Part 1 (2/2)
”Stop! I draw the line on olives, Dave!” cried Phil, making a wry face.
”Oh, olives are fine; I love them!” cried Belle Endicott.
”Then all that are coming to me are yours,” returned Phil, quickly. ”But start her up, fellows, if we are going!” he added, and then, putting a big horn to his lips, he blew a loud blast.
”Take good care of yourselves!” cried a voice from the veranda of the mansion in front of which the two automobiles were standing, and Mrs.
Wadsworth waved a hand to the young people.
”We'll try to,” answered Dave, and then he threw in the clutch on low gear, and the big touring car moved gently away, out of the grounds of the Wadsworth mansion and into the main highway leading from Crumville to Shady Glen Falls. The second car speedily followed.
It was a late summer day, with a clear blue sky overhead and just enough breeze blowing to freshen the air. A shower of rain the day previous had laid the dust of the road and added to the freshness of fields and woods.
The boys and girls had planned this outing for several days. All of the youths were to return to Oak Hall school the following week, and they wished to do something for the girls to remember them by, as Dave expressed it.
”Might have a party,” Roger had suggested.
”No good, unless it was a lawn party,” Phil had answered. ”It's too stuffy in the house, these warm days.”
”We might take a couple of autos and go for a day's outing up the river road,” Dave had suggested, and this proposition had been accepted immediately. It was decided that Dave should run the Wadsworth machine, he having learned to do so some time before, and Roger was to run a car hired at the new Crumville garage. Each car had a capacity of five pa.s.sengers, including the driver, and the party consisted of ten young people, five boys and five girls.
”Now, Dave, don't let her out for more than fifty miles an hour,”
remarked Sam Day, who sat in the back of the leading auto, between two of the young ladies.
”Fifty miles an hour!” shrieked Jessie Wadsworth. ”What an idea! Dave, don't you dare!”
”Oh, Lazy is only fooling, Jessie,” answered Dave. ”He wouldn't want to ride at that rate of speed himself.”
”Twenty miles an hour is fast enough,” said Belle Endicott. ”I want to view the scenery. It is lovely around Crumville--so different from around the ranch.”
”Yes, the scenery is fine, even though we haven't such big mountains as you have out West,” answered Dave.
”And Shady Glen Falls is an ideal spot for a picnic,” said Jessie. ”Papa took us there last summer.”
”You've got to make the most of the Falls this summer,” went on Dave. ”I heard in town last week that next year a paper company is going to put a mill there.”
”Oh, Dave, is that the Eureka Paper Company?” questioned Jessie.
”Yes. What do you know about them?”
”Why, I heard papa and your uncle talking about it. It is a company in which Mr. Aaron Poole holds a big interest.”
”Aaron Poole!” murmured the youthful driver of the automobile, and his face grew serious, as he remembered the trouble he had had with that mean individual.
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