Part 1 (1/2)
The Motor Girls at Lookout Beach.
by Margaret Penrose.
CHAPTER I
SUMMER PLANS
Bess Robinson was so filled with enthusiasm that her sister Belle declared there was serious danger of ”blowing-up,” unless there was some repression. Belle herself might be equally enthusiastic, but she had a way of restraining herself, while Bess just delighted in the ”utmost” of everything. The two sisters were talking on the side porch of their handsome home in Chelton, a New England town, located on the Chelton river. It was a beautiful day, late in spring.
”Well, have you sufficiently quieted down, Bess?” asked Belle, after a pause, which succeeded the more quiet girl's attempt to curb her sister's enthusiasm--a pause that was filled with just the hint of pique.
”Quieted down? I should think any one would quiet down after such a call-down as you gave me, if you will allow the use of such slang in your presence, Miss Prim,” retorted Bess, with a little tilt to her stubby nose.
”Oh, come now, Bess----”
”Well, don't be so fussy, then. We have always wanted to go to a real watering place, and now, when we are really to go, Belle Robinson, you take it as solemnly as if it were a message from boarding-school, summoning us back to cla.s.s. Why don't you warm up a bit? I--I feel as if I could--yell! There, that's out, and I don't care! I wish I was a boy, and then--then I could do something when I felt happy, besides sitting down, and looking pleased. Boys have a way of showing their feelings. I know what I'm going to do. I'm just going to get out the car, and run over to Cora Kimball's. She'll know how to rejoice with me about going to Lookout Beach. Oh, Belle, isn't it just perfectly--too lovely for anything! There, I was going to say scrumbunctious, but I won't in your presence--Miss Prim!”
”Why, Bess--you silly,” retorted her sister. ”Of course I'm glad, too.
But I don't have to go into kinks to show it. We will have a glorious time, I'm sure, for they say Lookout Beach is a perfectly ideal place.”
”'Ideal'! Oh, there you go!” and Bess made a grimace of her pretty face. ”'Ideal'! Belle, why don't you take a private room somewhere, just off the earth, so you can be just as perfectly proper as you wish. 'Ideal!' Whoop! Why not sweet? Oh, I say--Burr-r-r-r! It's going to be immense! Now there, and you can get mad if you want to,” and with this parting shot Bess hurried off to the little garage in the rear of the house.
”Is the car ready to take out, Patrick?” she asked the man of all work about the Robinson place.
”Yes, miss. I poured the gasolene in the little hole under the seat where you showed me, and I filled up the oil tank, and I give it a drink. I put in ice-water, Miss.”
”Ice-water? Why, Patrick?” for Patrick was a new acquisition, and what he didn't know about automobiles would have made two large books of instructions to beginners. ”Why ice water, Patrick?” and Bess raised her pretty eyebrows.
”Well, sure, an' Miss Belle said the other day, as how the water b'iled on her, miss--that is, not exactly b'iled _on_ her, but b'iled in the tea kettle--I mean that thing punched full of holes--in the front of the car.”
”The radiator,” suggested Bess, trying not to laugh.
”Yes, that's it, miss, though why they calls it a radiator, when they want it to kape cool, is beyond me. Howsomever----”
”About the ice water, Patrick.”
”Yes, miss, I'm comin' to that. You see when Miss Belle said as how it b'iled over the other day, I thinks to myself that sure ice-water will never boil, so I filled the radiator with some as cold as I could bear me fist in it. Arrah, an' it's no b'ilin' water ye'll have th' day, when ye takes this car out, Miss Bess.”
”Oh, Patrick, how kind of you!” exclaimed the girl. ”And what a novel idea. I'm sure it will be all right,” and she placed her hand on the radiator. It was as cold as a pump handle on a frosty morning.
”I blew up the tires, too, miss,” went on the man, ”an' here's a four leaf clover I found. Take it along.”
”What for?” asked Bess, as she accepted the emblem.
”Sure, fer good luck. Maybe ye'll not git a puncture now. Clovers is good luck.”
”Oh, thank you,” said Bess earnestly, as she cranked up, for Patrick had not yet advanced this far in his auto-education.
Then the girl, most becomingly attired in auto hood and coat, backed the pretty little silver-colored runabout, _Flyaway_, owned by herself and her sister, ”the Robinson twins,” out of the garage, and turned it on the broad drive.