Patty's Motor Car

“No,” said Patty, mischievously, “I don’t mind. I’ll read aloud to you, if you like.”

“It seems too bad for me not to go when it’s my own picnic,” said Philip, musingly. “You don’t happen to know of any little motor car we could use, do you?”

“We might take Camilla,” suggested Patty, in a dubious tone.

“Just the thing! Say we do? How clever of you to think of that!” and, as Patty broke into peals of laughter at his foolishness, Philip flew down the steps and around to the garage, returning in a moment with Camilla, which Miller was impatiently holding in readiness.

“I’m going to drive,” Philip announced, calmly.

“All right, I don’t care; but, then, you must let me drive coming home. I declare, with a house party, I almost never get a chance to drive my own car!”

“Never mind! Your horrid old house party will soon be going, and then you can drive all you like.”

“It isn’t a horrid old house party! It’s a lovely, sweet, delicious house party, and I wish it would stay forever!”

“This part of it will, if you give him the slightest encouragement.”

“Oh, I don’t want part of it unless I have it all! I had no idea house parties were such fun. I think we’re having beautiful times, don’t you?”

“Yes; since you’ve made up with young Harper;” and Philip’s eyes twinkled.

“Why, what do you mean?” exclaimed Patty, blushing pink. “How did you know anything about it?”

“I didn’t, and I don’t, and I don’t want to! But when I see my little hostess going around with a sad and forlorn expression on her face, and one of her guests looking as if he’d lost his last friend, and then they both go for a motor ride and come back jubilantly chummy, – why, then, – I Sherlock it out that they’ve had a squabble and a make-up! Am I altogether wrong?”

“Not altogether,” said Patty, demurely.

CHAPTER XX

A NARROW ESCAPE

The picnic was the real thing. That is, it was the real old-fashioned sort of a picnic, and it was therefore a novelty to most of its participants.

Patty had been on many motor picnics, where elaborate luncheons were served by white-garbed waiters, with the same appointments of silver, glass, and china that she would use at home. But not since her Vernondale days had she attended this sort of picnic. There were no servants. The simple but appetising luncheon was spread on a tablecloth laid on the grass, and, true to tradition, a grasshopper now and then leaped in among the viands, or an audacious spider attempted to approach the feast. But these were few and easily vanquished by the brave and valiant men of the party.

The men, too, proved themselves capable in the arts of fire-building and coffee-making, so that Patty, who was a born cook and loved it, found no use for her talent. So she and the other girls set the table as daintily as they could with the primitive means at their command, and decorated it prettily with wild flowers.

“As a rule,” said Elise, as she sat with a sandwich in one hand and a glass of lemonade in the other, “I like silver forks and china plates at a picnic, but, for once, I do think these wooden butter plates and paper napkins are rather fun. What do you think, Patty?”

“Far be it from me to cast reflections on the goods my host provides, but, generally speaking, I confess I like my table a few feet above the over-attentive population of Mother Earth.”

“Oh, pshaw, Patty!” exclaimed Philip. “You’re no kind of a sport! You’re a pampered darling of luxurious modernity.”

“Gracious! What an awful thing to be!” cried Patty, in mock dismay.

“And, anyway, Patty,” said the blunt Mona, “if you hadn’t put all those old weedy flowers on the tablecloth, there wouldn’t be any ants and things. They’ve mostly come out of your decorations.”

“I believe you’re right,” said Patty, laughing. “So the picnic is a success after all, and it’s only our decorations that made any trouble.”

Then they all ate heartily of the feast, and there was much laughter and merriment, and afterward they sat round the fire and told stories and sang songs, and they all declared it was the very nicest picnic ever was, and they were sorry when it was time to go home.

“But we must be going,” Patty said, “for I promised Nan we’d be home in ample time to dress for dinner, and it’s a fairly long ride.”

“Do we go back the same way we came?” asked Elise, looking at Philip with an arch air of enquiry.

“Go back any way you please, fair lady,” he replied. “The way we came is the shortest, but there is a longer way round, if you prefer it.”

“I don’t mean that,” said Elise. “I mean do we go with the same partners?”

“I do,” declared Philip, “and Miss Fairfield does. The rest of you may do just as you choose.”

“Then I think we’ll go as we came,” said Elise, with an air of satisfaction.

The simplicity of Philip’s picnic made it an easy matter to pack up to go home, as there was little beside the tablecloth to take with them, and so they were soon ready for the homeward trip.

As host, Philip sent off the other cars first, and, after they were all started, he stepped into the Swift Camilla, beside Patty, who was already in the driving seat.

“I’m going to drive home, you know,” she said. “I’m simply dying to get hold of this steering bar once more.”

“All right; you may drive, but let’s go round the other route; it’s only a little bit longer.”

“How much longer?”

“Not more than a mile or two, – two at the most.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Positive!”

“All right; then we’ve time enough. Where do we turn off?”

“At this next turn to the left. That takes us around past Berry Hill, and so on around by Blue Lake.”

“Oh, yes, I know the way after we reach Blue Lake. Here we go, then!”

Patty took the turn Philip had indicated, and, as she did so, she caught the last glimpse of the other three cars disappearing in the distance as they went home by the same road they came.

The road she had turned into was far more picturesque and beautiful, and, as this portion of it was new to her, she was delighted to see it.

“What high hills!” she exclaimed. “Why, they’re almost mountains!”

“Hardly that; but they are fairly high hills, to be so near the seashore. Don’t you want me to drive, Patty? This road has sharp corners, and around these hills it’s hard to see anybody coming.”

“No, I’ll drive and you keep a watch out. We haven’t met a car yet.”

“No, and I wonder at it. Usually there are lots of racers and touring cars along here. But, of course, it’s early in the season for them.”

“How is that you are so familiar with this locality? You seem to know all about it.”