The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires.

by Laura Dent Crane.

CHAPTER I

THE REUNION

"Mollie Thurston, we are lost!" cried Barbara dramatically.

The two sisters were in the depth of a New Jersey woods one afternoon in early September.

"Well, what if we are!" laughed Mollie, leaning over to add a cl.u.s.ter of wild asters to her great bunch of golden rod. "We have two hours ahead of us. Surely such clever woodsmen as we are can find our way out of woods which are but a few miles from home. Suppose we should explore a real forest some day. Wouldn't it be too heavenly! Come on, lazy Barbara! We shall reach a clearing in a few moments."

"You lack sympathy, Miss Mollie Thurston; that's your trouble."

Barbara was laughing, yet she anxiously scanned the marshy ground as she picked her way along.

"I wouldn't mind being lost in these woods a bit more than you do, if I were not so horribly afraid of snakes. Oh, my! this place looks full of 'em."

"They are not poisonous, Bab, or I might be more sympathetic," said Mollie rea.s.suringly. "The snakes in these woods are harmless. How can a girl as brave as you are be such a goose about a poor, wriggly little 'sarpint,' that couldn't harm you if it tried."

"O-o-o!" shivered Bab. "One's own pet fear has nothing to do with sense or nonsense. Kindly remember your own feelings toward the timid mouse!

Just the same, I should like to play 'Maid Marian' for a while and dwell in the heart of a woodland glen. If ever I have a chance to go on a camping trip, I shall get rid of my fear of snakes, somehow."

"Bab," said Mollie, after a moment's pause, "hasn't it been dreadfully dull since Ruth and her father went away? Do you think they will ever come back? I can hardly believe it has been only three weeks since they left Kingsbridge, and only six weeks since we came back from Newport.

Anyhow I am glad Grace Carter is home again from her visit to her brother."

"Cheer up, Mollie, do!" encouraged Bab. "Ruth has promised to pay us a visit before she goes home to Chicago, and she is a girl of her word, as you and I well know. I am expecting a letter from her every day."

"Well," Mollie e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in heart-felt tones, "I know I am nearly dead to see her. Grace and I were talking of it only yesterday."

"Mollie, I don't want to be a croaker," began Bab, after a little hesitation, "but have you noticed that mother seems worried about something? When I was talking yesterday about how crazy I was to go to Va.s.sar some day, mother looked as though she wanted to cry. I stopped there and then. She has seemed so gay and cheerful until recently. I wonder whether she is worried about money."

Mollie nodded her head and frowned. "Now you speak of it, Bab, I believe I have noticed that she seems depressed at times. I think she is tired out and needs a complete change. She had a long letter from Cousin Betty in St. Paul yesterday, asking her to make a visit. I think mother should accept. You and I are certainly big enough to look after ourselves until school commences. Let's beg her to go."

"All right, Mollie, we will," said her older sister, "but if the family funds are even lower than usual, where is the money to come from for such an expensive trip? Just the same, I shall question mother, and find out what's the matter."

Bab was walking on bravely, trying to forget her horror of snakes.

"I am sure," she thought, "that I can feel my feet trembling inside my boots; I am so afraid of stepping on one of the wretched little pests."

It had rained the day before, and the ground under the thick tangle of trees and underbrush being unusually marshy, the girls had to pick their way carefully. Mollie walked ahead while they were talking. Barbara jumping from the twisted root of one tree to another half a yard away, felt something writhe and wriggle under her foot. Without stopping to look down, she shrieked--"A snake! a snake!"--and ran blindly forward.

Before Mollie had time to look around, Barbara caught her foot under a root and tumbled headlong into the wet mud.

"Bab," cried Mollie, "you certainly have gone and done it this time! How wet and muddy you are!"

She picked up a stick and raked in the leaves near her sister.

"See, here's what you have made such a fuss about, a tiny garter snake, that couldn't hurt a thing. You've crushed the thing with your heel."

Mollie turned suddenly. "Barbara, what is the matter with you?" she asked, as she caught a glimpse of her sister's face. "Why don't you get up? Can I help you?" She leaned over her sister.

Poor Bab's face was white as a sheet, and she was trembling.

"Yes, do help me if you can," she answered. "I can't get up by myself.

I'm afraid I have turned my ankle. Here, take my hand. Sitting here in this mud I feel as if I had fallen into a nest of snakes."

