AT THE MAHOGANY SHOP
It was Duncan Bennet who suggested the auto meet. The town of
Breakwater had never gone beyond the annual dog show, and this
progressive young man confided to his cousin Daisy that on a certain
day next week he expected several of his friends from out of town, who
were sure to come in autos, and:
"Why not tell them to 'slick up' their machines, and you girls could do
the same? Then, oh, then!" he exclaimed, "we could run a real
up-to-date auto meet. I can round up fifteen machines at least. And
the girls! Why, the fame of the motor girls will then be assured. You
will actually have to appoint a press agent."
The cousins were strolling through the splendid gardens of Bennet
Blade, as Duncan called the long, narrow strip of family property that,
for years, had been famous for its splendid gardens, not flower beds,
but patches of things to eat.
"I think it would be perfectly splendid," declared Daisy, her eyes full
of admiration for her good-looking cousin. "And I know the girls will
like it."
That settled it. Duncan Bennet went straight to his room, scribbled
off a number of notes, threw himself astride his horse Mercury (called
Ivy for short), and was on his way to the post-office before Daisy had
time to stop the exclamation gaps in the girls' faces with the correct
answers to their varied questions.
Some days lay between the proposition and the fete, and this time was
to be spent on the road, as the girls had yet some miles to cover
before they would turn back toward Chelton.
There was a visit to be made at a ruins in Clayton; this was an
underlined note of Ray's on the itinerary. Then Maud wanted so much to
see a real watering place in full swing. This was put down as
Ebbinflow, and would take up at least an entire afternoon. Tillie had a
craze for antiques, and there was a noted shop only twenty miles from
Breakwater. So when Cora facetiously suggested that the party start
out from a given point, go their separate ways and get back to Chelton
for the auto meet, the girls realized that they would have to "boil
down their plans" to fit the time allotted for the tour.
The trip to the Clayton ruins occupied a whole day. The girls started
early and took their lunch, which Bess said would be eaten in a
crumbling, moss-covered and ivy-entwined tower. The ruins fully came
up to expectations, and the girls, leaving their machines at the
roadside, began their explorations.
"Isn't it just perfect!" exclaimed Ray. "I wish I had my sketch book
along."
"She wants to outdo Washington Irving," called Cora, poising on a
tottering stone.
"Look out!" suddenly called Bess. "That stone, Cora--"
A scream from Cora interrupted her, for the stone began to roll over,
and Cora only saved herself by a little jump, while the piece of
masonry toppled down upon a pile of bricks and mortar.
"My! That was a narrow escape!" gasped Maud. "You might have sprained
your ankle."
"Which would have been all the more romantic," added Cora, smiling
faintly. "It would have been material for Ray's sketchbook."
"Never, Cora!" cried Ray. "But come on. Let's go to some less
dangerous part of this ruin. You know they say this was once a church,
but was made into a sort of castle by an eccentric individual--"
"Who did dark and bloody deeds and whose spirit now haunts the place,"
interrupted Maud.
"Oh, don't!" begged Ray. "It's not quite as bad as that, but I heard
some one say that on certain dark nights that--"
"Stop it!" commanded Cora. "My nerves are all right, but I'm still
shaky from that stone. Let's see if--"
"Oh!" cried Bess suddenly. "There's something there, girls," and, with
dramatic gesture, she pointed to a pile of leaves in one corner.
"Something moved there, I'm sure of it!"
They looked, and all started as the leaves actually did move.
"Come on!" cried Ray. They gathered up their skirts and were hurrying
from the old room into which they had penetrated when the leaves
rustled still more, and from them came a tiny snake. There was a
chorus of screams and Cora found herself alone in the ruined chamber.
She was pale but resolute as she followed her companions sedately.
"Weren't you awfully frightened?" asked Ray as Cora joined them.
"No indeed," she answered. "I prefer a live and seeable snake to some
haunting, unseeable rumor that only appears on dark nights. But let's
get out into the sunlight and admire the ruins from a better
perspective. Besides it's getting near lunch time."
