The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car/Chapter 1
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS
IN A MOTOR CAR
CHAPTER I
OUT OF A TREE
"Come on, girls, the car is here, and this time I'm going to run it myself!"
"You never are, Mollie Billette!" exclaimed Grace Ford, as, with three companions, she hurried to the window of the library of the Billette home, and looked out toward the street, up which was coming a luxurious touring car of the latest model.
"Aren't you afraid?" asked Amy Stonington, as she looked admiringly at Mollie, whose cheeks were flushed with excitement.
"Oh, it simply gives me the creeps to think about it!" added Grace.
"I don't see why," spoke Mollie, as the car, in charge of a demonstrator, came to a stop in front of her house. "I've taken enough lessons, the garage man says; I have my license, and why shouldn't I run my car? Are you afraid to come with me?"
"No—no, it isn't exactly that," said Amy, slowly, as she fastened the strings of her new motoring hood all the girls had them, and very becoming they were. "It isn't exactly that, Mollie, but you know"
"If you weren't afraid to go with Betty in her motor boat, I don't see why you should be afraid to come with me in the car," went on Mollie. "Oh, what did I do with my goggles?" she asked, as she hurriedly looked about the room, lifting up a pile of books and papers on a table. "I know I had them, and"
"Look!" exclaimed Betty Nelson with a laugh. "Dodo and Paul are trying to pull them apart. I suppose they think the goggles are big enough for two," and she pointed to where the twins, Mollie's little brother and sister, were seated on the velvety lawn, both having hold of a new pair of auto goggles, and gravely trying to separate the two eye pieces.
"The little rascals!" cried Mollie, though she, too, had to join in the laughter of her chums. "Paul!" she called. "Dodo! Come here this instant with my goggles!"
The children looked up, their dispute forgotten.
"Us hasn't any doddles—us got tecticals!" exclaimed Paul.
"Well, those are sister's spectacles—to wear in The auto so the dust won't get in her eyes," explained Mollie, as she approached the twins "Give them to sister."
"Oo et us wide in tar us dive um to oo," stipulated Dodo, holding the goggles behind her back.
"Not to-day, pet," said Mollie, sweetly—compromisingly.
Dodo arose, and backed away, limping slightly, for she was not quite recovered from a recent operation as the result of a peculiar accident. She held the goggles out of reach, and, walking with her eyes fixed on her sister, she was in danger of stumbling.
"She'll fall and break them," cried Grace.
"That's what I'm afraid of," said Mollie. "Come, Dodo, give the glasses to sister."
"Her dive um for tandy!" cried the crafty Paul, seeing a chance to make capital out of his little sister's strategic move. "Us dive oo glasses for tandy; won't us, Dodo?"
"Us will," assented Dora—or Dodo, as she was almost universally called. "Us dive for tandy—lots of tandy."
"The little rascals," laughed Mollie. "I wish I dared rush at her and take them away. But she might fall" and with the recollection of what little Dodo had suffered, Mollie gave up her plan of action. The chauffeur tooted on the auto horn, as much as to say:
"Come, I'm waiting for you."
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Mollie. "Have any of you"
"Grace, will you kindly oblige?" asked Betty, with a laugh. "Surely you are not without chocolates on this momentous occasion."
"I don't see why you assume that I always have candy," remarked the tall, slender girl, whose willowy figure added to the charm of her face, framed in a wealth of light hair.
"Oh, we know your failing," laughed Betty. "Come, Grace, you are delaying the game, and if we are going for an auto ride with Mollie—let—let's have it—over with."
"Well, I like the way you speak!" exclaimed Mollie, rather sharply—Mollie had a failing in her quick temper. "If you girls are afraid to come in my new car, just because I'm going to steer all alone, why"
"Oh, Mollie, I didn't mean it that way at all!" protested Betty. "I just didn't want Grace to feel"
"Where is tandy?" demanded Paul, as he approached his little sister, evidently with the intention of again assuming the dispute over the goggles in case no confectionery was forthcoming.
"Grace, have you any?" asked Mollie, beseechingly. "We must get started, and the day is so fine we don't want to miss any of it. Paul—Dodo—don't you dare break my glasses!" She shook a warning finger at them.
