The Motor Maids Across the Continent.

by Katherine Stokes.

CHAPTER I.-WESTWARD HO!

"At my age, too," began Miss Helen Campbell, leaning back in her seat and folding her hands with an expression of resignation.

"At your age, what, dear cousin?" demanded Wilhelmina Campbell, superintending the strapping on at the back of the car of five extra large suit cases and other paraphernalia for a long trip. "Why should not things happen at your age as well as at ours? But at your age, what?"

"At my age to turn emigrant," exclaimed the little lady. "At my age to become a gypsy vagabond. Oh, dear, oh, dear! What would grandpapa have said?"

"He would have been delighted, I am certain, Cousin Helen," answered her young relative, "since he was a soldier and a jolly old gentleman, too, papa has always said."

"But such an up to date gypsy-vagabond-emigrant, Miss Campbell," pursued Elinor Butler, "one who rides in a motor car and wears a silk traveling coat and a sky-blue chiffon veil."

"And has four ladies-in-waiting," continued Nancy Brown.

"And hotels all along the route to sleep in instead of tents," finished Mary Price.

"Very true, my dears. I admit all you say; but now at the last moment, when we are about to start on this amazing journey, I cannot help thinking it is a wild adventure. But I shall be over it in a moment, I daresay. Have the machine cranked-up, Billie. Do I use the correct word?

and let us be off before my courage fails me altogether."

With a happy laugh, Billie jumped into her seat behind the wheel. The other girls were already in their accustomed places. One of the attendants from the hotel gave the crank a dexterous twist; there was a throbbing sound of machinery in action, and off shot the Comet like a spirited horse, eager to be on the road.

Miss Campbell's spirits rose with the sun, for it was still very early when the Motor Maids started on their famous journey across the continent from Chicago to San Francisco. And all the world seemed to be in league to make the start a happy one. It was a glorious morning toward the last of May, the air just frosty enough to make the blood tingle and bring color to the cheeks. Up to the very day before, an icy gale had blown across the windy city of the plains, but through the night it had gradually tempered into a springtime breeze. The red car sped through the sunshine with all the vigor of machinery in perfect order, and the polished plate gla.s.s of the wind guard reflected the four happy faces of the Motor Maids off on a lark, which, when all is said and done, and the last page of this volume filled, will have carried them through many an adventure along the way.

Through Chicago they whirled, past fine homes where sleepy maids and butlers were just opening windows and blinds to let in the morning light; through business streets already humming with life, and at last out through the suburbs on a broad level road, due west, they took their course.

Billie knew it all like a book because she had been stopping in Chicago for a week and every day they had taken a spin in the Comet along some fifty miles of the route. Moreover, for a month past, she had been studying maps and guide-books until her mind reflected now only a great bird's-eye view of the United States through the center of which was drawn a red line; the road the Comet was to take when it bore them to the Pacific Ocean.

There was nothing now, however, in these flat, monotonous wheat fields to promote any particular interest. But there was much to talk about.

"Was it only last week that we were four school girls at West Haven High School slaving over examinations?" cried Elinor Butler.

"Only a little week ago," exclaimed Mary joyfully, "and now, behold us, free as birds on the wing."

There was a flush of happiness on her usually pale face. It had been a long, hard spring for her, and she was glad after examinations were over, to hurry away with her friends without waiting for the final exercises.

"School! School!" said Nancy Brown, her face dimpling with happiness.

"Don't mention the hateful word. I am as full of mathematics and history and physics and Latin as a black cake is of plums."

"Plums!" echoed Billie. "I'm stuffed with another variety of fruit. It's dates."

They laughed at the word dates; for, remembering dates, aside from mathematics, was the _bete noir_ of Billie's school days and the teacher of history was very unpopular because she made the pupils of her cla.s.ses learn six dates a day.

"But the cla.s.s is even with Miss Hawkes now," put in Nancy. "She isn't to come back next year, and we gave her a present besides."

"Why did you give her a present?" asked Miss Campbell, suddenly becoming curious.

"Well, you see, at the end of school we reckoned we had learned about 800 dates, not that we could remember 100 or even 50. It was Elinor who thought of it and because she has more nerve than any one else in the cla.s.s--"

"Indeed I have not," protested Elinor.

"Because she was never afraid even of the terrifying Miss Hawkes, she was chosen to make the speech and give Miss Hawkes a present from the cla.s.s."

Miss Campbell smiled. She was never tired of listening to their school-girl talk.

"What did you say and what was the present, my dear?"

"I said," replied Elinor, "that, representing the cla.s.s, I wanted to thank her for the splendid mental training she had given us last winter, and we wished to show our appreciation by giving her a little remembrance."

"'Remembrance' was a good word, Elinor," cried Billie.

"If she hadn't been so pleased and made that speech of thanks, it wouldn't have mattered so much," put in Mary. "But I was ashamed when she untied the ribbons on the box--"

"And what was in it, child?" demanded Miss Campbell.

"Dates," cried Billie, "dozens of dates packed in as tightly as dates can be packed, just as she had been packing them into our brains for nine months."

"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Miss Campbell, trying to be shocked and laughing in spite of herself. "The poor soul! How embarra.s.sed she must have felt.

Was she very angry?"

"We couldn't tell whether she was angry or hurt," answered Elinor. "She drew herself up stiffer and straighter than usual if possible, and marched out of the room without a word."

"And left us feeling very foolish indeed, cousin," went on Billie. "But that isn't all. Because I was the one who never could remember a date from one day to the next, I suppose she suspected me of having been the ring-leader and this morning when we stopped at the desk of the hotel for mail, the clerk handed me this letter. It was forwarded from West Haven."

Billie drew an envelope from the pocket of her motor coat and gave it to the others.

"Read it," she said. "I didn't mention it before because I was so much interested in getting away and I had really forgotten it until the subject came up. I suppose Miss Hawkes is just a little queer in her upper story."

The letter read:

"I understand you are going West in your automobile. If, on your journey, you should by chance hear the name of 'Hawkes,' do not treat it as lightly as you did in West Haven. Somewhere in the West that name is powerful.

"Anna Hawkes."

"How absurd!" exclaimed Elinor. "She is queer. I am certain of it."

"Anyhow," pursued Billie, "I am ashamed of what we did now. I suppose it must have hurt her awfully."

"Not more than she hurt us when she scolded us for forgetting those awful dates," said Nancy relentlessly.

"Oh, well," put in Miss Campbell, "she is just an angry old spinster who got obsessed with dates and then had a rude awakening. I don't think it was exactly respectful to have given the lady a box of dried dates. But she brought it on herself, as you say. Tear up the letter and forget all about it. I have no doubt she is a perfectly harmless old person."

Miss Campbell always had a secret contempt for other spinsters.