It was more reassuring out of doors, they all admitted, and after
admiring the picturesque remains of what might have been either a
church or fort as far as appearances now went, they got the hampers
from the cars and feasted. Then, sitting in the shade, they discussed
many things until lengthening shadows warned them that it was time to
go.
"Now for a jolly day to-morrow," remarked Maud as they neared their
stopping place that night. "If only we have good weather."
She had her desire. Never was weather more perfect, never were better
country roads discovered and never could there have been a more jolly
party of girls.
Maud was enchanted with Ebbinflow. She declared the watering place was
a perfect fairyland, but some of her companions hinted that it was the
style of the gowns that attracted her. Still they spent the best part
of a day there, enjoying the bathing and coming back in the cool of the
evening much refreshed.
"Now, Bess, it's your choice for our destination to-morrow," announced
Cora at a little luncheon just before retiring time. "But please don't
choose ruins or a watering place."
"The woods for mine," announced Bess. "I heard of a lovely grove about
twenty-five miles from here--"
"Twenty-five miles to find an ordinary grove," said Maud.
"Oh, but it's not an ordinary one," declared Bess. "It is quite
extraordinary."
A delightful fancy dress ball was given that evening at the girls'
club, where our friends stopped, and this made a pleasant break in the
tour and a welcome relief from spark plugs, carburetors and the
cranking of motors, much as the girls had come to care for their cars.
Two days more were spent in visiting well-known places of interest, and
on one trip Maud and Bess, who managed to slip away from their
companions, went through several old farmhouses in search of the table.
Once they had hopes that they were on the track, as an elderly woman
declared she had just what they were looking for, but it proved to be
far from it, though she was anxious to sell it to them.
"Oh, dear, I hoped we could find it," said Bess as they came out.
Next morning Tillie declared it was her turn to say where the trip
should be, and she picked out an exclusive antique shop, about twenty
miles from Breakwater, in which direction the cars were soon speeding.
"I'll get a warming pan if there is one in the place," announced
Tillie, whose love for the old copper pan with the long and awkward
handle was almost a joke with her friends.
"Well, I do hope if you can't get a pan that you'll not load us up with
lead pipe and such stuff," said Cora with a laugh. "I remember very
well that last day at school when you came back from Beverly. My, what
a sight you were! What did you ever do with the junk?"
"Indeed, it was not junk," objected Tillie, "but a lot of the very
handsomest glass knobs and brass candlesticks, and my samovar."
"You surely did not carry a samovar!" exclaimed Maud.
"Indeed I did," replied the little German, "else I should not have
gotten it in the morning. I know those antique men. They are like a
thermometer--go up and down with simple possibilities."
Ray was as pretty as ever, Maude just as sweet and Daisy just as
gentle, while Cora and Gertrude had added new summer tints to their
coloring. Adele and Tillie were still bubbling over with enthusiasm,
the twins were exceptionally happy, the morning mail having brought
good news--so that all were "fine and fit" when they started on the
ride to the antique shop.
The day was of that sort that comes in between summer and fall, when
one time period borrows from the other with the result of making an
absolutely perfect "blend."
Ray had changed places with Belle Robinson, so that Belle was in the
Whirlwind and Ray in the Flyaway, and when the procession was moving it
attracted the usual public attention.
But the motor girls were now accustomed to being stared at; in fact,
they would have missed the attention had they been deprived of it, for
it was something to have a run with all girls--and such attractive
girls.
"What if we should find the table at the antique shop!" suddenly said
Belle to Ray. "Somehow I have a feeling--"
"Let me right out of your machine, Bess Robinson," joked Ray. "I have
had all I want of 'feelings' since we started on this trip. I rather
think the one where the goat or sheep or whatever it was did the actual
'feeling' was about the 'utmost,' as Clip would say. Poor Clip! I
wonder what she is about just now."
"About as frisky as ever, I'll wager," said Belle. "I never could
understand that girl."
