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[Illustration: "The Automobile Girls" Were Fairly Started.
_Frontispiece._]
The Automobile Girls at Newport
OR
Watching the Summer Parade
By
LAURA DENT CRANE
Author of The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires, The
Automobile Girls Along the Hudson, Etc., Etc.
Illustrated
PHILADELPHIA
HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY
Copyright, 1910, by Howard E. Altemus
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Barbara to the Rescue 7
II. Lost, Strayed or Stolen 16
III. Ruth's Perfect Plan 30
IV. Mother's Secret 39
V. The Glorious Start 47
VI. What Happened the First Day 59
VII. Showing Their Mettle 71
VIII. "For We Are Jolly Good Fellows!" 86
IX. Only Girls 93
X. Enter Gladys and Mr. Townsend 104
XI. Newport at Last 111
XII. A Week Later 121
XIII. The Night of the Ball 131
XIV. Barbara's Secret 142
XV. Ruth in Danger 150
XVI. Help Arrives 162
XVII. The Fortune-Tellers 169
XVIII. A Word to the Wise 180
XIX. "Eyeology" 190
XX. Ruth Wakes Up! 204
XXI. The Capture of the Butterfly 213
XXII. The Tennis Tournament 224
XXIII. Brought to Bay 236
XXIV. Good-Bye to Newport 242
THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT NEWPORT
CHAPTER I--BARBARA TO THE RESCUE
"Pink hair ribbons!"
Barbara Thurston's brown, bright face seemed to twinkle all over, as she
clinked a yellow coin on the marble top of the little sewing table.
"Silk stockings!" chorused Mollie Thurston gleefully. "Wasn't it the
luckiest thing that the hotel people wanted so many berries this year!"
And she, too, sent a gold piece spinning over the smooth surface. "But,
perhaps, we won't be invited after all," she sighed.
"Nonsense!" rejoined Barbara energetically. "When Grace Carter says
she'll fix a thing, you can wager she will. She's known Ruth Stuart for
three summers now, and she's told us we'd be invited to Ruth's party
this year. I can read the invitations already. The only thing worrying
me was what we'd wear. Now the strawberry crop has turned out so well,
and mother's a brick, and will let us use our money as we wish--I think
we're fixed. Then--who knows?"
"I am sure Ruth Stuart's lots of fun when you get to know her,"
interrupted Mollie eagerly. "If Cousin Gladys wasn't boarding at the
hotel with her, we'd have met her long before. Isn't Gladys a stuck-up
goose? Never mind. We'll have the laugh on her when she sees us at the
party. Let's be de-lighted to meet her. I should love to watch her when
she is fussed!"
"After all," mused Barbara, thoughtfully, "her father was in partnership
with papa. It's mighty funny that uncle got all the money. I wonder----"
She stopped playing with her gold piece and gazed thoughtfully out of
the sitting room window at the hot, empty, yellow road that ran so near
the tiny cottage.
Barbara Thurston was sixteen, Mollie just two years younger, and nearly
all their lives had been spent in that little cottage. John Thurston,
the girls' father, had died suddenly when Mollie was only three years
old.
He had been at that time in the wholesale clothing business with his
wife's brother, Ralph Le Baron, and was supposed to be a rich man. But
when his affairs were settled up, his brother-in-law, the executor,
announced that a very small interest in the business remained to Mrs.
Thurston. He hinted, darkly, at stock speculation on her husband's part,
and poor Mrs. Thurston, overcome by grief, had not wanted to question
deeply.
She, herself, happened to own the little cottage, in Kingsbridge, in
which she and her brother had lived as children. Acting on his advice,
she settled there with her two little girls, and had remained ever
since, subsisting on the small income her brother regularly transmitted
to her from her dead husband's tiny business interest. Le Baron and his
wife, with their daughter, Gladys, usually spent the summer in
Kingsbridge, at the one "summer hotel" in the place; but intercourse
between the two families had come to be little sought on either side.
