She sighed. "Well, you see," she explained, "sometimes young couples
that are out together--well, they don't have any place to go, and
so--of course it isn't wight, and the sort of people we know don't do
it, but--and of course the motel owner isn't to blame if some people,
instead of using the cabins to spend the night and sleep in, use them
to ..." Her eyebrows were leaping wildly, and she turned to Mr.
Featherbrain. "You tell her, dear," she begged him.
But at last I understood. I got up, embarrassed partly at the
conversation and partly at my own display of stupidity, and went home.
This was an aspect of the motel business which was new to me, and I
resolved to find out whether such use of motels on the highway was
common. I had developed a library-born friendship with Mrs. Barkin, the
owner of the rather shabby Sylvan Motel toward town, and I planned to
bring up the subject at our next meeting.
I didn't let my unhappy experience with the house movers prevent me
from learning to drive. "Twice in a lifetime it couldn't happen!" I
told Grant; and I took the car out on Williams street day after day,
sometimes staying out only ten minutes, and other times staying half an
hour or more; and finally I was so adept at handling the car that I
went to the Banning police department on a day when driving tests were
being given, took the test, passed it, and received my driver's license.
I clutched the slip of paper proudly to my bosom. This, I knew, rated a
special little trip. I must try my wings--or my wheels,
rather--somewhere besides on Williams street and the downtown block
around which the driving examiner had just accompanied me.
Grant was taking care of the motel; Grandma was taking care of the
children; everything had been arranged so that I'd be sure to have
enough free time to take both my written and my driving tests, and to
get my license. Duty wasn't calling me back to the motel; now that I
was a licensed driver our insurance would fully cover any accident I
might have. (Not that I contemplated having any; but visions of
liability suits had danced through my head every time I had been
inspired, by my growing aptitude at driving, to take a little spin away
from the dull safety of Williams street.)
So now I had some free time and a driver's license. And there was no
place better to explore, I decided, than--the Indian reservation.
"I hope they don't put a curse on me," I thought, zipping along the
highway to, and past, our motel at twenty-five miles an hour. I turned
left on Hathaway, the cross street east of our motel; Mrs. Clark had
told me Hathaway led back into the hills where the reservation was.
Less than a mile from the highway, Hathaway rose to a small peak on top
of which was a cow guard, with metal grillwork extending across the
road, the bars--between which cows would catch their hooves if they
tried to cross--at right angles to it. A fence divided all the land
past the cow guard from that on the side I was coming from; except for
the open gateway at the road, there was no entrance to the land which a
formidable-looking sign declared to be the Indian reservation.
The sign thrust its large white face forward pugnaciously as it stated: