THE WILL AND THE WAY
While Phil hastily telephoned Wayland Hall and sent out her emergency
call for Gussie and Calista, Barbara busied herself with getting into
communication with Laura Mead and Norma Buchanan of Silverton Hall. Anna
Towne had been posted to watch at the window for Lillian. The latter
arrived shortly after Robin had gone. She quickly took on her load of
passengers and whizzed off as speedily as she had come.
Arrived at the inn with her first installment of guests, Robin found
Signor Baretti a most sympathetic listener to the report of the calamity
which had overtaken the off-campus girls. Mindful of the fact that the
nationality of the two warring garage proprietors was the same as
Baretti’s she made her report a strictly impersonal one.
“This is no way for Mariani an’ Sabani to do. Verra bad,” was the little
proprietor’s wrathful criticism of his countrymen. “I know these verra
well. They are the Italianos. But they are not much good. They are too
craza get the money. Each steal the business of the other. To get mad at
the people; that is the verra bad business. The people don’t ride,
Sabani an’ Mariani get no mona.”
“It was very bad business for us,” Robin assured him with a rueful
smile. “I think now that we’ll be able to bring the girls to the inn
almost on time. We can’t avoid being a little late.”
“You don’t speak of that. It is the all right,” protested Baretti.
“Thank you so much, Signor Baretti. But we _must not_ delay your
Thanksgiving arrangements.” Robin made a movement as though about to
depart.
“You listen one minute.” Up went one of the Italian’s hands for
attention. “You don’t worry about nothin’, Miss Page. Your frien’s come
pretty soon in the cars with the dorm girls. The dinner is a little
late, I don’t care. These frien’s who have the cars take the dorm girls
to town, to the campus, all the day when they need to go?”
“Yes, the same girls will help us if they haven’t any special
engagements for the afternoon and evening. The dormitory girls are to
see the basket ball game in the gym this afternoon. Then they have to go
to town to get ready for a dance in the gym this evening. After the
dance they must be taken back to town again. We don’t wish to disappoint
them if we can help it.” A worried pucker appeared on Robin’s white
forehead.
“I know what I do.” Baretti treated Robin to a brilliantly encouraging
smile. She had never before seen him look so utterly genial. “You
wait—you see.” He nodded at her mysteriously.
“You’ve done so much for us already,” she demurred, answering the smile
with her own charming one.
“I do more,” he promised heartily. He trotted along at her side as she
hurried to the door, repeatedly assuring her of his help.
Robin had sprung hastily into her car and headed it for the town of
Hamilton when Lillian Wenderblatt drove up with a second load of girls.
“Hurray! Never say die!” Lillian hailed triumphantly. “We’re here,
because we’re here!”
The girls in the car took up the cry and shouted it joyfully.
“You made quick time,” Robin said to Lillian with grateful warmth.
“Gussie, Calista, Laura Mead and Norma Buchanan have been phoned for.
Phil and Barbara are at that end of the job. Did you meet any of our
rescue motorists on the way?”
“Yes; I passed Gus and Calista not far from the Arms. They were speeding
along, splashing up the water like sixty. They were having a race to see
which one could keep in the lead.”
“Thank goodness for such glorious news!” exclaimed Robin energetically.
“Do you mind making another trip, Lillian?”
“I’d love to. I’ll dump my cargo of dorms, as our friend Guiseppe likes
to call ’em, instanter. Then I’ll beat you back to town.”
“Oh, no you won’t. Good-bye. I haven’t time to say much obliged.” Robin
promptly started her car and sped away through the fine misting rain
into which the heavier downpour had at last merged.
“This is one way to spend Thanksgiving,” she reflected, a touch of
mockery in her smile, as she sent the car ahead at the highest speed she
dared employ. “I know three Silvertonites who are going to be away late
for dinner at the Hall, too. But it’s our traditional obligation to see
the dorms within Baretti’s hospitable gates first and consider our own
turkey dinner last. Just the same I hope there’ll be lots of turkey
left. I’m so hungry.” Robin sighed audibly.
