The Motor Girls
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Margaret Penrose >> The Motor Girls
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11 THE MOTOR GIRLS
by Margaret Penrose
CHAPTER I
CORA AND HER CAR
"Now you've got it, what are you going to do with it?" asked Jack
Kimball, with a most significant smile at his sister Cora.
"Do with it?" repeated the girl, looking at her questioner in
surprise; then she added, with a fine attempt at sarcasm: "Why, I'm
going to have Jim break it up for kindling wood. It will make such a
lovely blaze on the library hearth. I have always loved blazing
autos."
"Now, sis," objected the tall, handsome boy, as he swung his arm
about the almost equally tall, and even handsomer girl, "don't get
mad."
"Oh, I'm not in the least angry."
"Um! Maybe not. Put I honestly thought--well, maybe you would like
some of the boys to give you a lesson or two in driving the new car.
There's Wally, you know. Ahem! I thought perhaps Wally--"
"Walter can run a machine--I'm perfectly willing to grant you that,
Jack. But this is my machine, and I intend to run it."
The girl stepped over to a window and looked out. There, on the
driveway, stood a new automobile. Four-cylindered, sliding-gear
transmission, three speeds forward and reverse, long-wheel base, new
ignition system, and all sorts of other things mentioned in the
catalogue. Besides, it was a beautiful maroon color, and the leather
cushions matched. Cora looked at it with admiration in her eyes.
An hour, before, Jack Kimball and his chum Walter Pennington, had
brought the car from the garage to the house, following Mrs.
Kimball's implicit instructions that the new machine should not be
driven an unnecessary block between the sales-rooms and the Kimball
home.
"The car must come to Cora on the eve of her birthday," Jack's
mother had stipulated to him, "and I want it to come to her brand
new, with the tires nice and white. Hers must be the first ride in
it."
So it was, after "digesting her surprise," as she expressed it, and
spending the intervening hour in admiring the beautiful machine,
climbing in and out of it, testing the levers, turning the steering
wheel, and seeing Jack start the engine, that Cora was able to leave
it and enter the house.
"It's--it's just perfect;" she said, with a longing look back at the
car.
"Yes, and isn't it a shame mother won't let you go out in it
to-night?" spoke Jack as he joined his sister at the window. "If
they had only unpacked it a little earlier--it's too bad not to have
a run in it while it's fresh. But," he concluded with a sigh, "I
suppose I'll have to push it back in the shed."
"Yes," assented Cora, also sighing. "But mother must be humored,
and if she insists that I shall not take a trial spin after dark,
I'll simply have to wait until daylight. Jack, you're a dear! I know
perfectly well that you influenced mother to give me this," and Cora
brushed her flushed a cheek against Jack's bronzed face.
"Well, I know a little sister when I see one," replied the lad; "and
though she may want to drive a motor-car, she's all right, for all
that," and Jack rather awkwardly slipped his arm around his sister's
waist again, for she did seem a "little sister" to him, even if she
was considered quite a young lady by others.
"Girls coming up to-night?" asked Jack after a pause, during which
they both had been silently admiring the car and its graceful lines.
"I don't know," replied Cora. "They haven't heard about my new
auto, or they'd be sure to come."
"Let's run over and tell them," proposed Jack.
Cora thought for a moment. She had plans for the evening, but they
did not include Jack.
She said finally: "I have to write a few letters--acknowledging some
birthday gifts. Don't wait for me if you intend to go over to
Walter's. You might call at the Robinsons', however, to fetch me;
say at half-past nine."
"Oh, then I'm not to see Bess or Belle--or--well, there are plenty
of other girls just as keen on ice cream sodas as those mentioned,"
and he pretended to leave the room, as if his feelings had been
hurt.
"Now; you know, Jack, I always want you with me, but--"
"But just to-night you don't. All right, little sister. After me
running that machine up from the garage for you, and not even
scraping the tires; after me--even kissing you! Fie! fie! little
girl. Some day you may want another machine--or a kiss--"
"Children, children," called Mrs. Kimball, "are you coming to
dinner? And are you going to put that machine in the shed before
dark, Jack?"
"Both--both, mum! We were just discussing a discussion about
the--the machine, girls and ice cream sodas."
"What nonsense!" exclaimed his mother with a laugh. "Come to
dinner, do. But, Jack, run the machine in first, please."
The car was put under a shed attached to the barn, Cora looking
enviously at Jack as he manipulated the levers and wheels, she
sitting on the seat beside him, on the short run up the driveway.
She would not venture to operate it herself in such cramped
quarters.
"There!" exclaimed Cora as Jack locked the shed door. "I hope
nobody steals it to-night. Did you take out the plug, Jack?"
