CHAPTER II--AT THE STRAWBERRY PATCH
CHAPTER III--THE STRIKE
CHAPTER IV--ARBITRATION
CHAPTER V--TOO CONFIDENT
CHAPTER VI--CORA'S QUEER PLIGHT
CHAPTER VII--THE CLUE AT THE SPRING HOUSE
CHAPTER VIII--A STARTLING DISCOVERY
CHAPTER IX--COMPLICATIONS
CHAPTER X--ALMOST--BUT NOT QUITE
CHAPTER XI--ANDY'S WARNING
CHAPTER XII--THE "UNPLANNED" PLANS
CHAPTER XIII--GOING AND COMING
CHAPTER XIV--LOST ON THE ROAD
CHAPTER XV--BOYS TO THE RESCUE
CHAPTER XVI--THE SHADOW IN THE HEDGE
CHAPTER XVII--AT WAYSIDE INN
CHAPTER XVIII--LOOKOUT BEACH
CHAPTER XIX--THE MOVING PICTURE "MOVED"
CHAPTER XX--THE GAIETY OF GOING
CHAPTER XXI--BOYS AND GIRLS
CHAPTER XXII--A STRUGGLE WITH THE WAVES
CHAPTER XXIII--THE EXCURSION
CHAPTER XXIV--THE TWO ORPHANS
CHAPTER XXV--THE TRUTH! THE WHOLE TRUTH!
CHAPTER I
SUMMER PLANS
Bess Robinson was so filled with enthusiasm that her sister Belle
declared there was serious danger of "blowing-up," unless there was
some repression. Belle herself might be equally enthusiastic, but she
had a way of restraining herself, while Bess just delighted in the
"utmost" of everything. The two sisters were talking on the side porch
of their handsome home in Chelton, a New England town, located on the
Chelton river. It was a beautiful day, late in spring.
"Well, have you sufficiently quieted down, Bess?" asked Belle, after a
pause, which succeeded the more quiet girl's attempt to curb her
sister's enthusiasm--a pause that was filled with just the hint of
pique.
"Quieted down? I should think any one would quiet down after such a
call-down as you gave me, if you will allow the use of such slang in
your presence, Miss Prim," retorted Bess, with a little tilt to her
stubby nose.
"Oh, come now, Bess----"
"Well, don't be so fussy, then. We have always wanted to go to a real
watering place, and now, when we are really to go, Belle Robinson, you
take it as solemnly as if it were a message from boarding-school,
summoning us back to class. Why don't you warm up a bit? I--I feel as
if I could--yell! There, that's out, and I don't care! I wish I was a
boy, and then--then I could do something when I felt happy, besides
sitting down, and looking pleased. Boys have a way of showing their
feelings. I know what I'm going to do. I'm just going to get out the
car, and run over to Cora Kimball's. She'll know how to rejoice with
me about going to Lookout Beach. Oh, Belle, isn't it just
perfectly--too lovely for anything! There, I was going to say
scrumbunctious, but I won't in your presence--Miss Prim!"
"Why, Bess--you silly," retorted her sister. "Of course I'm glad, too.
But I don't have to go into kinks to show it. We will have a glorious
time, I'm sure, for they say Lookout Beach is a perfectly ideal
place."
"'Ideal'! Oh, there you go!" and Bess made a grimace of her pretty
face. "'Ideal'! Belle, why don't you take a private room somewhere,
just off the earth, so you can be just as perfectly proper as you
wish. 'Ideal!' Whoop! Why not sweet? Oh, I say--Burr-r-r-r! It's going
to be immense! Now there, and you can get mad if you want to," and
with this parting shot Bess hurried off to the little garage in the
rear of the house.
"Is the car ready to take out, Patrick?" she asked the man of all work
about the Robinson place.
"Yes, miss. I poured the gasolene in the little hole under the seat
where you showed me, and I filled up the oil tank, and I give it a
drink. I put in ice-water, Miss."
"Ice-water? Why, Patrick?" for Patrick was a new acquisition, and what
he didn't know about automobiles would have made two large books of
instructions to beginners. "Why ice water, Patrick?" and Bess raised
her pretty eyebrows.
"Well, sure, an' Miss Belle said the other day, as how the water
b'iled on her, miss--that is, not exactly b'iled _on_ her, but b'iled
in the tea kettle--I mean that thing punched full of holes--in the front
of the car."
"The radiator," suggested Bess, trying not to laugh.
"Yes, that's it, miss, though why they calls it a radiator, when they
want it to kape cool, is beyond me. Howsomever----"
"About the ice water, Patrick."
"Yes, miss, I'm comin' to that. You see when Miss Belle said as how it
b'iled over the other day, I thinks to myself that sure ice-water will
never boil, so I filled the radiator with some as cold as I could bear
me fist in it. Arrah, an' it's no b'ilin' water ye'll have th' day,
when ye takes this car out, Miss Bess."
"Oh, Patrick, how kind of you!" exclaimed the girl. "And what a novel
idea. I'm sure it will be all right," and she placed her hand on the
radiator. It was as cold as a pump handle on a frosty morning.
"I blew up the tires, too, miss," went on the man, "an' here's a four
leaf clover I found. Take it along."
"What for?" asked Bess, as she accepted the emblem.
"Sure, fer good luck. Maybe ye'll not git a puncture now. Clovers is
good luck."
"Oh, thank you," said Bess earnestly, as she cranked up, for Patrick
had not yet advanced this far in his auto-education.
Then the girl, most becomingly attired in auto hood and coat, backed
the pretty little silver-colored runabout, _Flyaway_, owned by herself
and her sister, "the Robinson twins," out of the garage, and turned it
on the broad drive.
"Would ye mind that now!" exclaimed Patrick, admiringly. "It's as--as
slick as a pig's whistle, miss, savin' yer presence."
Bess laughed merrily.
"I'm glad to see that some one besides myself uses a bit of--I mean an
expression that means something--once in a while, Patrick," she said,
as she threw in the clutch, after adjusting the lever to low speed.
"Yis, miss," answered the man, as he looked with admiration at the
trim and pretty figure in the little car. "Now I wonder what did she
mane?" he asked himself, when Bess was out on the road. "Sure them is
two great gurls--Miss Isabel and Miss Elizabeth--great gurls!" and
Patrick went to curry the horses kept by Mr. Robinson, this being work
that the genial and faithful Irishman understood perfectly well.
Isabel, meanwhile, continued to sun her splendid hair over the railing
of the side porch, in spite of the almost constant danger that it
might become entangled in the honeysuckle vine, or be mistaken by a
wandering bee or humming bird for some nest or hive in which to
nestle.
Isabel was always the "dreamer." She had "nerves," and she loved
everything aesthetic. Bess, on the contrary, was always "on the spot,"
as her boy friends declared, and, while she might be a trifle
over-enthusiastic at times, there was this consolation, that she was
never glum, as her personal supply of good-nature never seemed to be
lacking. Not that Isabel was moody, save at such times when she was
alone, and thought of many things--for, in company, she entered into
the fun with a zest equal to almost anyone's save her more volatile
sister. So the Robinson twins were an interesting study--so different
in disposition--so unlike in taste--but so well matched on two
points--their love for motoring and a good time during vacation, and
their love for their chum and companion, Cora Kimball.
While her sister was lazily dreaming away amid the honeysuckle vines,
letting the gentle breeze riffle through, and dry her hair, Bess was
skimming along the fine Chelton roads, her mind intent on the good
times in prospect when she, with her mother and sister, were to go to
a cottage at Lookout Beach.
"Oh, I just know it will be perfectly bang-up!" exclaimed Bess, half
aloud, and smiling at the chance to use words that meant something,
without shocking Belle. "We will have no end of good times. My! It
makes me want to go fast to think about it," and, suiting the action
to the word, she pressed her foot on the accelerator pedal, and the
car shot forward, while the hand on the dial of the speedometer
trembled around the twenty-five miles an hour mark.
"I don't care!" thought Bess, as she kept her foot on the pedal. "I'm
going to speed for once. Belle never will let me."
As she suddenly swung around a turn in the road she was made aware of
how fast the pace was, for the car skidded a bit dangerously, and, a
moment later, without a warning blast of the horn, another auto,
moving in the opposite direction, shot into view.
By a quick twist of the steering wheel, nearly sending the car into
the ditch at the roadside, Bess avoided a collision.
"Why didn't you blow your horn?" she shot indignantly at the occupant
of the car--a young man, who had also turned out quickly.
"Why didn't you blow your own?" he wanted to know, and then he smiled,
for he, too, had slowed down. "I guess it's horse and horse," he
added, good-naturedly, if slangily. "I was thinking of something
else."
"So was I," admitted Bess with a half smile, and then, having slowed
down too much to allow going ahead on high speed, she had to throw out
the clutch just as she was about to proceed, and change back to low
gear. Quickly she threw into second, as a preliminary to third, but
she was not quick enough. The motor stalled, and the car came to a
stop, amid a grinding of the gears.
"Can I help you?" asked the young man, jamming on his emergency brake.
"No, thank you," answered Bess coolly and quickly. "I can manage,"
and, before he could reach her car, for he had alighted from his own,
she had gotten out, cranked up, and was in her seat again. Then she
hurried off down the road, leaving a rather crestfallen young chap
standing in the dusty highway.