She forgot her hunger when she suddenly spied Gussie and Calista coming
up, a pair of highly enthusiastic, if somewhat reckless chauffeurs, each
driving a car filled with dinner guests.
“You can always rely on the Bertram Taxi Company,” Gussie called at top
voice. She was in the lead and radiant with the opportunity which had
fallen to her to make herself useful.
Robin rewarded Gussie with a gay salute. “Seen the others?” she cried.
“Laura and Norma? Met them just as we turned out of Linden Avenue,” the
reply floated back to Robin’s gratified ears.
When within a short distance of the bus stand she had the good luck to
encounter Laura and Norma. They had enthusiastically hailed the detail
as a fine opportunity to prove _their_ mettle as Travelers. They had
also pressed Adeline Raymond, another of the new Travelers, into service
with her car. Twenty-six passengers made up the jubilant aggregation of
the three cars which the trio of Travelers had brought to the emergency.
Robin shouted and waved her encouragement of the overflowing carloads of
girls as the machines shot past her own. She did not attempt to stop the
three willing drivers who had responded so promptly to the call. She had
not more than reached the drug store and sprung from her car when
Lillian drove up, laughingly sounding her own praises as a high-speed
motorist.
“We have met the obstacle and surmounted it,” Phil emphasized her joyful
boast with a flourish of the arm. She and Barbara had rushed out of the
drug store at sight of the returned pair of P. G.’s. “Only sixteen more
girls to go to the inn. Speed up, and you can get them there by a little
after one. Then you can come back for us. I’ve ’phoned Silverton Hall
that we may be late for dinner. It will be all right.”
“You’re a collection of jewels, all of you.” Robin made an
affectionately inclusive gesture. “What about Thanksgiving dinner at
your house, Lillian?” she turned to her classmate.
“Not until four o’clock. I’ve barrels of time to squander,” Lillian
declared extravagantly.
“Come on, friends and fellow-citizens!” Robin was now beckoning briskly
to the sixteen girls of the dormitory group who had followed Phil and
Barbara outside the store. “Please accept my profound apologies for
having to pack you in, eight to a car. It will have to be done.”
“Try to regard the experience from the stoical standpoint of a sardine,”
Phil advised comfortingly, but in a comfortless tone.
Her advice was received with a buzz of retaliating sallies from the
giggling aspirants for sardine experience. Neither dark weather nor
mishaps can long suppress the exuberant spirit of youth. It bubbles up
like a magic spring at the first intimation of trouble ended and good
fortune nigh. What might have been a most vexatious disappointment had
been averted in the nick of time. In consequence, Baretti’s dinner
guests were in high feather at the triumph of Robin, Phil and Barbara
over calamitous circumstances.
Robin’s heart responded to the rollicking happy disturbance the double
octette of girls were making as they piled themselves into the two
waiting cars. She did not know what the rest of the day might bring
forth but she was greatly inspirited by Signor Baretti’s promise to
help.
“I must hurry away again, Signor Baretti. I must go back to town for
Miss Moore and Miss Severn,” Robin explained a little later to the
Italian as she saw the last of the dormitory girls ushered high and dry
into the inn. “I’ll stop here on my return trip with the girls’
umbrellas. They’ll need them when they are ready to go over on the
campus. I don’t believe it will ever stop raining.” Standing in the open
door of the inn she made a grimace of mock despair.
“It rain, oh, way late tonight, mebbe,” prophesied Baretti. “I have look
at the sky verra hard. Well, it is not that much to be sad to me if I
have not many more than the dorm girls for the dinner. After the dinner,
Pedro, my man, stay here at the restaurant. I am the one to go to the
town and see Sabani. I know him. I speak the verra cross words to him.
He knows how I can be verra mad. I make him send the busses to the
campus after the _ginnasio_ for the dorm girls.”
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