GOING AND COMING
The weather was uncertain--it might rain, but there were cobwebs on the
grass, which meant "clear." But the sun did not come out, and it was
past noon.
These unfavorable conditions were unusual on a day when the motor
girls were to make a run, but Bess, Belle and Cora were almost too
busy with their preparations to pay much heed to the possibility of
rain while en route.
The start was to be made at two o'clock, and the chimes on the dining
room mantel of the Kimball home had just warned Cora that half the
hour between one and two had gone by.
"We take no note of time but from its flight," quoted Cora to herself,
hurrying through the room to crowd a last few things into her motor
trunk. "I wonder where Jack is?"
At that very moment Jack's inevitable whistle was heard, and the next,
the boy was in the room, looking as deliciously lazy as ever, in that
way so peculiar to boys who have a great deal to do at the time; the
science of which studied indifference is absolutely impossible for a
girl to fathom.
"Why this fluttering fluster, sis?" he asked, crumbling deeper in the
leather-cushioned chair. "You will positively get overheated and
ruin--your--complex--ion!" This last was drawled out with the most
aggravating yawn.
"Why, Jack, I have to be in my car at ten minutes to two, and do you
see the time?"
"No, but I hear it. I wonder who on earth put a clock to ticking. Bad
enough to hear the hours knock, but this constant tick----"
"Jack, whatever you have to say to me please say it," interrupted the
sister. "I know perfectly well that this preamble is portentous."
"No, it's merely pretentious," answered Jack, drawing from his pocket
the card that Andy had turned over to him. "Do you happen to remember
where you dropped this?"
It was a simple guess, but Jack tried it.
"Dropped that?" repeated Cora, taking the card from his hand. "Why, I
declare! I have looked everywhere for that. I wanted it last night. I
had actually forgotten the name of the cottage, and I wanted to give
it to you for your note book. Where did you find it?"
"Didn't find it, it found me. Andy gave it to me."
"Andy!" and Cora's eyes showed her surprise.
"Yes. He said the old lady, Ramsy, found it in your strawberry girls'
room."
"Whatever are you talking about, Jack?" demanded Cora with some
impatience. "Don't you know I have to hurry, and you are teasing me
this way?"
Jack went over to his sister, and put his bare brown arm around her
neck. She looked up from the folding of her trinkets, and smiled into
his face.
"Now, see here, sis," he said, "I am telling you the exact truth, and
when I say exact, I mean exact. Andy told me he caught this card on a
fly as it flew out the Ramsy window, when they were letting fly their
opinions about the motor girls. Andy caught the card on the first
bounce, stuck it in his pocket--no, let me see! He carried it against
his heart, between his second and third ribs----"
"Oh, I know!" interrupted Cora. "I dropped that in the shed when I
opened my purse to pay for the berries. I thought I felt something
slip from my hand."
"There," and Jack made a comical effort to pat himself on the back.
"Jack, my boy, you are a wonder! If you don't know what you want just
guess it."
"And they said I gave that card to the girls? To give them a place to
run away to, I suppose."
"That was it," replied her brother. "You see, old lady Ramsy has an
idea you want to abduct those girls. But it was a lucky breeze that
blew the card to Andy. Otherwise you might expect an early call at
Clover Cottage from the honorable Mrs. R of the Strawberry Patch."
"As if there was anything strange about me dropping my own personal
card," mused Cora aloud. "And what difference did it make who might
pick it up?"
The clock gave the alarm that the hour was about to strike. Cora
jumped up and slipped into her coat and bonnet.
"It seemed foolish for the Robinsons to hire a car to take their
friends down when I am riding alone," she said, "but the girls made me
promise not to offer my car, but to carry the bags in the tonneau--Bess
and Belle expect to get as far as possible from the--chaperone
conveyance. Well, Jack dear, I am rather a naughty sister to run away,
and leave you thus, when mother specially intrusted you to my
safekeeping. But you have compelled me to go, haven't you?"
"Forced you to," admitted Jack, picking up the bag and following her
to the door.
The maids were in the hall waiting to assist Cora, and to bid her
good-bye. A word of kind instruction to each, and Cora jumped into the
car. Jack, having cranked up, took his place beside her.
"I will go as far as the trolley line," he said. "I want to see if
Andy takes that two o'clock car when it turns back."
There were many little things to be spoken of between brother and
sister, and, as they drove along, Cora referred more than once to the
visit of the detectives. Jack assured her that he would attend to them
and then, reaching the turnpike, where the trolley line ended, he bade
her good-bye, jumped out, and, for a moment, watched the pretty car,
and its prettier driver, fly down the avenue.
The next moment a trolley car stopped at the switch. From the rear
platform two elderly ladies alighted rather awkwardly. They were
queerly dressed, and the larger, she in the gingham gown, with the
brown shirred bonnet, almost yanked the other from the steps to the
ground, in attempting to assist her.
"The Ramsy and the Schenk!" Jack told himself. "Cora did not get away
any too soon!"
The women turned to the other side of the road. As they did, Jack felt
a tug at his coat.