"Remarkably pretty girl--that," he said, aloud. "I wish I could have
helped her. But she was cool, all of a sudden. Maybe she didn't like
my slang--I wish I could break myself of using it--hang the luck--there I
go again," and, with a shake of his head he went back to his car.
"Adventure number one," mused Bess, as she swung along, not so fast
this time. "I wonder what will come next? I guess I am getting a
little too high-spirited. I must calm down. But I can't, when I think
of Lookout Beach."
She had not gone a hundred rods farther when a flock of chickens
crossed the road, just ahead of the machine.
"Shoo!" cried Bess. "Shoo! Scat! Get out!" and she blew the horn
vigorously. "I wonder why someone doesn't invent a horn or something
to scare dogs and chickens?" she went on, as the fowls showed little
disposition to do more than run, fluttering and squawking, right ahead
of the car. Then they darted to one side--all but one unfortunate, and
the big rubber tires passed over one leg, crippling it.
"Hi, you! Stop!" commanded a woman's harsh voice, and Bess, who was
running slowly now, saw an unlovely personage rushing from the yard of
a dilapidated house, toward the machine. "I've got your license
number," went on the woman, "and I'll make a complaint if you don't
pay for my chicken. You automobile folks is allers running over 'em,
and cripplin' 'em so they ain't fit fer nothing."
"This is the first time I ever ran over anything," retorted Bess
indignantly. "I guess I know how to drive a car!"
"Well, it won't be the last time you run over somethin' if you scoot
along like I seen you just now," went on the owner of the limping
fowl. "I want pay for my chicken, or I'll have th' law on ye," and she
planted herself determinedly in front of the now stationary car.
"Very well," answered Bess, not wishing to argue with such a
character. "Here is fifty cents. The chicken is a small one, and
that's all it's worth. Besides it is hardly hurt at all."
"It's wuth seventy-five cents, ef it ain't a dollar!" stormed the
woman, as she accepted the coin that the girl handed her. "I've a good
notion to----"
But her further words were lost, for Bess turned on the power, threw
in the clutch, shifted the gear lever, and was off down the road.
"Adventure number two," she remarked grimly. "I hope it isn't three
times and out. Patrick's clover works by opposite, I guess," but she
drove along, her high spirits not a whit repressed by what had
happened.
For Bess was not a girl easily daunted, as those of you who have read
the previous volumes of this series know. She was almost the equal of
her chum, Cora Kimball, was Bess Robinson. In my first book, entitled
"The Motor Girls," Cora Kimball, the tall, handsome, dark-haired
daughter of Mrs. Grace Kimball, and, likewise, the well-beloved sister
of Jack Kimball, had first secured her auto. It was a four cylinder,
touring machine, capable of good speed, and the color was Cora's
special choosing--a handsome maroon. The story dealt with a mystery of
the road, and told how Cora successfully solved it, in spite of the
efforts of Ida Giles and Sid Wilcox to make trouble. As her guests
Cora had, on many runs of her car, the Robinson twins, Walter
Pennington, Jack's college chum, and Ed Foster. The latter was one of
the chief figures in the road mystery, for one day he suddenly missed
his wallet, containing money and negotiable securities to the amount
of twenty thousand dollars. A little later the pocketbook, with the
money missing, was found in the tool box of Cora's car.
Then there followed a "whirlwind" of excitement, which did not end
until those responsible for the taking of the money had been
discovered and the cash and papers returned. Among other troubles Cora
and her friends had to contend with the meanness of Sid Wilcox and the
jealousy of Ida Giles.
In the second volume of the series, called "The Motor Girls on a Tour;
or, Keeping a Strange Promise," there was related how Cora and her
friends were instrumental, after making a strange promise, in
restoring to a little cripple a long-lost table, containing a will.
How the hunt for the strange piece of furniture, with a secret drawer,
was made, while the girls were on a tour, how the Robinson twins
managed their car, which they had secured in the meanwhile, and how
Jack Kimball also succeeded in getting a runabout--all this is set down
in the book. Paul Hastings, a young chauffeur, and his pretty sister
Hazel, also had their parts to play, and well they did.
Now it was coming on summer again, and, after much planning and
discussing, the Robinson twins and their mother had decided on a
seashore cottage. They hoped that Cora Kimball could be induced to go
with them, and, if Cora did go, why, of course, it meant that Jack
would come down, occasionally, or, perhaps, oftener. And Ed and Walter
might also happen to drop in--which would be very pleasant.
"Oh, it's just glorious," thought Bess, as she continued to skim
along. "I hope the season will be miles long and years old. We will
have a gay time."
Bess turned the _Flyaway_ into the gravel road that wound up to the
handsome and stately Kimball homestead. A toot of the horn brought
Cora out of doors quickly, while Bess jammed on the brake and threw
out the clutch, and then, as the car came to a squeaking standstill,
she shoved over the spark and gasolene levers, with a ripping sound
along the ratchets, and turned off the sparking device.
