WHAT HAPPENED TO TOMMY
"Oh-h-h!" moaned Margery. "Poor Tommy has been killed."
In that terrible moment Hazel Holland came nearer to fainting than ever
before in her life. She pulled herself sharply together. Margery was by
this time sobbing hysterically.
"Don't do that," commanded Hazel sharply, "We must do something. Come
quickly!"
Hazel started down the hillside in the trail followed by Tommy during her
break-neck sprint to meet Miss Elting. The latter was already running
toward the scene of the accident. Hazel recalled afterwards having
wondered at the time that a woman could run so fast. Miss Elting's feet
seemed barely to touch the ground. Margery, mustering her courage,
staggered to her feet and followed Hazel at a slower pace, though she,
too, was running.
Hazel was the first to reach the place where Grace had been hurled from
the highway by the car.
"Grace!" she screamed, clambering awkwardly over the fence, dropping down
on the road side. "Oh, Grace, are you killed?"
A pale-faced girl was sitting at the bottom of the dry ditch with both
feet tucked under her. There was a bewildered look on her small face. She
was blinking dazedly.
"Oh, dearie, are you injured?" cried Miss Elting, slipping and sliding
down into the ditch beside the pale-faced Tommy.
"Yeth."
"Tell me where, what?"
"My feelingth are hurt."
"She's alive! She's alive," cried Hazel, throwing impulsive arms about the
neck of her little friend.
"Your feelings are hurt? Well, dear, if that is all, you are a lucky
girl," smiled Miss Elting. "Did the automobile hit you?"
"Yeth."
At this juncture, Margery made her appearance in a wholly unexpected
manner. Margery in climbing the fence had caught her skirt on a nail. She
plunged headlong down the bank into the ditch, almost falling on Grace.
"Oh, oh!" groaned Margery.
Hazel, laughing almost hysterically in her joy at finding Grace alive,
quickly assisted Margery to her feet, wiping the dirt from Buster's
flushed face.
"She isn't hurt at all," laughed Margery, fixing a glance of inquiry on
Tommy's face.
"Tommy says her feelings are hurt," Miss Elting informed Buster.
"Then I am worse off than she. Because I tore my skirt and hurt my arm,
too. Catch me running on another wild goose chase like this one. I don't
believe the car hit you at all, Tommy Thompson."
"Yeth it did," protested Tommy. "Of courthe it did. I gueth I know. I felt
it."
"Stand up," commanded Miss Elting, placing both hands under the arms of
the girl and assisting her to her feet. "There! Now see if you can walk.
Of course you can," comforted the teacher. "The car never touched you. You
must have leaped out of the way just in time. Come, I will help you into
the road, then we will take you home. But where is Harriett? I heard she
was out here with you girls."
"I should not be here had not Tommy and Hazel dragged me out," declared
Margery. "Violent exercise is not good for one during the hot weather."
"It'th very good for you, Buthter," remarked Tommy wisely. "It ithn't good
for a growing girl to be thtout, tho I've heard."
"Don't worry. You will never suffer from being too stout," retorted
Margery. "You can't keep still long enough."
"Mith Elting, I've been thitting here in the ditch for ever and ever tho
long and not thaying a word, and Buthter thayth I can't keep thtill."
"Why don't you girls stop squabbling and answer Miss Elting's question?"
demanded Hazel. "Harriet is at home, Miss Elting."
"Yeth, Harriet ith wathing ditheth for her mother," said Tommy. "I'd like
to thee anybody make me wath ditheth if I didn't want to."
"That isn't a nice thing to say, Grace," rebuked the teacher. "Of course
Harriet is a great help to her mother, as every girl should be. Suppose,
Grace, that your mother could not afford to hire a servant to do these
things for her? In that case I am positive you would do whatever you could
to assist your mother. I believe you would make a fine little
housekeeper."
Grace shook her head with emphasis.
"No? Then what would you do if your mother insisted upon your washing
dishes?"
"I'd drop the ditheth. Maybe they wouldn't want me to wath any more
ditheth after that," replied Tommy, screwing up her face so impishly that
Miss Elting laughed aloud.