"That's them," said Andy, almost in a whisper, "and there come the two
detectives! If you like you can stay away from your house, and I will
lay around, and find out what happens!"
"Why, they will want to see me!" declared Jack, in some surprise at
the suggestion.
"Suppose they do? Let them want," answered the urchin. "If I was you
I'd just lay low. My mother always says 'the least said is the easiest
mended,' and she knows."
The advice, after all, was not unwise, Jack thought. He had other
things to attend to besides talking to a pair of foolish women, and
answering the questions of a pair of well-paid detectives.
"Maybe you're right, Andy," he said. "I believe I am busy this
afternoon. But take care that you don't get in the scrap. They will be
bound to have revenge on some one."
Andy sprang back of the car to avoid being observed by the women, as
they turned to see which way they should go. Jack was not afraid of
being noticed by the women, and he was a stranger to the detectives.
The latter directed the women to walk over to the avenue, and then
they followed at a "respectful distance."
Andy slunk out from his corner, darted off in the opposite direction,
and Jack knew he would be at the Kimball homestead considerable in
advance of the others.
"The Imp of the Strawberry Patch," thought Jack, in his usual way of
making a story from a title. "He's a queer little chap, but not so
slow, after all. How very much more reasonable it is for me to turn in
and talk with Ed and Walter, than to go back home and jab answers at
that quartette."
Then the thought of Cora's word (that she would see the detectives)
crossed his mind. For a moment he almost changed his resolution. Then
he decided:
"All's fair in love and war, and if this isn't war, it's a first-class
sham battle."
Andy was out of sight. The last "rays" of the two country skirts could
just be made out, as their owners trudged along the avenue, and Jack
Kimball took up his tune, where he had left it off, thrust his hands
into his pockets, and sauntered off in the direction of the town
garage.
As he anticipated, both Ed and Walter were there, putting Walter's
machine in ship-shape for the run after the girls.
"Are you sure, Jack Kimball," demanded Ed, "that the young ladies will
be in no way put out by our rudeness? I have a particular desire to
please the ladies."
"Oh, you'll please them, all right," replied Jack, taking a seat on
the step of a handsome car, just in front of the one his friends were
busy at. "There is nothing on earth pleases a girl so much as to run
after her, when she distinctly says you shall not go."
"Hear ye! The expert!" called out Walter, as he rubbed the chamois
over the brass lamps at the front of his runabout. "Jack happens to
know all about the game. Don't you remember the success of our
hay-mobile run last year, when we went after the girls on their tour?
Well, take it from me, the event this year will be equally
disastrous--only more so," and Walter gave a last flourish to the
lamp-polisher, then did a few fancy steps, in front of the car, to see
that the reflection was correct.
"What time do we start?" asked Ed.
"Soon as we are ready," replied Jack. "The girls have already gone on,
and I promised Mr. Robinson that we would keep just near enough to be
within call, should they need us, but far enough away to be out of
danger of their--Walter, what do you call it when a girl declares she
can't bear a thing, and she just loves it?"
"Oh, that's--that's good taste," replied Walter, running his hands
through his hair with the doubtful purpose of removing from them some
of their lately acquired gasoline and polishing paste.
"Then, according to Walt, we must keep at a respectful distance from
their good taste," finished Jack.
"You are sure--the ghost works all right?" asked Walter. "There is
nothing more disgusting than a ghost that refuses to work."
"Oh, my ghost is a regular union man--eight hours and all that,"
replied Ed. "I've tried it on the chickens, and they almost turned
into pot-pie from actual fright."
"And what time are we counting on getting to a putting-up place?"
Walter asked further. "If we leave here about three, will we get
anywhere in time to--have breakfast, for instance?"
"Well, my machine is in fine shape," declared Jack, "and I just count
on the _Get There_ beating your little _Comet_ if yours is a newer
machine. With this calculation we should get to the Wayside by eight
o'clock. The motor girls are going to put up there for the night, and
we may be able to put _down_ there, if it appears out of good style
for us to put _up_ there."
"Why didn't they go right on--start in time to reach the beach
to-night?" inquired Ed.
"Oh, just a whim. Girls want all that's coming to them, and a night at
a Wayside they count among their required experiences, don't you know.
And the old folks being along made it particularly all right,"
declared Jack.
"But they'll beat us by an hour now," almost sighed Walter, who was
becoming famous among his chums for his keen interest in the girls and
their doings.
"Not much," answered Jack. "They are going the long way 'round. Do you
suppose they would go over the new road? Why, the dust would blind
Cora if she made a single mile of that grind and grit."
"Well, after my beauty bath, I'll be about ready," observed Walter.
"Ed, don't put too much witch-hazel on your locks. Makes me think of
the day after fourth of July, when I went to grandmama's."
"Not half as bad as your new gloves. They give me a regular spell of
the pig skin fever. I'll bet they're made out of junk, and you got
stuck. Three dollars for a pair of gloves to save your lily-white
hands--your lily-white hands!" and he ended in the strain of the
familiar college song.
"Well, I'll be going," said Jack. "See to it that neither of you
fellows do so much primping that we miss our--guess," and with that the
three young men parted, each going his own way to make ready for the
run after the motor girls.