"Here you are," and he handed her the brass affair that formed the
connection for the ignition system, and without which the car could
not be run. "Put it under your pillow, sis," he added. "Maybe you'll
have a gasolene dream."
They went into the house, where dinner was waiting for them. The
meal was a simple one, although the means of the little family were
ample for a most elaborate affair. But Mrs. Kimball preferred the
elegance of simplicity.
Mrs. Grace Kimball was a wealthy widow, a member of one of the
oldest and best known families in Chelton, which was a New England
town, not far from the New York boundary. Her husband had been
Joseph Kimball, a man of simple tastes and sterling principles. When
he had to leave her, with the two children, he said as he was
passing away:
"Grace, I know you will bring them up rightly--plainly and
honestly."
Plain in character, upright and fair, the two children had grown,
but, in personality, nothing could make either Jack or Cora Kimball
"plain." They were just simply splendid.
"Then I can't take out the machine to-night, mother dear?" asked
Cora after dinner.
"Not to-night, daughter. I know you can run a car, but this is a
new one, and I would feel better to have you give it a test run in
daylight. You must get the man at the garage to show you all about
it. Do you like it very much, Cora?"
"Like it! Oh, mother, I perfectly love it! I can scarcely believe
it is all mine--that Jack has no mortgage on it and that it's my
very own."
"I don't know about that," put in Jack. "A fine car like that is
rather a dangerous thing for a handsome young lady of seventeen
summers, and some incidental winters, to go sporting about in. Some
one else may get a mortgage on it, and want to foreclose."
"Now, I don't tease you, Jack," objected his, sister, "and a girl
has just as much right to tease a boy as a boy has to tease a girl."
"Goodness me! You don't call that teasing, do you? The girls have
all the rights now. But help yourself! I'm not particular. Did you
say I was to call at the Robinsons' at nine?"
"No, nine-thirty."
"Oh, exactly. Well, I'll try to be there. You might make it a
point not to be waiting on the drive for me. A fellow wants to get a
look at a girl like Bess once in a while--just for practice, you
know."
"Oh, Jack!"
"Oh, Cora! What's the matter?"
"You're horrid!"
"All right. Then I'm going off and read a horrible tale about
pirates, and walking the plank, and all that. I'll be on hand at the
time and place mentioned. Hoping this will find you well, remain,
yours very truly, Jack." And he hurried out of the room amid the
laughter of his mother and sister.
"What a boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Kimball.
It was a pleasant, summer evening, and when Cora hurried down the
avenue toward the Robinson home, she actually seemed to have wings.
For she was not running, and her pace could hardly be called
walking.
Her tall, straight figure was clad in a simple linen gown. She had
need to disregard frills now, for she was a motor girl.
"Oh, come on, and don't ask a single question!" she exclaimed as the
Robinson twins--Bess and Belle--hastened to meet her in response to
her ring. "Come on! We must go over to the garage, quick! I've got a
new machine, and I've got to learn all about it."
She had to pause for breath, and Belle managed to say
"Cora! A new machine! All for yourself! Oh, you dear! Who gave
it to you?"
"Why Jack found it," Cora laughed. "It was running along the
street, you know, and he lassoed it. It was going like mad, but he
whirled the lash of his riding-whip about it and--and--"
"Now, Cora, dear!" and Belle dropped her voice to one of aggrieved
tones. "You know what I meant."
"Of course I do, girly; but hurry--do! I want the man at the garage
to teach me all about my new machine. I call it the Whirlwind.' You
know it's different from Jack's small runabout, and there are
several new points to be posted on. I want to be all ready, so that
when we go out to-morrow morning we can surprise the boys."
"Oh, how perfectly lovely!" exclaimed Bess.
Delighted and excited, the three girls hurried over the railroad
hill, on a short cut to the garage.
"Do you think he'll show you?" asked Bess. "He might want you to
hire a chauffeur."
"Well, we'll see," responded Cora. "If we can manage to find a
nice, agreeable, elderly gentleman--the story-book kind of
machinist, you know. I fancy he will be sufficiently interested--
ahem! well, you know--" and she finished with a little laugh;
in which her chums joined.
They had reached the small door of the office of the garage. A
notice on the glass directed them to "Push."
Cora put both hands to the portal, and it swung back. She almost
stumbled into the room.
"We would like to see some one who will teach us how to run an
auto," she began. "I know something of one, but I have a new kind."
The three girls drew back.
"A nice, agreeable, elderly gentleman!" whispered Belle to Cora.
Cora could not repress a smile.
Instead of the "story-book machinist," a handsome young lad stood
before them, smiling at their discomfiture.
"What is it?" he asked in a pleasant voice, and Cora noticed how
white and even his teeth were.
"We--er--I--that is, we--I want to learn some points about my new
car," she stammered. "It's a--"
"I understand," replied the handsome chap. "I will be very glad to
show you. Just step this way, please," and, with a little bow, he
motioned to them to follow him into the semi-dark machine shop back
of the office.
CHAPTER II
THE DASH OF THE WHIRLWIND
When Jack Kimball called at the Robinson home that same evening, at
precisely nine-thirty, he found three very much agitated young
ladies. Bess, or, to be more exact, Elizabeth Robinson, the
brown-haired, "plump" girl--she who was known as the "big" Robinson
girl--was positively out of breath, while her twin sister, Isabel,
usually called Belle, too slim to puff and too thin to "fluster,"
was fanning herself with a very dainty lace handkerchief.
Cora paced up and down the piazza, in the true athletic way of
cooling off.
"Why the wherefore?" asked Jack, surprised at the excitement so
plainly shown, in spite of the girls' attempts to hide it.
"Oh, just a race," replied Cora indifferently.
"Out in the dark?" 'persisted Jack.
"Only across the hill," went on Cora, while Bess giggled
threateningly.
"Seems to me you took a queer time to race," remarked the lad with a
sly wink at Isabel. "Who won out?"
"Oh, Cora, of course," answered Isabel. "She won--in and out."
"Oh, I don't know," spoke Jack's sister. "You didn't do half badly,
Belle."
"Oh, I was laughing so I couldn't run."
"Cora said you were coming for her," put in Bess with a smile.
Jack seemed disappointed that the subject was mentioned.
"Yes," he said. "She was very particular to specify the time. It's
nine-thirty now, but I'm in no hurry," and he looked about for a
chair.
"But I am," insisted Cora.
"Well, then," added Jack a bit stiffly, "if you're ready, suppose
we run along. Or, have you had enough running for this evening?"
"Plenty. But I really must go, girls. Be sure and be ready in the
morning for--well, you know what," and she finished with a laugh.
"We want the Chelton folks--"
"To sit up and take notice, I suppose," put in Jack quickly. "Pardon
the slang, ladies, but sometimes slang seems to fit where nothing
else will."
The twins managed to whisper a word or two into Cora's ear as she
said good-night and left with her brother.
They had had such a splendid time at the garage. It was the run
back home, over the railroad embankment, that had caused all their
flurry and excitement. And, though they had not left the auto
salesrooms until five minutes before the time Cora had appointed for
her brother to meet her, they had actually managed to reach home
before Jack called, so that he could have no suspicion of their
visit to the garage.
Paul Hastings, the young man whom they had encountered on their
visit to the automobile place, had proved a most interesting
youth--he appeared to know many things besides the good and bad
points of the average car.
Mr. and Mrs. Perry Robinson, parents of the Robinson twins, happened
to be out that evening, so that, even to them, the visit to the
garage was a profound secret, and there was no need of making any
explanations.
That night, in her sleep, Elizabeth was heard to mutter "The clutch!
Throw in the clutch!"
And Isabel actually answered, also in dream language:
"Jam down the brake!"
But Cora, across the fields, in her own cool, out-of-doors sleeping
apartment, built on a broad porch, did not dream. She just
slumbered.
It was a delightful morning in early June, and the air seemed
sprinkled with scented dew, when Cora Kimball drove up to the
Robinson home in her new automobile.
"Come on! Come on!" she called as she stopped at the curb and,
tooted the horn. "Hurry! I want to overtake Walter. He and Jack have
just gone out!"
"Oh, of course, you want to overtake Walter," answered Isabel, with
the emphasis on "Walter."
"Well, never mind about that, but do come," urged Cora. "What do
you think of my car?" she asked as the girls hastened to her. "Isn't
it a beauty?"
She handled the machine with considerable skill, for she had had
some practice on Jack's car.
"Think of it!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "Why, it's simply beyond
thoughts; it's--overwhelming!"
"A perfect dream," agreed Belle. "Aren't you the lucky girl,
though!"
"Guess I am," admitted Cora. "See, I can start it without
cranking"; and to prove it, when the engine was quiet, she threw
forward the spark lever, shifted the gasolene one a trifle, and the
motor began to throb and hum rapidly.
"Good!" cried Isabel.
"Paul told me about it," went on Cora. "The Paul, you know. He said
when a charge of gas is in one of the cylinders all you have to do
is to send a spark to the cylinder, and--"
"It didn't take you long to learn," complimented Bess, while Isabel
said:
"Paul--er--is he--"
"Yes, he is," admitted Cora with a laugh. "The youth of the
garage."
