Ruth Fielding Down East | Page 8

She made a little face at him. "I am going to be old-maid aunt to your
many children, Tommy-boy. I am sure you will have a full quiver. We
will have to look for a chaperon."
"Aunt Kate!" exclaimed Ruth. "Heavy's Aunt Kate. She is just what
Helen declares she wants to be--an old-maid aunt."
"And a lovely lady," cried Helen.
"Sure. Ask her. Beg her," agreed Tom. "Tell her it is the crying need.
We have positively got to have some fun."
"Well, I suppose we may as well," Ruth sighed, in agreement.
"Yes. We have always pampered the boy," declared Helen, her eyes
twinkling. "I know just what I'll wear, Ruthie."
"Oh, we've clothes enough," admitted the girl of the Red Mill rather
listlessly.
"Shucks!" said Tom again. "Never mind the fashions. Get that letter
written, Sis."
So it was agreed. Helen wrote, the letter was sent. With Jennie Stone's
usual impulsiveness she accepted for herself and "mon Henri" and Aunt
Kate, promising to be at Cheslow within three days, and all within the
limits of a ten-word telegram!
CHAPTER V
OFF AT LAST
"The ancients," stated Jennie Stone solemnly, "burned incense upon
any and all occasions--red letter days, labor days, celebrating Columbus
Day and the morning after, I presume. But we moderns burn gasoline.

And, phew! I believe I should prefer the stale smoke of incense in the
unventilated pyramids of Egypt to this odor of gas. O-o-o-o, Tommy,
do let us get started!"
"You've started already--in your usual way," he laughed.
This was at Cheslow Station on the arrival of the afternoon up train that
had brought Miss Stone, her Aunt Kate, and the smiling Colonel Henri
Marchand to join the automobile touring party which Jennie soon
dubbed "the later Pilgrims."
"And that big machine looks much as the Mayflower must have looked
steering across Cape Cod Bay on that special occasion we read of in
sacred and profane history, hung about with four-poster beds and
whatnots. In our neighborhood," the plump girl added, "there is enough
decrepit furniture declared to have been brought over on the Mayflower
to have made a cargo for the Leviathan."
"Oh, ma chere! you do but stretch the point, eh?" demanded the
handsome Henri Marchand, amazed.
"I assure you----"
"Don't, Heavy," advised Helen. "You will only go farther and do worse.
In my mind there has always been a suspicion that the Mayflower was
sent over here by some shipped knocked-down furniture factory. Miles
Standish and Priscilla Mullins and John Alden must have hung on by
their eyebrows."
"Their eyebrows--ma foi!" gasped Marchand.
"Say, old man," said Tom, laughing, "if you listen to these crazy
college girls you will have a fine idea of our historical monuments, and
so forth. Take everything with a grain of salt--do."
"Oui, Monsieur! But I must have a little pepper, too. I am 'strong,' as
you Americans say, for plentiful seasoning."

"Isn't he cute?" demanded Jenny Stone. "He takes to American slang
like a bird to the air."
"Poetry barred!" declared Helen.
"Say," Tom remarked aside to the colonel, "you've got all the pep
necessary, sure enough, in Jennie."
"She is one dear!" sighed the Frenchman.
"And she just said you were a bird. You'll have a regular zoo about you
yet. Come on. Let's see if we can get this baggage aboard the good ship.
It does look a good deal of an ark, doesn't it?"
Although Ruth and Aunt Kate had not joined in this repartee, the girl of
the Red Mill, as well as their lovely chaperon, enjoyed the fun
immensely. Ruth had revived in spirits on meeting her friends. Jennie
had flown to her arms at the first greeting, and hugged the girl of the
Red Mill with due regard to the mending shoulder.
"My dear! My dear!" she had cried. "I dream of you lying all so pale
and bloody under that window-sill stone. And what I hear of your and
Tom's experiences coming over----"
"But worse has happened to me since I arrived home," Ruth said
woefully.
"No? Impossible!"
"Yes. I have had an irreparable loss," sighed Ruth. "I'll tell you about it
later."
But for the most part the greetings of the two parties was made up as
Tom said of "Ohs and Ahs."
"Take it from me," the naughty Tom declared to Marchand, "two girls
separated for over-night can find more to tell each other about the next
morning than we could think of if we should meet at the Resurrection!"

The two Cameron cars stood in the station yard, and as the other
waiting cars, taxicabs and "flivvers" departed, "the sacred odor of
gasoline," which Jennie had remarked upon, was soon dissipated.
The big touring car was expertly packed with baggage, and had a big
hamper on either