to him, even if she
was considered quite a young lady by others.
"Girls coming up to-night?" asked Jack after a pause, during which
they both had been silently admiring the car and its graceful lines.
"I don't know," replied Cora. "They haven't heard about my new
auto, or they'd be sure to come."
"Let's run over and tell them," proposed Jack.
Cora thought for a moment. She had plans for the evening, but they
did not include Jack.
She said finally: "I have to write a few letters--acknowledging some
birthday gifts. Don't wait for me if you intend to go over to
Walter's. You might call at the Robinsons', however, to fetch me;
say at half-past nine."
"Oh, then I'm not to see Bess or Belle--or--well, there are plenty
of other girls just as keen on ice cream sodas as those mentioned,"
and he pretended to leave the room, as if his feelings had been
hurt.
"Now; you know, Jack, I always want you with me, but--"
"But just to-night you don't. All right, little sister. After me
running that machine up from the garage for you, and not even
scraping the tires; after me--even kissing you! Fie! fie! little
girl. Some day you may want another machine--or a kiss--"
"Children, children," called Mrs. Kimball, "are you coming to
dinner? And are you going to put that machine in the shed before
dark, Jack?"
"Both--both, mum! We were just discussing a discussion about
the--the machine, girls and ice cream sodas."
"What nonsense!" exclaimed his mother with a laugh. "Come to
dinner, do. But, Jack, run the machine in first, please."
The car was put under a shed attached to the barn, Cora looking
enviously at Jack as he manipulated the levers and wheels, she
sitting on the seat beside him, on the short run up the driveway.
She would not venture to operate it herself in such cramped
quarters.
"There!" exclaimed Cora as Jack locked the shed door. "I hope
nobody steals it to-night. Did you take out the plug, Jack?"
"Here you are," and he handed her the brass affair that formed the
connection for the ignition system, and without which the car could
not be run. "Put it under your pillow, sis," he added. "Maybe you'll
have a gasolene dream."
They went into the house, where dinner was waiting for them. The
meal was a simple one, although the means of the little family were
ample for a most elaborate affair. But Mrs. Kimball preferred the
elegance of simplicity.
Mrs. Grace Kimball was a wealthy widow, a member of one of the
oldest and best known families in Chelton, which was a New England
town, not far from the New York boundary. Her husband had been
Joseph Kimball, a man of simple tastes and sterling principles. When
he had to leave her, with the two children, he said as he was
passing away:
"Grace, I know you will bring them up rightly--plainly and
honestly."
Plain in character, upright and fair, the two children had grown,
but, in personality, nothing could make either Jack or Cora Kimball
"plain." They were just simply splendid.
"Then I can't take out the machine to-night, mother dear?" asked
Cora after dinner.
"Not to-night, daughter. I know you can run a car, but this is a
new one, and I would feel better to have you give it a test run in
daylight. You must get the man at the garage to show you all about
it. Do you like it very much, Cora?"
"Like it! Oh, mother, I perfectly love it! I can scarcely believe
it is all mine--that Jack has no mortgage on it and that it's my
very own."
"I don't know about that," put in Jack. "A fine car like that is
rather a dangerous thing for a handsome young lady of seventeen
summers, and some incidental winters, to go sporting about in. Some
one else may get a mortgage on it, and want to foreclose."
"Now, I don't tease you, Jack," objected his, sister, "and a girl
has just as much right to tease a boy as a boy has to tease a girl."
"Goodness me! You don't call that teasing, do you? The girls have
all the rights now. But help yourself! I'm not particular. Did you
say I was to call at the Robinsons' at nine?"
"No, nine-thirty."
"Oh, exactly. Well, I'll try to be there. You might make it a
point not to be waiting on the drive for me. A fellow wants to get a
look at a girl like Bess once in a while--just for practice, you
know."
"Oh, Jack!"
"Oh, Cora! What's the matter?"
"You're horrid!"
"All right. Then I'm going off and read a horrible tale about
pirates, and walking the plank, and all that. I'll be on hand at the
time and place mentioned. Hoping this will find you well, remain,
yours very truly, Jack." And he hurried out of the room amid the
laughter of his mother and sister.
"What a boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Kimball.
It was a pleasant, summer evening, and when Cora hurried down the
avenue toward the Robinson home, she actually seemed to have wings.
For she was not running, and her pace could hardly be called
walking.
Her tall, straight figure was clad in a simple linen gown. She had
need to disregard frills now, for she was a motor girl.
"Oh, come on, and don't ask a single question!" she exclaimed as the
Robinson twins--Bess and Belle--hastened to meet her in response to
her ring. "Come on! We must go over to the garage, quick! I've got a
new machine, and I've got to learn all about it."
She had to pause for breath, and Belle managed to say
"Cora! A new machine! All for yourself! Oh, you dear! Who gave
it to you?"
"Why Jack found it," Cora laughed. "It was running along the
street, you know, and he lassoed it. It was going like mad, but he
whirled the lash of his riding-whip about it and--and--"
"Now, Cora, dear!" and Belle dropped her voice to one of aggrieved
tones. "You know what I meant."
"Of course I do, girly; but hurry--do! I want the man at the garage
to teach me all about my new machine. I call it the Whirlwind.' You
know it's different from Jack's small runabout, and there are
several new points to be posted on. I want to be all ready, so that
when we go out to-morrow morning we can surprise the boys."
"Oh, how perfectly lovely!" exclaimed Bess.
Delighted and excited, the three girls hurried over the railroad
hill, on a short cut to the garage.
"Do you think he'll show you?" asked Bess. "He might want you to
hire a chauffeur."
"Well, we'll see," responded Cora. "If we can manage to find a
nice, agreeable, elderly gentleman--the story-book kind of
machinist, you know. I fancy he will be sufficiently interested--ahem!
well, you know--" and she finished with a little laugh;
in which her chums joined.
They had reached the small door of the office of the garage. A
notice on the glass directed them to "Push."
Cora put both hands to the portal, and it swung back. She almost
stumbled into the room.
"We would like to see some one who will teach us how to run an
auto," she began. "I know something of one, but I have a new kind."
The three girls drew back.
"A nice, agreeable, elderly gentleman!" whispered Belle to Cora.
Cora could not repress a smile.
Instead of the "story-book machinist," a handsome young lad stood
before them, smiling at their discomfiture.
"What is it?" he asked in a pleasant voice, and Cora noticed how
white and even his teeth were.
"We--er--I--that is, we--I want to learn some points about my new
car," she stammered. "It's a--"
"I understand," replied the handsome chap. "I will be very glad to
show you. Just step this way, please," and, with a little bow, he
motioned to them to follow him into the semi-dark machine shop back
of the office.