"Is it any wonder that Grace and myself quarrel awfully at times, Miss
Elting?" asked Margery.
"They don't mean anything by it," apologized Hazel.
"Thay, what did you come up here for, Mith Elting?" questioned Tommy,
directing a glance of suspicious inquiry at the teacher. "Do you want uth
to go for another nithe little walk? No, thank you. I've walked with you
before. Thank you very kindly. My feet are too thore and Buthter ith too
tired. Harriet'th brother thayth that Buthter wath born with that tired
feeling. I geth he'th right. Don't you think tho, Miss Elting? Thit down
and retht, and I'll tell your fortune with a daithy."
"If you are rested sufficiently I think we had better move on. Don't
worry, Grace. I am not going to drag you away on one of those long walks.
But I have something to tell you."
"I knew it," piped Tommy. "Look out! There cometh another automobile."
Tommy shied from her position in the road like a skittish horse.
Just then the car that had caused all the trouble came honking toward them
and slowed down with a series of explosions that sounded like the
discharges of a Gatling gun. The young woman who was driving the car,
brought it to a stop, leaped out and running to Grace threw her arms about
the slender girl in white.
"Oh, my darlin', my darlin'. My blessed little Tommy. Did I kill you
altogether? And I wasn't going a little bit, was I? But didn't I come near
to ripping the cowcatcher from that engine? Wasn't it just glorious the
way I dodged the old thing? I knew all the time it was going to be a close
shave, but I made up my mind I'd beat 'em out even if I took off the hind
wheels of my car. Get in, you dears. I'll drive you home."
"What! Ride with you?" questioned Margery. "Not for a million dollars.
It's a shame. They ought to arrest you."
"Yes, Jane," rebuked Miss Elting. "You shouldn't go racing about the way
you do. Your car nearly ran over Grace."
"Dad says I drive too fast. He says he doesn't blame folks for calling me
'Crazy Jane.' He says I'll meet with an accident one of these days. But
Dad has old-fashioned ideas."
Jane paused long enough to brush back two stray locks from her flushed
face. Her hair was all awry and her attire showed carelessness and haste
in dressing.
"Well, darlin's, if you won't go with me I think I'll go and get Harriet.
She isn't afraid to ride with me."
"Please don't do that," replied Miss Elting. "We are on our way to see
Harriet on important business."
"So long, then. I'm off, girls."
Jane sprang into her car and drove away with a sputter and a roar,
disappearing in a cloud of pungent blue smoke.
"Isn't she a crazy creature?" demanded Margery disdainfully.
"She means well," soothed Hazel.
"Yeth. Thhe meanth to kill thomebody well," corrected Tommy.
Jane McCarthy had acquired the name of "Crazy Jane" because of her
reckless driving, her harum-scarum ways and her complete ignoring of
public opinion. Not a few of the residents of the little New Hampshire
village feared that Jane might be brought home after one of her wild
drives, with broken bones, if not worse.
In spite of her reckless manner Jane was well liked. She was good hearted
and very charitable, though her charity was not always bestowed with
judgment Being motherless she had practically done as she pleased ever
since she began to walk, and her father, a wealthy contractor, had
indulged her every whim, believing that Jane could do no wrong. Jane was
prompt to take advantage of this paternal leniency, though her worst
offense was that of continuously terrorizing the neighborhood in which she
lived and the whole countryside as well, by her reckless driving with both
car and horse.
The narrow escape of Grace Thompson from being run over by the big touring
car had not shaken Jane's nerve in the least. It had shaken Tommy's only
briefly. Tommy, supple and alert, had leaped from the road just in time to
avoid being run down by the car. A second's delay on her part would
undoubtedly have proved serious if not fatal to Tommy Thompson.
But the three girls were to see more of Jane in the near future. She was
to play a more active part in their lives than she had ever before done.
Just now they were more interested in what they instinctively felt Miss
Elting had to say to them.
"Now, listen, girls," said Miss Elting after the roar of the car had died
away in the distance. "I will tell you about the very pleasant plans I
have made for you and Harriet."