Mollie gave Bab both her hands. Setting her teeth, Bab tried to rise, but, with a groan, sat down again. The second time Mollie pulled with all her might. Barbara, summoning her courage, rose slowly to her feet.

Without speaking she leaned against the trunk of the nearest tree.

"Wait here, dear," urged Mollie, more worried than she would show. "I will try and find you a stick. Then if you lean on me and use the stick in the other hand, perhaps we can get along all right."

They were several miles from home and in another hour the dusk would be upon them. So the two girls struggled bravely on through the thick woods, though it was difficult to walk abreast in the narrow path. Barbara insisted she was better with each step, but Mollie knew otherwise. With every foot of ground they covered Bab limped more and more painfully. Now and then when her injured foot pressed too heavily on the rough ground, she caught her breath and swallowed a groan. Mollie realized they would not get home before midnight at the rate they were now moving.

"Rest here, Bab," she insisted, when they came to an opening in the woods where the shade was less dense. "I think I see a place over there that must lead into a road. I will run on ahead and find some one to come back to help you."

Bab was glad to sit down. Her foot was swelling and growing more painful every moment; her pulses were throbbing. She was almost crying, but she would never mention surrender; she was not sorry, however, when Mollie suggested that she should rest.

Mollie sped through the woods as fast as she could run. As soon as her back was turned, Bab closed her eyes. "How glad I am to rest," she thought gratefully.

In the half hour that Barbara Thurston waited alone her mind wandered to many of her own hopes and fears. First, she couldn't help worrying over her mother. Then, she thought of her own ambition. More than anything in the world she longed to go to Va.s.sar College. In two years more she would be ready to enter, but where was the money to come from? Barbara realized that her mother would never be able to pay her expenses from their small income; nevertheless, she meant to go. The Kingsbridge High School offered a scholarship at Va.s.sar to the girl who pa.s.sed the best final examinations during the four years of its course. Barbara had won the highest honors in her freshman and soph.o.m.ore years, but she had two more winters of hard work ahead of her.

"I wonder," she thought at last, "if I can persuade Ruth to go to college with me?" Then she must have fallen into a little doze.

Readers of the preceding volume, "The Automobile Girls at Newport," will remember how the famous little club, known as "The Automobile Girls" came to be organized, and they are familiar with the exciting and humorous incidents of that journey in Ruth Stuart's motor car. There were many adventures along the way, including mysterious encounters with a gentlemanly young rascal, known to the police as "The Boy Raffles." The same "Raffles" afterwards turned up at Newport, where the girls for several weeks led a life of thrilling interest. "The Automobile Girls" it was who caught "Raffles" red-handed, and who saved Bab's sn.o.bbish cousin, Gladys Le Baron, from falling in love with him.

Six weeks before, on their return from the trip to Newport, "The Automobile Girls" had disbanded. Mr. Stuart had given a dinner in their honor, and at the close of the meal, he formally presented each of the girls with a miniature model of Ruth's motor car, forming pins of red enamel about the size of a dime.

"You must wear them forever," Ruth insisted, almost in tears. "Who knows what luck they may bring to us? Remember this isn't a real breaking up of 'The Automobile Girls'; it is only an '_auf wiedersehen_.'"

The morning after Mr. Stuart's dinner, Grace left Kingsbridge to visit her brother. Later, Mr. Stuart and his sister, Miss Stuart, bore Ruth away to spend several weeks with some relatives in northern New York.

Ruth confided to Bab her grief at leaving them.

"I perfectly hate to go," she protested. "Just think, Bab, how soon I shall have to go back to Chicago, and leave you here in New Jersey. Other people are well enough in their places, but they are not my Barbara, Mollie and Grace!"

It was after this confidence, that Bab made Ruth solemnly promise to pay them a visit before she returned home.

Barbara opened her eyes suddenly. Had she been asleep and dreamed of Ruth? She could almost hear her voice and laugh. Some one was coming along the path. She could hear the dead leaves crunch under flying feet.

"Barbara, my Barbara!" Was it Mollie's voice calling her?

"Here I am," cried Bab faintly.

Through the trees running straight toward her, her eyes shining, her cheeks aglow, was Ruth Stuart. Barbara tried to leap up.

"Sit down, you poor dear, do," Ruth commanded. "What have you done to your silly little self? Never mind; here is your friend and always devoted slave come to your rescue."