The Corner House Girls on a Tour

They waited for the final verdict – Mrs. Heard in a serious mind if the girls were not. Finally Neale backed out from beneath the machine. He held a casting in his hand, and it was so badly cracked that, when he pressed the halves apart, it broke in two pieces.

“There’s the blamed thing!” he pronounced, with scowling emphasis.

“Sh!” exclaimed Ruth. “Don’t use such language. Can’t it be fixed?”

“Oh, yes. They grow these things on bushes right out yonder in the fields. All I’ve got to do is to go and pick one that fits this breed of car. Oh, yes!” retorted Neale O’Neil.

“It is tragic!” gasped Mrs. Heard.

“Then we surely will have to stay here to-night,” said Agnes, and she did not sound as though the prospect worried her much.

“And to-morrow night – and the next night – and for several more, if you ask me,” growled Neale. “That is, unless I can get a wagon and drive you all to the nearest railroad station, and send you back to Milton.”

“Nev-air!” cried Agnes. “Let you stay here and have all the fun? Stingy!”

“My goodness, child,” murmured the chaperone. “What do you call fun?”

“At least, it would be a novel experience,” Ruth admitted.

“You, too?” gasped Mrs. Heard. “I thought you had better sense, Ruth Kenway.”

“Well – I haven’t,” admitted the oldest Corner House girl, smiling. “How are you going to get the thing repaired, Neale?”

“Wire to the makers. Take two or three days to get the new casting. And we can’t run a yard without it.”

“Where will you send your telegram from?” Ruth asked.

“From the flag station – Hickton – and that’s seven miles away. I’ll have to walk it unless I find some one to drive me there.”

“Oh, Neale! To-night?” cried Agnes.

“No. Couldn’t get to the station before it was closed, anyway. I’ll make an early start. That is, unless you want me to hike right out now and find a farmer who will cart you all to some place where you can get regular beds.”

“Oh, no!” cried Agnes, again. “You sha’n’t have all the fun, Neale.”

“No-o, Neale,” said Ruth, more slowly. “I think it will be possible for us all to stay here with you. The weather is so nice.”

“Oh, let’s stay! Let’s stay!” cried the three juveniles in chorus, and even Tom Jonah, becoming excited too, barked his approval.

“Well, what can I do,” Mrs. Heard demanded, “with every one against me?”

So it was agreed to stay. First of all, Neale declared the car must be got into the barn, for it might rain; and then, it did not look well to have the automobile standing out in the open road.

“I’d like to know who you suppose is going to see it here?” demanded Agnes, with a sniff. “I don’t believe anybody ever drives through this road more than once a month – or unless there is a funeral in the family!”

“Maybe Saleratus Joe and that other fellow will be driving through in Mr. Collinger’s runabout,” said Neale slyly.

“Oh, if they only would!” gasped Agnes.

“A fat chance!” returned Neale. “And what if they did? Would you hold ’em up the way that imitation constable did us, and take the car away from them?”

“I don’t know what I’d do,” said Agnes. “But I’d do something.”

Meanwhile the boy rummaged around in the barn and found a set of blocks and the necessary tackle. This he rigged to a beam inside the barn and carried the rope to the car at the foot of the sloping driveway.

With the purchase this arrangement gave them, the young folks all “tailed” on to the rope like sailors and managed to drag the automobile into the barn; but they were more than an hour and a half at the work, and it was growing dark when they finished.

Meanwhile nobody had appeared to forbid their camping on the Higgins premises. A fire had been built in the open and the tripod set up. Mrs. Heard tucked up her skirts and grilled bacon (and her face) at the fire. There were eggs, too, and canned tongue and biscuits and plenty of fruit. They all thought it great fun.

After supper, as it was still too early for bed, the three children entered into a boisterous game of hide-and-go-seek. Sammy, burrowing in the great heap of hay at the rear of the barn floor, suddenly lost his interest in the game. He dragged something out of the hay and brought it to Neale, who sat on the sill of the big door with pad and pencil, composing the telegram he intended to send to the automobile manufacturers from Hickton the next morning.

“What’s that you have, Sammy P.?” demanded Agnes, as the little fellow, too excited to speak, put the object in Neale’s hands.

“Great cracky!” ejaculated Neale O’Neil. “Where did you get it?”

“Under the hay. There’s something there. I broke the wire that held it – see?” said Sammy, excitedly.

“A license plate!” gasped Agnes.

“State license number! What do you know about that? Ask Mrs. Heard – ”

Agnes was away like the wind. Mrs. Heard and Ruth were washing dishes at the horse trough. The girl brought the chaperone in a hurry.

“What was Mr. Collinger’s license number, do you know?” Neale asked her. “I mean his automobile license number.”

“The license number is twenty-four hundred and thirty-two. Goodness! I ought to remember it.”

Neale stood up with the license plate in his hand. “We’ve found the car, sure as you live!” he said, with conviction.

CHAPTER XXIII – ROUGHING IT

Agnes had an excellent opportunity to say “I told you so!” to Neale; but did not even mention to her boy chum the fact that he could not have searched the barn very thoroughly upon his first visit to the place.

For Mr. Collinger’s stolen automobile was there under the hay. By the light of their own automobile lanterns Neale uncovered the runabout and finally hauled it out on the barn floor.

“What do you suppose is the matter with it?” asked Ruth.

“Why, nothing, of course,” cried Mrs. Heard, almost in tears, she was so happy. “Philly will be so delighted.”

“Guess I’d better telegraph to him in the morning when I send for that casting – eh?” said Neale.

“Oh! if you will, Neale,” said the chaperone. “He can come and get the car himself. Oh, dear me! isn’t this just the finest thing that’s happened to us during our tour?”

“It is, indeed, Mrs. Heard,” Ruth agreed.

“And all because of Sammy,” said Neale. “Sammy, you’re some kid.”

“Of course I am,” agreed that irrepressible. “I guess you’re all glad now that I came with you, ain’t you?”