"Come on in and cool off," invited Cora. "It's very warm. Summer has
almost arrived. I'm delighted to see you, Bess."
"And I you. Indeed I am coming in. Such news--you'll never guess in
your whole life, Cora."
"You're going to get a new machine!"
"No, not yet, though I think we will next season. Papa is sort of
softening toward a six cylinder. No, but it's almost as good as that."
"What is it, dear?" and Cora placed her arm around the waist of Bess,
as they mounted the broad steps.
"Cora Kimball, we're going to take a cottage at Lookout Beach! Such a
delightful place--and Cora dear," she panted on, "can you come? _Will_
you come?"
"Shall I come? Should I come," went on Cora, teasingly. "Why, my
dear," she went on, "do sit down, and catch your breath before it
escapes further. The boys are around here somewhere, and they are
always on the still hunt for----"
"Cora Kimball! I'm not one bit out of breath," panted Bess, "but I am
just dying to tell you----"
"Oh, that is it! Well, let me make you comfortable so that the
death----" She stopped, and swung back a porch chair for Bess. The
latter threw aside her motor bonnet and "ripped off" her gloves.
"No, but seriously, Cora," Bess said. "Will you go with us? We have
taken a cottage, and we are, of course, going to take our car, and we
do so want to take you!"
"You dear!" exclaimed Cora. "I haven't planned for summer yet, but I
do think mother is going abroad, and I honestly feared I would have to
tag along. I just hate to think of Europe, so maybe I could induce
mother to let me go with you. She has such confidence in Mrs. Perry
Robinson."
"Mother would take all sorts of care of you. I can assure you and your
mother of that," declared Bess. "And we have almost decided, without
ever asking you, that you shall come along. What fun would we have
motoring without you?"
"Without me, or without Jack?" teased Cora. "Well, never mind, Bess,
perhaps we can take turns. I am sure I would rather go to Lookout
Beach and camp than to go to Europe and tramp--there I have made a
rhyme, and will see my beau before nine. Pray, Bess, come indoors with
me while I complexion. I have been motoring all morning, in this stiff
breeze, and I feel as if my face will crack if I don't hurry to cream
it. And then, that I am to see my beau----"
The splendid color in Cora's cheeks belied her words. Nevertheless the
girls went indoors, and, while Cora removed a surprising amount of
grit on each piece of cotton she daubed her cheeks with, Bess had a
better chance to talk over the plans for the summer at the seaside.
Following her cream-wash Cora turned on her face the tiny spray of
tepid water from her own little silver faucet in the corner, and then
"feeling clean," as she expressed it, she just touched her cheeks and
nose with another piece of cotton "to pat off the shine."
"You know I have to go out again this afternoon, and I do find that it
pays to keep in order. I suppose Belle would think this sort of fixing
up not half thorough enough?"
"Oh, she takes a regular Turkish when she has been out in a dusty
wind," declared Bess. "But, for my part, I prefer a thick veil, in
front of a cream setting. Then I catch all the dirt in the cream and
only have to wash it off instead of----"
"Washing it on. A good idea, Bess. But I can't breathe back of cream.
It makes my lungs sticky," and Cora put a last touch to her heavy dark
hair, just as her brother's voice was heard in the lower hallway.
"There's Jack!" exclaimed both girls at once.
"Let's tell him," suggested Bess, who was not always able to conceal
her interest in Cora's handsome brother.
"Oh, no, don't," whispered Cora, as Jack was almost at the door of the
sitting room. "It will be a joke to plan it all out, and surprise the
boys!"
But Jack was actually tumbling into the room before he saw Bess. He,
too, was evidently "too full of good news to keep!"
"Oh, sis!" he yelled, still unconscious of the presence of Bess, "take
my hand and squeeze it, or I shall 'bust.' It's too good to be true,
and too good not to be true. We are going----"
Then his eye fell upon Cora's visitor. Instantly and in a boy's
inimitable way he "pulled himself together" and finished: "We are
going down to the post-office this evening!"
"Oh, is that all you were going to say?" asked Bess, in some
disappointment, for it was evident that Jack had some news.
"Well, not quite all," he replied with an air of mystery, "only I
happened to hear certain peculiar whispers and admonitions as I was
coming in, and I guess girls aren't the only ones who can keep a
secret. I'll tell if you'll tell," he added.
"We've nothing to tell; have we, Cora?" and Bess looked as innocent as
possible.
"How could you ever imagine such a thing, Jack?" inquired his sister.
"Well, that's neither here nor there, then," was the young man's cool
answer. "But if you're going after the stuff to make jam tarts with
this winter, Cora, you'd better start," and at this somewhat
enigmatical remark, Jack began whistling a tantalizing air, while Bess
winked at her chum.