The Automobile Girls at Newport: or, Watching the Summer Parade. Crane Laura Dent
and gently half lifted, half dragged Ruth Stuart off the seat.
As her feet touched the ground, she too opened her eyes, only to close them again with a shivering sigh. Grace was at her side in a moment.
“Try to walk to the house, dear,” Grace urged. “It’s only a few steps.”
Mollie took the place of the young man, and, between the two girls, Ruth stumbled to the gate.
The young man stepped up to Barbara. “Can I help you?” he ventured, looking at the now quieted horses.
But a cold voice sounded from the carriage, where Gladys still sat. “I think you might think a little about me, Harry,” she exclaimed.
The young fellow bit his lip and hesitated.
“Please,” broke in Barbara, “please take her to the house. I can’t get these horses and this carriage through the gate. It isn’t big enough. But I’ll hitch them to the fence and stay with them for a few minutes. You must need rest, all of you!”
Harry Townsend bit his lip as he caught the sarcastic inflection in Barbara’s last sentence, but did as he was directed, and walked slowly toward the house with Gladys.
Left to herself, Barbara led the horses, still attached to the carriage, toward the fence, and hitched them by the reins in a clever way all country girls know. “Good boys! Poor boys!” she murmured, petting them, for they were still shivering pitifully with fright.
For several minutes she stood talking to them. Then Mollie’s anxious face appeared at the door, and in a moment she stood beside her sister.
“What shall we do?” she asked. “Miss Stuart is feeling very ill, and wants to go home at once. She and all the others refuse to step foot into that carriage again – and I can’t blame them; but, you know, it’s two miles to the hotel, if it’s a step, and we haven’t a telephone. Grace says Ruth’s father would send the au-to-mo-bile,” – Mollie pronounced the word with reverent care – “but what’s the quickest way of getting the message to them? Mother suggests running over to Jim Trumbull’s and seeing if he’ll hitch up and drive to the hotel. But it’s half a mile to his place, and he’s very likely to be away anyhow. What do you – ?”
Barbara interrupted her decisively. “I’ll just drive those horses back to the hotel myself, Mollie Thurston,” she said calmly.
“Barbara, you can’t! It’s risking your life!”
“Nonsense! There isn’t an ounce of spirit left in the poor, frightened things. I guess I haven’t broken Jim Trumbull’s colts for him without knowing how to handle horses. You go tell Miss Stuart that her automobile will be here in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. And see, Mollie,” the twinkle shone in Barbara’s eyes, “of course they’ll give me a ride back in the auto!”
Laughing at Mollie’s protests, the plucky girl untied the horses and turned them carefully.
“Stand at their heads, just a minute,” she cheerfully directed. Then Barbara gathered up the reins and climbed up to the high seat.
“Drop anchor, Mollie,” she called, and trotted slowly down the road behind the quieted blacks.
CHAPTER II – LOST, STRAYED OR STOLEN
“Mollie Thurston, has Barbara driven off with those awful horses?”
It was Grace Carter who spoke. She had reached the doorway of the cottage just in time to catch a glimpse of the departing equipage.
Without waiting for a reply, she turned from the open door to the group inside just as Mollie rejoined them, exclaiming:
“Barbara is driving the runaways to the hotel for the machine!”
Mrs. Thurston started. She had been downstairs for some time helping to make the victims of the accident comfortable. She was a slim, sweet-faced little woman, whose entire world lay in her two lively young daughters, in whom she had unlimited faith.
But, in a moment, she smiled and said, “I am not afraid to trust Barbara with anything.”
Ruth Stuart’s lately pale face was glowing. “I think that is regularly splendid of her!” she exclaimed, with more animation than she had shown since she had left the carriage.
“Oh, Barbara is used to taking care of herself,” Gladys Le Baron interposed with a supercilious smile.
Mollie looked at her cousin a moment. “Yes,” she answered steadily, “we think it is a pretty good thing in our family.”
Gladys flushed, and had no reply ready. Ruth looked surprised and Grace plunged into the breach.
“Oh,” she tried to murmur off-handedly, “Barbara and Mollie and Gladys are cousins, you know.”
“And you never – ” Ruth turned to Gladys, then stopped and smiled. “Well, it’s awfully jolly to have met you all in this nice, informal way. Grace has often spoken of you,” she said.
The girls had to laugh at this, so Ruth continued: “I’m well enough now to be proper and conventional, I suppose. I believe you know I’m Ruth Stuart. Mrs. Thurston, Mollie, have you met Gladys’s friend, Mr. Townsend?”
The young man came out from the corner near the window, where he had been seated, and bowed gayly. Ruth nodded in a satisfied fashion.
“There, doesn’t that finish it?” she sighed. “The rest of you are all acquainted, aren’t you? Now, won’t one of you, please tell me why those awful horses aren’t running still? I know some horrible white hay-caps started them, and Jones fell off the seat, and now we are here. Who stopped us?”
Everybody turned to Ruth at once. “Why, Barbara stopped them,” Grace managed to say first. “Barbara – ”
A gay laugh sounded in the doorway, and Barbara herself appeared before them.
“Now I’ve caught you!” she cried merrily, her bright eyes sweeping the circle. Then she turned to Ruth with a mock curtsey.
“Your ladyship’s chariot waits,” she declaimed, then continuing in quick explanation: “You see, your driver was scarcely hurt and he rushed back to the hotel at once and sent the automobile along the road where he had seen the horses disappearing. Before I’d gone a quarter of a mile, I met the machine with the chauffeur, and doctor and Jones himself. We sent Jones back with the horses, though they weren’t bothering me a bit, and I came back in the automobile. How are you feeling?” and the bright voice softened sympathetically, as she noted Ruth’s pale cheeks.
For answer the girl arose quickly, and held out both hands to Barbara. “You’re a brick,” she said simply. “I fainted, like a goose, and they’ve just told me what you did. I am so glad I know you, and I guess my father will be glad, too – not to say thankful! Now, please won’t you and your sister dine with us to-morrow? No? Make it lunch; then I’ll see you sooner. I won’t take no for an answer, because I have a very important plan. Dad decides as quickly as I do. So if you’ll only say yes – but I can’t tell you about it now. Perhaps, if I make you curious, you’ll be more interested when the time comes!” Ruth laughed mischievously.
“What have you up your sleeve now, Ruth Stuart?” asked Grace, curiously. “I never saw such a girl as you are for chain-lightning projects!”
“You’ll see,” laughed Ruth. “You’re in it too, you know. You must be one of my lunch party to-morrow. I know you and Mr. Townsend have another engagement, Gladys, so you will pardon my delivering my invitation before you. Now, I won’t say another word.
“Come,” she continued, addressing the party, “we must be off at once. If the news of this runaway circulates through the hotel and reaches either your father or mine, Gladys, they’ll be wild with fright. Good-bye, Mrs. Thurston, and thank you. You’ve been awfully good to us. As for you two” – holding out her hands to Barbara and Mollie – “wait till tomorrow at lunch!”
Drawing the two Thurston girls with her, she stepped outside the door and to the gate, the rest of the party following. The machine was