The Automobile Girls at Newport: or, Watching the Summer Parade. Crane Laura Dent
travelers to remove dust and tan from the face after the drive.’ Aren’t we going to be automobile travelers?”
“Sure and we a’ire,” said Bab, imitating the old Irish washerwoman, “and it shall put grease on its nose if it likes.”
“Come, daughter,” said Mr. Stuart finally, as Ruth was trying to explain to a group of admiring boys the first principles of running an automobile. She talked as familiarly of an emergency brake and a steering wheel, of horse power and speed-transmission, as most girls talk of frills and furbelows.
“It’s ten-thirty,” Mr. Stuart continued, “and, if this party is to be a strictly on time affair, you must be off! You couldn’t have a more wonderful day.”
It was late in the month of June. The summer clouds were sailing overhead, great bubbles of white foam thrown up into the blue depth of the sky. The sun shone brightly and the whole atmosphere was perfumed with the bloom of the honeysuckle, that hung in yellow clusters from Mrs. Thurston’s porch.
Barbara and Mollie flung their arms around their mother until she was completely enveloped in their embrace. Ruth kissed her father, and put her hand to her trim leather cap with a military salute. “It’s all right, captain,” she said; “I’ll bring my crew and good ship ‘Bubble’ safely into port.”
Aunt Sallie was anxious to be off. She could see that Mrs. Thurston was on the verge of tears at the thought of parting with her daughters. Still the young people were laughing and talking, and storing their little gifts under the seats in the car, as though they had all day before them.
“Hurry, child,” Aunt Sallie urged, reaching out a hand to Mollie. “Jump up on the back seat with Grace and me. We will let Mistress Barbara sit with Ruth for the first of the journey.” Aunt Sallie was very imposing in a violet silk traveling coat, with a veil and hat of the same shade; indeed, Miss Sallie had a fancy for a “touch of lavender” in everything she wore. With her snow-white hair, and commanding appearance, she would add prestige to the party, Mollie thought, no matter how dusty and wind-blown the rest of them might appear.
The girls hopped gayly in. Toot, toot, toot! the horn blew three times. Chug-chug-chug! and the great machine began to breathe with deep, muffled roars. Mr. Stuart gave the starting crank a strong turn, and the car slid gracefully along the road, red, blue, pink and violet motor veils floating behind in the breeze.
“Here’s good luck to you!” shouted Harold Smith, and roses and flowers of every kind were flung after them. Mollie and Grace picked up those that fell into their laps, and turned to wave their hands and throw kisses for good-bye.
“They look like a rainbow,” said Mr. Stuart, turning to Mrs. Thurston, who was no longer trying to hide her tears. Then he smiled at her gently. She was such a tiny, girlish-looking little woman, it was hard to think of her as the mother of two nearly grown-up daughters. “I expect,” he continued, “that that rainbow holds most of our promise of sunshine.”
They were still watching the car!
Down to the gate, at the furthest end of the road, a baby boy, chubby and fat, had crawled on two round, turned-in legs. There was something unusual going on down the street. He could hear strange noises, but, though he stuck his small nose through the fence, he was still unable to see. Just as Ruth’s car was almost in front of the house, open flew the stubborn old gate, and the child flung himself out in the middle of the road, just in front of the wonderful red thing he could see flying toward him. The baby was too young to understand the danger.
From the watchers at Mrs. Thurston’s came a cry of horror. A thrill of terror passed through the occupants of the car. Ruth’s face turned white. Like a flash, she slowed a little, turned her steering wheel and with a wide sweep drove her motor to the far side of the road, then straight on out of the path of the wondering baby.
Mr. Stuart’s, “Bravo, daughter!” was lost in his throat. But the little group of waiting friends gave three cheers for the girl chauffeur, which Ruth heard even at such a distance. Truly “The Automobile Girls” were fairly started on their adventures.
CHAPTER VI – WHAT HAPPENED THE FIRST DAY
The car flew along by sunny meadows and farms. New York was the first day’s goal.
“Barbara,” Ruth said to her next-door neighbor, “you are hereby appointed royal geographer and guide-extraordinary to this party! Here is the route-book. It will be up to you to show us which roads we are to take. It is a pretty hard job, as I well know from experience; but then, honors come hard. You don’t need to worry to-day. I know this coast trip into New York as well as I know my A.B.C.‘s. I have often come along this way with father. Let’s have a perfectly beautiful time in New York. We’ll make Aunt Sallie chaperon us while we do the town, or, at least, a part of it. Have you ever been to a roof garden?”
Barbara’s eyes danced. It didn’t sound quite right somehow – a roof garden – but then they were out for experiences, and Miss Sallie wouldn’t let them do anything really wrong.
Ruth glanced out of the corner of her eye at Barbara. Miss Stuart was a good little chauffeur who never allowed her attention to be distracted from running her car, no matter what was being talked of around her, nor how much she was interested, but she couldn’t help laughing at Barbara’s expression; it told so plainly all that was going on inside her head.
“I do assure you, Miss Barbara Thurston, that a roof garden may be a fairly respectable thing, quite well suited to entertaining, without shocking either Miss Sallie Stuart or her four charming protégées.” Ruth called back: “Aunt Sallie, will you take us up on the Waldorf roof to-night? You know we are going to stay at the Waldorf Hotel, girls. Father said we might enjoy the experience, and it would be all right with Aunt Sallie for chaperon.”
Grace pinched Mollie’s arm to express her rapture, and that little maiden simply gasped with delight. It was Mollie, not Barbara, of the two sisters, who had the greatest yearning for wealth and society, and the beautiful clothes and wonderful people that she believed went along with it. Barbara was an out-door girl, who loved tennis and all the sports, and could swim like a fish. An artist who spent his summers at Kingsbridge, once called her a brown sea-gull, when he saw her lithe brown body dart off the great pier to dive deep into the water.
Aunt Sallie had been taking a brief cat-nap, before Ruth’s question, and awakened in high good humor. “Why, yes, children,” she answered, “it will be very pleasant to go up on the roof to-night, after we have had our baths and our dinners. I am quite disposed to let you do just what you like, so long as you behave yourselves.”
Grace Carter pressed Aunt Sallie’s fat hand, as a message of thanks. Grace was Aunt Sallie’s favorite among Ruth’s friends. “She is a quiet, lady-like girl, who does not do unexpected things that get on one’s nerves,” Miss Sallie had once explained to Ruth. “Now, Aunt Sallie,” Ruth had protested, “I know I do get on your nerves sometimes, but you know you need me to stir you up. Think how dull you would be without me!” And Aunt Sallie had answered, with unexpected feeling: “I would be very dull, indeed, my dear.”
The girls were full of their plans for the evening.
“That is why Ruth told us each to put a muslin dress in our suit cases! Ruth, are you going to think up a fresh surprise every day! It’s just too splendid!” Mollie spoke in a tone of such fervent emotion that everyone in the car laughed.
“I don’t suppose I can manage a surprise every day, Molliekins,” Ruth called back over her shoulder, “but I mean to think up as many as I possibly can. We are going to have the time of our lives, you know, and something must happen to make it.”
All this time the car had been flying faster than the girls could talk. “This is ‘going some,’” commented Ruth, laughing.
When they came into Lakewood Ruth slowed up, as she had promised her father not to go any faster than the law allowed. “I cross my heart and body, Dad,” she had said. “Think of four lovely maidens and their handsome duenna languishing in jail instead of flying along the road to Newport. Honest Injun! father, I’ll read every automobile sign from here to Jehosaphat, if we ever