Kingsbridge was a quiet little village in New Jersey, and, except for
the summer visitors, there was little gayety. Gladys Le Baron,
especially, had shown herself icily oblivious of the existence of her
younger cousins, Barbara and Mollie.
These two were delightful examples of self-reliant young America.
Barbara, the elder, looked a regular "nut-brown maid," with chestnut
hair that never would "stay put," and usually a mischievous twinkle in
the brown eyes beneath the straying locks. But there was plenty of
genuinely forceful energy stored away in her slim, well-knit young body,
and her firm chin and broad forehead told both of determination and
intelligence.
Her sister, Mollie, was fair, with lovely curling blond hair, and a
quaint drollery of speech that won her many friends. Both sisters had
grown up quietly, helping their mother about the house, as they could
afford no servant, going to the village school, and, when they wanted
anything beyond the plainest necessities of life, earning it.
This summer both had set their hearts on "really-truly" party clothes,
not "hand-me-downs." Their friend, Grace Carter, daughter of Squire
Carter, the village dignitary, had promised them invitations to "the
event of the season," the party to be given by her friend Ruth Stuart, a
rich Western girl who quite recently had come to spend her summer at
Kingsbridge. And didn't Ruth Stuart live at the same hotel with Gladys
Le Baron, the snobbish cousin?
To meet the enemy on her own ground, and to have the fun of a party
besides, was certainly worth picking strawberries for, thought Barbara
and Mollie. So they scoured the country round for the sweet wild ones
the hotel visitors liked best. Now each of the girls was fingering
gleefully her twenty-dollar gold-piece that meant many days' work in the
past, but pretty dresses in the future.
The prospect was too alluring for Barbara to spend much time in
wondering about the real "why" of their fallen fortunes, though the
question had come to her before, and would again. Now she was ready to
join Mollie in eager planning as to "just what they'd get."
"Go get a pencil and paper, Molliekins, and we'll set it all down," she
laughed.
Mollie went into the further room and Barbara waited, eyes
absent-mindedly fixed on the yellow stretch of road.
Suddenly she became conscious of a curious pounding. There was a queer,
wild rhythm to it, and it seemed to be coming nearer and nearer.
Barbara put her head out of the open window. She could see nothing but a
cloud of dust far down the road. Yet the pounding sounded louder every
moment.
Then she knew. The noise came from the furious feet of runaway horses.
And they were coming past the house with their helpless, unknown
victims.
What could Barbara do? Her mother was asleep upstairs and there was no
man about the place. There was no other house near. Besides, the
slightest delay might prove fatal.
All this seemed to flash through Barbara's brain in a second. She knew
she must act. Swiftly and easily as a boy she vaulted the open window,
pausing only to snatch a closed umbrella that leaned against the sill.
How glad she was she had forgotten to put it away in the closet when she
came in from the shower yesterday!
In an instant the girl sped through the gate and out into the road,
opening her umbrella as she ran.
There she paused, squarely in front of the approaching dust cloud, very
near now. She could hear the click of the stones, cast aside by the
flying feet of the horses, and she caught a glimpse of two black heads,
wild-eyed and foam-flecked, through the whirling dust.
Barbara strained her eyes to locate hanging bridles. But meantime,
swiftly and mechanically, she was opening and shutting the big black
umbrella.
"If they'll only stop!" she murmured.
And they did. Fear-crazed already, their legs trembling after a terrific
run, the horses dared not seek encounter with that horrible bat-like
creature that seemed to await them.
Scarcely five feet away, their wild pace broke. They hesitated, and
Barbara flung herself forward and seized the dangling bridles. For a
moment she pulled on them with wrists of steel, but it was not
necessary. The horses drooped their weary heads and gladly stood still.
Then, and only then, Barbara glanced at the carriage and its occupants.