"Well, I don't remember a thing he said," confessed Elizabeth; "but
Paul--who could forget Paul? Didn't he have nice teeth?"
"And so polite," added Belle.
"Wasn't he just splendid?" concluded Cora. "And such a number of
things that he told me. But come on, get in," and she slowed down
the motor somewhat, while, removing a pair of buckskin gloves from
her long, tapering hands, she produced a small, dainty handkerchief
and rubbed a spot of black grease from her aristocratic nose.
"Got that when I was oiling the rear wheels," she explained.
The twins entered the tonneau, neither of them caring to risk riding
on the front seat just yet.
Cora speeded the motor up a bit, glanced behind to see that the
tonneau door was securely fastened, and then pulled the speed lever
and threw in the clutch. The car started forward as smoothly as if
Paul himself were at the wheel.
Elizabeth's hand flew to her hat, which tilted backward in the wind.
They had not yet secured their motor "togs," and regulation hats
were so difficult to manage.
"Oh, isn't this glorious!" cried Isabel.
"Every one is looking at us," announced Elizabeth.
"Now I wonder which road Jack and Walter took?" said Cora as she
swung the car around a curve in good style. "I heard Jack say he was
going for some fishing-tackle."
"Perhaps they went to Arden," ventured Isabel.
"Maybe. Well, we'll take a nice little spin down the turnpike,"
decided Cora as she threw in the high gear, the cogs grinding on
each other rather alarmingly.
"Gracious! What's that?" asked Elizabeth.
"Only the gears," replied Cora calmly. "I hope I didn't strip them,
but I might have done that changing a little better. I wasn't quite
quick enough."
The car was going rather fast now.
"Don't put on quite so much speed," begged Isabel. "I'm so--"
"Now please don't say you're nervous," interrupted Cora.
"But I am."
"Well, you needn't be. I know how to run the car."
"Of course, since Paul showed her," put in Elizabeth.
The speed was a trifle too fast for an inexperienced hand at the
wheel, but Cora grasped the wooden circlet firmly, and with a keen
look ahead prepared for the descent of a rather steep hill.
Coming up the grade were a number of autos, containing Chelton
folks, who had been to the depot with early city commuters. Chelton
was a great place for commuters and autos.
"Please don't put on any more speed, Cora," again begged Isabel,
leaning over toward the front seat. "This is such a steep hill."
"All right, I won't," and Cora placed her foot more firmly on the
brake pedal, while she was ready to grasp the emergency lever
quickly, in case anything happened.
"Oh, there's Ida!" suddenly cried Elizabeth as a small runabout
loomed up in front of them.
"And Sid Wilcox. I wonder what she finds interesting in that--that
lazy chap?"
"A companion--that's all," replied her sister. "I think Ida is
about as unenergetic a girl as I ever knew."
"Funny thing," said Cora, speaking loudly enough to be heard above
the noise of the motor, "how she manages to keep going. She rides as
often in Sid's car as if--well, as if she was his own sister."
"Oftener than most sisters," added Belle significantly.
"They have just left her friend, who was on from New City, at the
depot," said Bess. "It's quite handy to have a chum with a
motor-car--even if it does happen to be a chap like Sid."
"Well, I guess Ida's harmless, even if she is jealous," said Cora.
"I do believe that's all that ails Ida--just plain jealousy."
"Maybe," assented Isabel.
They rode along for some time, coasting down the steeper parts of
the hill, and running easily where there was a level stretch. They
were now approaching the worst part of the descent. From this point
there was quite a steep slant to the level highway, which the
railroad crossed at grade, and approached on a curve.
There was a long-drawn, shrill whistle.
"What's that?" exclaimed Elizabeth.
"The train!" cried Isabel. "Oh, the train! Cora, the train is
coming!"
"I hear it," spoke Cora calmly, but she pressed her foot down harder
on the brake pedal, and tried to use the compression of the
cylinders as a retarding force, as Paul had showed her.
"Can't you slow up?" pleaded Elizabeth. There was a note of alarm
in her voice.
"I'm--I'm trying to!" almost shouted Cora, as she exerted more
strength on the brake lever. "I've done all I know, now, but but we
don't seem to be stopping!"
She spoke the last words in a curiously quiet voice.
"Put on the brakes!" called Bess.
"They are on!" said Cora fiercely.
"Oh, Cora!" screamed Isabel. "I see the train! There at the foot
of the hill! We'll run into it! I'm going to jump! We can't stop!"
"Sit still!" commanded Cora energetically.