"I just happen to have some chocolates," said Grace, with an air of injured dignity. From the pocket of her sweater she produced a small box, and held it out to Dodo. The child, with a glad cry, dropped the goggles on the grass and sprang for Grace. Paul, too, joined in the race, and while Mollie picked up her recovered property the twins, with a new matter to contend about, gravely sat down on the lawn, and proceeded to divide the candy.
"Now come on!" cried Mollie, "before something else happens. Be good children!" she cautioned them, "and don't go away."
"No," they chorused, while Paul added:
"Bring us more tandy—not bery much here."
"Which speaks well for the appetite of Grace," murmured Amy.
"Oh, let me alone!" protested Grace, with as near a show of temper as she ever indulged in. Mollie looked at her and remarked:
"You're getting my complaint, Grace dear."
"Well, I'm tired of always having candy thrown in my face—what if I do like chocolate?"
You should have thrown the candy in her mouth—not in her face," laughed Betty, and then Grace smiled instead of frowning, and the four chums—the Outdoor Girls, as they had come to be called from living so much in the open—walked across the lawn to the waiting car."
"It certainly is a beauty!" declared Grace, as her eyes, and those of her friends, took in all the details of the auto. "Mollie, you are a lucky girl, and so is Betty with her motor boat. Amy, I wonder what good fortune is coming to us?"
"It will have to be an airship in your case, Grace," said Mollie. "One boat and one car is enough. You had better pray for an aeroplane."
"Never!" assented Grace. "The land and water are enough for me."
"And as for Amy," said Betty, "she wants a balloon, perhaps."
Amy shook her head, and a strange look came over her face. Her chums knew what it meant—that above everything else she would have preferred having the mystery of her identity solved.
"Well, if we're going to mote—let's mote!" exclaimed Mollie, perhaps with a desire to change the subject. "I'm going to take you for a nice long spin."
"Aren't you nervous to think of being at the wheel without some one beside to help you in case of emergency?" asked Betty.
"Were you, in the Gem?" retorted Mollie.
"A little, but then, you know, a motor boat doesn't go as fast as a car—somehow you seem to have a better chance in case of collisions, or accidents."
"There aren't going to be any collisions or accidents," declared Mollie, with conviction. "I'm going to be careful until I get a little more accustomed to it, and then"
"You'll scorch, like all the others, I suppose," put in Amy.
"Never! Now, who's going to ride with me on the front seat?"
For a moment no one answered—Betty, Grace and Amy looked at one another, and then they burst into laughter.
"Well, do you want to draw lots for it?' inquired Mollie, with a trace of sarcasm. "I thought you'd feel honored."
"I will!" exclaimed Betty. "But you will be careful; won't you, Mollie dear?"
"Of course. I'm no more anxious to get into trouble than you are. Oh, what did I do with my handkerchief?"
"It's up your sleeve," said Grace, indicating a bulge in Mollie's sweater.
"Well, come on!" exclaimed the owner of the new car.
"She says it as though she were—going to—jail!" laughed Grace.
The demonstrator had alighted from the car, and was looking it over, testing the tires with his hand.
"Is it all right, Mr. Ransom?" asked Mollie, a bit anxiously. "Is anything the matter?"
"Not a thing, Miss Billette," he replied. "It is in perfect order. And I'm sure you can run it alone very easily. You have had a number of lessons, and you learned very quickly."
"If only I remember to let out my clutch before I change gears," Mollie murmured.
"Oh, you'll remember that," returned the chauffeur, to give her the confidence he saw she needed.
"I'll remind you of it," volunteered Betty.
The girls got into the car, and the man, impressing a few important facts on the pretty girl driver, lifted his cap as Mollie pressed the button of the self-starter.
"Here we go!" cried Grace, as the motor throbbed and hummed.
Carefully Mollie threw out the clutch, and slipped in first speed. Then releasing the clutch pedal gradually she felt the car move slowly forward. A flush of pleasure came to her face; for, though she had several times performed this feat of late, the demonstrator had always sat beside her. Now she was doing it alone.