It was an open four-seated carriage, and in it were Ruth Stuart, Grace
Carter, Gladys Le Baron and a strange young man somewhat older than the
rest of the party. The girls were leaning back, with closed eyes and
white faces. The young man was staring straight ahead, with a blank
expression, fear depicted on every feature.
Barbara dared not leave the horses even now. "Mollie! Mollie!" she
called.
Mollie was already out of the house. From the window, terror-stricken,
she had seen it all.
"Get the girls out," Barbara directed. "I can't leave these brutes,
though I guess they're all right now."
In the meantime, Grace and Gladys had opened their eyes. Mollie now
stood at the carriage step, her hand outstretched.
As they recognized their rescuers, Grace's pale face lit up. Even
Gladys, for once, tried to summon a gracious and grateful smile.
"We're all right, Mollie," spoke up Grace, "but I think Ruth has
fainted. I'll help you get her into the house."
Suddenly the young man started up. "I beg your pardon," he remarked in a
smooth, pleasantly-modulated voice, "but you really must let me help. I
have been utterly helpless so far," and his glance wandered admiringly
and a trifle shamefacedly toward Barbara.
In an instant, he had sprung over the wheel and gently half lifted, half
dragged Ruth Stuart off the seat.
As her feet touched the ground, she too opened her eyes, only to close
them again with a shivering sigh. Grace was at her side in a moment.
"Try to walk to the house, dear," Grace urged. "It's only a few steps."
Mollie took the place of the young man, and, between the two girls, Ruth
stumbled to the gate.
The young man stepped up to Barbara. "Can I help you?" he ventured,
looking at the now quieted horses.
But a cold voice sounded from the carriage, where Gladys still sat. "I
think you might think a little about me, Harry," she exclaimed.
The young fellow bit his lip and hesitated.
"Please," broke in Barbara, "please take her to the house. I can't get
these horses and this carriage through the gate. It isn't big enough.
But I'll hitch them to the fence and stay with them for a few minutes.
You must need rest, all of you!"
Harry Townsend bit his lip as he caught the sarcastic inflection in
Barbara's last sentence, but did as he was directed, and walked slowly
toward the house with Gladys.
Left to herself, Barbara led the horses, still attached to the carriage,
toward the fence, and hitched them by the reins in a clever way all
country girls know. "Good boys! Poor boys!" she murmured, petting them,
for they were still shivering pitifully with fright.
For several minutes she stood talking to them. Then Mollie's anxious
face appeared at the door, and in a moment she stood beside her sister.
"What shall we do?" she asked. "Miss Stuart is feeling very ill, and
wants to go home at once. She and all the others refuse to step foot
into that carriage again--and I can't blame them; but, you know, it's two
miles to the hotel, if it's a step, and we haven't a telephone. Grace
says Ruth's father would send the au-to-mo-bile,"--Mollie pronounced the
word with reverent care--"but what's the quickest way of getting the
message to them? Mother suggests running over to Jim Trumbull's and
seeing if he'll hitch up and drive to the hotel. But it's half a mile to
his place, and he's very likely to be away anyhow. What do you----?"
Barbara interrupted her decisively. "I'll just drive those horses back
to the hotel myself, Mollie Thurston," she said calmly.
"Barbara, you can't! It's risking your life!"
"Nonsense! There isn't an ounce of spirit left in the poor, frightened
things. I guess I haven't broken Jim Trumbull's colts for him without
knowing how to handle horses. You go tell Miss Stuart that her
automobile will be here in two shakes of a lamb's tail. And see,
Mollie," the twinkle shone in Barbara's eyes, "of course they'll give me
a ride back in the auto!"
Laughing at Mollie's protests, the plucky girl untied the horses and
turned them carefully.
"Stand at their heads, just a minute," she cheerfully directed. Then
Barbara gathered up the reins and climbed up to the high seat.
"Drop anchor, Mollie," she called, and trotted slowly down the road
behind the quieted blacks.