The Motor Girls on the Coast: or, The Waif From the Sea

“Well, we must make time now,” asserted Cora.

They found a rather anxious restaurant keeper looking down the road up which they came, but he became all smiles when he saw the merry party, and soon they were sitting down to a plain, but well-cooked and substantial meal. And they all had appetites, too!

“We will spend the night at the Mansion House, in Fairport,” spoke Cora, consulting a list after dinner. “I will telephone for rooms.”

“Perhaps you had better let me,” suggested Cousin Mary, and she made the arrangements over the wire.

Once more they were under way again, and all went well until Jack shouted that his tire had gone flat and would have to be pumped up.

“Go ahead–don’t wait for us!” he called to his sister. “We can speed up and catch you.”

“Don’t take the wrong road,” Cora cautioned, and then Jack and Ed got out the repair kit. The work took them longer than they had expected, and it was getting dusk when they were ready to proceed.

“We’ll never make it before dark, old man,” said Ed.

“Oh, I guess we will. I’m going to fracture some speed limits,” and Jack opened wide the throttle. The Get There did make good time, but it was not worthy of its name. For, after going for some time, Jack felt that he must be nearing Fairport. He got out to look at a sign post, lighting a match to distinguish the directions. Then he uttered an expression of dismay.

“What is it?” asked Ed, anxiously. “Something else gone wrong, Jack?”

“Yes–we’ve gone wrong!”

“How so?”

“Why, we’re on the Belleville turnpike, and to my certain knowledge we’re about fifteen miles off the right road for Fairport. I thought that fellow we asked, about sunset, didn’t seem very sure of his directions. He told us wrong–maybe not on purpose–but wrong just the same. Ed, old man, we are lost in a dismal country with night coming on. Please groan and shiver for me, while I think of the proper thing to say. We’re lost!”

“Well, the only thing to do is to go back,” remarked Ed, philosophically. “Come on. Luckily the roads are good.”

“Hark! Some one is coming!” exclaimed Jack, as he heard footfalls on the hard highway. “I’ll ask him. Maybe there’s a short cut to Fairport.”

The figure advanced out of the darkness into the glare of the lights on Jack’s car. Then he exclaimed involuntarily:

“It’s a girl!”

CHAPTER VII

WORRIES

“Where shall we leave our cars?” asked Belle.

“There’s a garage just around the corner from the hotel,” answered Cora. “We can have the man look the machines over, too, and see that there is plenty of gasoline and oil. Then we won’t have to worry.”

The three cars had drawn up in front of the Mansion House at Fairport, following a pleasant run after the sheep episode. Jack and Ed, of course, were not present, and of them more presently. They were having, as Jack might express it, “their own troubles.”

“Oh, but I’m warm and dusty!” exclaimed Eline as she “flopped” from the car to the sidewalk. Flopped is the only word that properly expresses it.

“Then you’re not much used to motoring,” remarked Cora with a smile, as she disengaged herself from the steering wheel. “It is tiring, at first, but one soon becomes used to it. How did you like it, Cousin Mary?”

“It was delightful, my dear, purely delightful; but I will own that I shall be glad to walk again.” She alighted from the car of the twins. The two sisters got down, and Belle went around to look at one of the rear tires. She had a suspicion, amounting to a conviction, that it had gone flat. It had.

“I’ll let the garage man attend to it,” she said. “I’m too anxious now to get some nice warm water, soap and a large towel.”

“Me for a large, juicy towel!” exclaimed Walter, coming up with Norton. “Will you have yours boiled or stewed?”

“Silly! I don’t call that a joke!”

“You don’t need to; it comes without calling.”

“That’s worse,” declared Bess, trying to get some of the road dust off her face with a very small handkerchief.

“Well, we’re here, anyhow!” put in Norton, “I don’t think much of the hotel, though.”

“It will do very nicely,” answered Cora somewhat coldly. She was not quite sure whether she was going to like Norton or not. He did not seem to improve upon acquaintance, and she was a little sorry that Jack had asked him on the trip. Still, she reflected, one can easily be mistaken about boys. Perhaps his flippant manner might be due to nervousness, or a diffidence in not knowing how to say the right thing at the right time.

“We’re here–because we’re here!” exclaimed Walter. “That’s more than can be said for Jack and Ed.”

“Are they in sight?” asked Cora, looking down the long straight road–the main street of Fairport–by which they had entered the town.

“Not yet,” answered Bess. “Oh, do let’s get into the hotel!” she exclaimed. “A crowd is collecting, and I do so want a drink of cold water.”

“Hot tea for me,” spoke Belle. “Hot tea with a slice of lemon in it.”

“Since Belle went to that Russian tea-fest last winter she always takes lemon in her tea,” explained her sister. “Ugh! I can’t bear it!” Bess was nothing if not certain in her likes and dislikes.

“It’s really the only way to drink tea, my dear,” said Belle, with an affected society drawl. “It’s so–so mussy with cream and sugar in it,” and she spread out her hands in æsthetic horror–or something to simulate that.

“I think I shall be satisfied with just plain tea,” voiced Cora, as she took another look down the road for her brother. “Come on, girls–and boys!” she added.

A little throng was beginning to gather in front of the hotel, somewhat blocking the sidewalk, for the sight of the cars drawn up in front of the hostel and perhaps the sight of the four–well, it might as well be said–pretty motor girls, had attracted attention.

“Shoo–shoo–chickens!” exclaimed Mrs. Fordam with a laugh as she brought up back of the girls. “Let’s get in and freshen up for supper.”

“Dinner!” cried Walter. “It’s not allowed to say supper on this tour. Dinner; isn’t it, Cora?”

“As you like,” she assented a bit wearily, for now, after the excitement of the day, the work and worry, much of which had necessarily fallen to her, Cora was beginning to feel the reaction. The fire, too, and the strange woman, all had added to it. But she knew they could have a good rest that evening.

“Jack must be having trouble with that tire,” she went on, as they entered the hotel. “I think he had better put on an entirely new one.”

“Oh, he’ll be here pretty soon,” said Walter. “Really we haven’t been here long, and we ought to allow him half an hour anyway. The Get There will go – ”

“Once it does go,” interrupted Norton. “I wonder where we register?”

“There’s the desk,” said Walter, pointing to where the hotel clerk stood behind the counter waiting for the party. He smiled a welcome.

“I’ll register for the girls,” said Mrs. Fordam. “I want to see how the rooms are arranged before we commit ourselves to them.”

The suite was satisfactory and soon the girls had gone to their apartments, their suit cases having been brought up by the bell boys. Walter and Norton, after putting their names down on the register, took the three cars to the garage around the corner, leaving them there for the night.

“Unless we want to take a little spin this evening,” suggested Norton, as they were on their way back to the hotel.