"Fine!" cried Betty, as the car gathered speed.
"You're all right!" Mr. Ransom called after the girls.
From first to second gear, and then in another moment to high, was performed by Mollie without a hitch. Then she advanced the spark and gas levers.
"Well, so far—so good!" spoke Amy, with a sigh of relief.
"I knew Mollie could do it," declared Betty. "Look out for that wagon, my dear," she cried, a second later.
"I see it," and Mollie gave it such a wide berth that she sent her car needlessly to the grassy part of the country highway that led out of Deepdale.
"I don't want more than my half of the road," good-naturedly called the farmer who was driving the horse-drawn vehicle. "If all motorists were as generous as you there'd be no complaints," and he smiled and lifted his cap.
"It's better to be sure than sorry," said Mollie. "Well, girls, how do you like it?" and she ventured to turn around for an instant to speak to Grace and Amy in the tonneau.
"It's scrumptious!" declared Grace, between bites at a chocolate.
"Lovely," chimed in Amy.
"However did you prevail on your mother to get you the car?" asked Betty.
"Well, you see, when poor papa died," explained Mollie, as she put on a little more speed, "he provided in his will that on my seventeenth birthday I should have a certain sum of money to use just as I pleased—within reason, of course.
"He didn't say what it was for, but he had suggested that I take a trip to Europe. But I want to do that later, when I can better appreciate what I see, so I asked mamma if I couldn't use the money for a car, and she allowed me to. The result—you now behold," and she patted the steering wheel.
"We do more than merely behold it," said Grace. "It was sweet of you to ask us for a spin."
"Why wouldn't I, when Betty has been having us off on a criuse in her motor boat?" replied Mollie. Then she cried: "Oh, dear! There's a dog!" for one was in the road ahead.
"He can't bite us—up here," said Betty. "Unless you are afraid of your tires."
"No, it isn't that, but I'm afraid I may run over him!"
However, the dog leaped away from the road, darted into an open gateway, and from behind the safe vantage of the fence barked at the passing auto.
"I don't mind you there," said Mollie, with a sigh of relief. "Oh, but isn't this lovely!" and she inhaled deeply of the flower-scented air. There had been a shower the night before, and the roads were in excellent condition. Mollie had had the car about two weeks, and had taken several lessons in driving. As the chauffeur had said, she had proved an apt pupil, and now, being fully qualified, as her license stated, to run it alone, she had, on this first occasion, invited her friends for a run.
For several miles the girls rode along, enjoying to the utmost the swift, silent and easy motion, and drinking in the sweet air. They admired the views, too, for though they had been out with Mollie when she was taking her lessons, they had been so much occupied with watching her attempts to steer, and listening to the man's instructions, that they had not fully appreciated the beauty of the country through which they passed. And the country about Deepdale was beautiful.
"Are you going out Shadow Valley way?" asked Betty, as Mollie successfully made a turn into another highway, off the main one.
"No, not this time, though we must go there some day. I thought we'd motor to Farmington, and go home by way of Skillman."
"That's a nice way," said Grace. "Here, Mollie, open your mouth," and, as her chum did so, Grace inserted a chocolate, for Mollie had not yet enough confidence to take her hands from the steering wheel, except to shift gears, with the right.
They were going along a well-shaded road now, the big maples on either side meeting in an arch of green overhead. Some of the branches were so low that care had to be taken in passing under them, as Mollie had the top of the car up for protection.
As they approached one immense and ancient tree they saw a flutter of white amid the branches near the ground.
"What's that?" cried Betty.
"Look out!" exclaimed Grace.
The white object—large and fluttering—toppled from the tree, almost in front of the car, and with a little scream of fear Mollie gave the steering wheel such a sudden twist that the auto swerved and nearly upset. Across the road it shot on two wheels, and crashed into the bushes and briars that lined the highway.
Instinctively Mollie jammed on the brake, and threw out the clutch, the next instant shutting off the power, but so suddenly did she stop in the excess of her zeal that Grace and Amy were thrown from their seats, and Betty had to put out her hands to avoid hitting the wind shield.