Part 1 (1/2)
The Motor Girls at Camp Surprise.
by Margaret Penrose.
CHAPTER I-AN UNPLEASANT AWAKENING
”Look where you are steering, Cora Kimball! You nearly ran over a chicken that time.”
”Yes, and avoiding the chicken on that side, you nearly hit a child on this side. Such a dear little boy-or was it a girl? I never can tell when they're so young.”
”Two misses are as good as two miles,” misquoted the bronzed girl at the wheel of the automobile, as she straightened the car on the long, shaded road, where the trees met in a green archway overhead, and where the golden shadows flitted in the dust like so many little chickens running to cover, away from the fat-tired wheels.
”Why are you in such a hurry, Cora?” asked Bess Robinson, as she tucked back a straying lock of brown hair. ”It's too perfect a day to do anything in a hurry-even run a car.”
”Bess doesn't believe in doing _anything_ in a hurry,” lazily droned her sister Belle, from the rear seat. ”That's why she's so fat.”
”Don't dare use that objectionable word!” stormed Bess, turning about so suddenly that she sent Cora's elbow against the plunger of the horn, thereby producing a sudden blast.
”Oh!” exclaimed Bess. ”Did we run into something again?”
”Again?” demanded Cora. ”Come, I like that-not! We haven't run into _anything_ yet.”
”That chicken,” murmured Belle, even more lazily. ”Yes?”
”Was a good fifty feet out of danger!” declared Cora indignantly.
”And what of the child?”
”That never _was_ in danger. I didn't see him-her or it-until we had pa.s.sed. But the child-gender unknown-was playing in the dust beside the road. Queer how mothers can let them.”
”Probably the mother didn't know a thing about it,” said Bess, who had discovered that she was the sole cause of the needless alarm in regard to the horn's blast. ”One can't be always on the lookout.”
”Don't start a discussion,” begged Cora, as a backward glance showed some signs of Belle's stirring up sufficiently to refute her sister's remarks. ”It's too hot.”
”It is when you slow down,” observed Bess. ”But the breeze is perfectly fascinating when you keep the car moving, Cora.”
”Well, I don't intend to slow down right away. Have you girls any particular desire to go to any particular place?”
”Spare us all nerve-racking _particulars_ on a day like this,” entreated Belle, sliding down into a more comfortable position in the big, cus.h.i.+oned seat she occupied all alone. ”It is so warm! Summer is coming with a vengeance.”
”And it makes me wish we had set the date of our departure for Camp Surprise a week or so earlier,” remarked Cora. ”I wonder if we could arrange to go any sooner.”
”I could,” declared Bess. ”I haven't a thing to do.”
”Except reduce,” put in her sister tantalizingly.
”Belle Robinson! If you don't stop those mean, insinuating remarks, I'll-I'll--”
”You won't give me any more of those chocolates you sneaked into your bag as we were coming out,” finished Belle. ”I saw you, and you know what Dr. Blake told you would happen if you didn't stop eating sweets.
You'll get so--”