"Well," objected Bess, "it would be hard to understand any one who is
only in Chelton two months at summer. If you were at school all year
and came home for new clothes, I fancy I would scarcely understand my
own twin sister."
"Strange," went on Ray, "that boys always so well understand a girl of
that type. Now I do not mean that in sarcasm," she hurried to add,
noting the impression her remark had made, "but I have always noticed
that the girls whom girls think queer boys think just right."
"Pure contrariness," declared Bess. "I don't suppose a boy like Jack
Kimball thinks more of a girl just because she keeps her home
surroundings so mysteriously secret."
As usual, Bess had blundered. She never could speak of Jack Kimball
and Clip Thayer without "showing her teeth," as Belle expressed it.
The machines were running along with remarkable smoothness. The
Flyaway seemed to be singing with the Whirlwind, while Daisy's car had
ceased to grunt, thanks to the efforts of the workman at her aunt's
place.
"What will the antique man think of three autos stopping at his door?"
inquired Adele of Cora.
"Think? Why, it will be the best advertisement he ever had. Likely he
will pay us to come again," replied Cora.
The street upon which "the mahogany shop" was situated was narrow and
dingy enough--the sort of place usually chosen to add to the "old and
odd" effect of the things in the dusty window.
The proprietor was outside on a feeble-looking sofa. As Cora
predicted, he evidently was honored with the trio of cars that pulled
up to the narrow sidewalk. Tillie, with the air of a connoisseur,
stepped into the shop before the little man with the ragged whiskers
had time to recover from his surprise.
"Have you a warming pan?" she inquired straightaway, whereat, as was
expected, the man produced almost every other imaginable sort of old
piece save, of course, that asked for.
But Tillie liked to look at all the stuff, and was already running the
risk of blood poison, as Cora whispered to Gertrude, with her delving
into green brasses and dirty coppers.
With the same thought uppermost in their minds, Bess, Belle and Cora
were soon busy examining the old furniture. There were many curious
and really valuable pieces among the collection, for this man's shop
was famous for many a mile.
"Tables!" whispered Belle. "Did you ever think there were so many
kinds?"
Cora approached the owner. "Have you an inlaid table--a card table or
one that could be used for one? I would fancy something in unpolished
wood."
"I know just what you mean," answered the man, "and I expect to have
one in a few days. In fact, I already have an order for one--with
anchors and oars inlaid."
Cora did not start. She winked at Bess, who was always apt to "bubble
over."
"Anchors?" repeated Cora. "Set in on the sides, I suppose? Well, that
would be odd. But where can you get such a piece as that?"
Cora did not mean to ask outright where the piece might be obtained;
what she meant was: "That will surely be a difficult thing to find."
"Oh, there is one--some place," replied the man, little dreaming what a
tumult his words were creating in the brains of the anxious motor
girls. "And when I get an order I always get the article. I shall have
a warming pan for this young lady by to-morrow noon."
"Then suppose I order a table, like the one with the oars and anchors?"
ventured Cora. "Could I get that?"
"Oh, no, miss," and he shook his head with importance. "You do not
understand the trade. That would be a duplicate, and in furniture we
guarantee to give you an original--I can only get one seaman's card
table, and that is ordered."
Cora smiled and walked off a little to gain time, and to think. Her
manner told the girls plainly not to mention the matter. She would act
as wisely as she was capable of doing. She overhauled some blue plates
and selected a pair of "Baronials."
The man went into ecstasies, describing "every crack in the dishes,"
Maud said to Daisy, but Cora bought the plates, and paid him his price
without question.
Adele and Tillie had piled up quite a heap of brass and copper, and,
unlike Cora, they argued some about the cost, but finally compromised,
and put the entire heap into an old Chinese basket which the man "threw
in."
"Then I cannot get a table," said Cora, purposely displaying a roll of
bills which she was replacing in her purse.
"Not exactly that kind," answered the man. "But something very much
handsomer, I assure you. If you will call in a day or two I will show
you something unmatched in all the country. A house has just sold out,
and I have bought all the mahogany."