Elizabeth covered her face with her hands. She shrank back into her
seat. Her sister leaned up against her. Below could be heard the
puffing of the train. Then the engineer, seeing the auto rushing
down to destruction, blew shrieking whistles, as if that could help.
Cora was frantically pulling on the brake lever. Her face was now
white with fear, but even in the midst of this terror she felt a
curious calmness. It was just as if she were looking at some picture
of the scene. She thought she was miles and miles away. Her foot was
pressed down so hard on the brake pedal that it felt as if her shoe
would burst off.
But the car slid along, nearer and nearer the track, along which the
train was thundering--rushing to meet the auto-to annihilate it.
"Stop! Stop!" screamed Isabel. "Stop!" She rose in her seat.
"Sit down!" commanded Cora.
"But stop!" pleaded Isabel. "We'll all be killed! Stop! Oh, Cora,
stop!"
"I'm trying to!" was the grim reply. "But--I can't the brake--the
brake is jammed!"
The last words came out jerkily, for Cora was pulling on the brake
handle with all her force.
Nearer and nearer sounded the approaching train. The auto was
sliding down the hill with ever-increasing speed, but Cora never let
go her hold of the steering wheel.
Once more she tried to pull the brake lever. It would not come back
another notch. The engineer of the train was blowing more frantic
signals. He leaned from his cab window and motioned the auto back.
He even seemed to be shouting to them.
Cora braced both feet against the brake pedal.
She took a firmer grasp of the wheel. The seams of her new gloves
were starting from the strain. There was a desperate look on her
face.
"Oh, we'll be killed! We'll be killed!" screamed Isabel. "We can't
get across in time!"
She leaned over, and fell into her sister's arms, while Cora, with a
keen glance to either side, stiffened in her seat. There was a bare
chance of safety.
CHAPTER III
A SUDDEN ACQUAINTANCE
Despite the tense moment of anxiety, the almost certainty that the
auto would crash into the train, Cora's quick eye had seen something
that she hoped would enable her to avert the accident.
She knew that she could not stop the machine in time, by any means
at her command. There was but one other thing to do. That was to
steer to one side.
To the left there was a solid stone wall. To dash into that would
mean almost as horrible an accident as if she collided with the
train. To the right there was a field, but it was fenced in, and
between it and the road was a little miry, brook.
In some places the brook widened almost into a pond. The bottom was
treacherous, and to steer into it meant to sink down deeply into the
mud. To run into the fence might mean that one of the rails would
become entangled in the mechanism of the motor, tearing it all to
pieces. Or one of the long pieces of wood might even impale the
occupants of the car.
Cora's eyes swept down the length of the barrier with a flash.
There was just what she wanted! A gap in the fence!
She could go through that in safety. But suppose the machine was
brought to too sudden a stop in the mud? They would all be thrown
out and perhaps injured. But it was the only thing to do.
With a firm grasp of the wheel Cora sent the auto from the road.
Elizabeth screamed as she felt the swaying of the car. She had to
hold her sister from being tossed but, for Isabel was incapable of
taking care of herself.
Straight for the field rushed the car, the engineer of the train now
tooting his whistle as if in gladness at the narrow escape.
Splash!
The auto fairly dived into the brook, and gradually slackened speed.
Right toward a clump of willow trees it surged, throwing a spray of
water in advance. Then it became stationary in the middle of a spot
where the brook widened into a pond.
Cora was dimly conscious of a figure on the opposite bank of the
stream. A figure of a young man, with a fishing-pole in his hands.
She saw a spray of water, cast up by the auto, drench him. She even
heard him cry out, but at that moment she gave him not a thought.
Everything centered on her narrow escape, the condition of her two
chums, and, last, but not least, whether her new auto had been
damaged.
Cora leaned over the side and looked at the water flowing past the
mud guards.
"Safe!" she exclaimed. "I--I thought we were doomed, girls. Didn't
you?"
"Doomed?" echoed Elizabeth. "I never want to go through that
experience again."
"Me either," added Cora fervently. "Has Belle fainted?"
"I'm afraid so."
Cora leaned over, scooped some water up in her hand, and dashed it
into the white face of the girl. Isabel opened her eyes.
"Are we--are we--" she gasped.
"We're all right, you little goose," said Cora with a laugh, though
her voice trembled and her hands shook. "I guess it wasn't nearly as
dangerous as it looked."
"It was bad enough," spoke Elizabeth.
"Anyhow, the auto stopped," went on Cora. "Don't you see where we
are? In the middle of Campbell's Pond. And we won't have to swim
out, either. It's not very deep. But, Bess, you look like a sheet,
and Belle, you seem like--"
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