The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas | Page 5

her little friend.
"Your feelings are hurt? Well, dear, if that is all, you are a lucky girl," smiled Miss Elting. "Did the automobile hit you?"
"Yeth."
At this juncture, Margery made her appearance in a wholly unexpected manner. Margery in climbing the fence had caught her skirt on a nail. She plunged headlong down the bank into the ditch, almost falling on Grace.
"Oh, oh!" groaned Margery.
Hazel, laughing almost hysterically in her joy at finding Grace alive, quickly assisted Margery to her feet, wiping the dirt from Buster's flushed face.
"She isn't hurt at all," laughed Margery, fixing a glance of inquiry on Tommy's face.
"Tommy says her feelings are hurt," Miss Elting informed Buster.
"Then I am worse off than she. Because I tore my skirt and hurt my arm, too. Catch me running on another wild goose chase like this one. I don't believe the car hit you at all, Tommy Thompson."
"Yeth it did," protested Tommy. "Of courthe it did. I gueth I know. I felt it."
"Stand up," commanded Miss Elting, placing both hands under the arms of the girl and assisting her to her feet. "There! Now see if you can walk. Of course you can," comforted the teacher. "The car never touched you. You must have leaped out of the way just in time. Come, I will help you into the road, then we will take you home. But where is Harriett? I heard she was out here with you girls."
"I should not be here had not Tommy and Hazel dragged me out," declared Margery. "Violent exercise is not good for one during the hot weather."
"It'th very good for you, Buthter," remarked Tommy wisely. "It ithn't good for a growing girl to be thtout, tho I've heard."
"Don't worry. You will never suffer from being too stout," retorted Margery. "You can't keep still long enough."
"Mith Elting, I've been thitting here in the ditch for ever and ever tho long and not thaying a word, and Buthter thayth I can't keep thtill."
"Why don't you girls stop squabbling and answer Miss Elting's question?" demanded Hazel. "Harriet is at home, Miss Elting."
"Yeth, Harriet ith wathing ditheth for her mother," said Tommy. "I'd like to thee anybody make me wath ditheth if I didn't want to."
"That isn't a nice thing to say, Grace," rebuked the teacher. "Of course Harriet is a great help to her mother, as every girl should be. Suppose, Grace, that your mother could not afford to hire a servant to do these things for her? In that case I am positive you would do whatever you could to assist your mother. I believe you would make a fine little housekeeper."
Grace shook her head with emphasis.
"No? Then what would you do if your mother insisted upon your washing dishes?"
"I'd drop the ditheth. Maybe they wouldn't want me to wath any more ditheth after that," replied Tommy, screwing up her face so impishly that Miss Elting laughed aloud.
"Is it any wonder that Grace and myself quarrel awfully at times, Miss Elting?" asked Margery.
"They don't mean anything by it," apologized Hazel.
"Thay, what did you come up here for, Mith Elting?" questioned Tommy, directing a glance of suspicious inquiry at the teacher. "Do you want uth to go for another nithe little walk? No, thank you. I've walked with you before. Thank you very kindly. My feet are too thore and Buthter ith too tired. Harriet'th brother thayth that Buthter wath born with that tired feeling. I geth he'th right. Don't you think tho, Miss Elting? Thit down and retht, and I'll tell your fortune with a daithy."
"If you are rested sufficiently I think we had better move on. Don't worry, Grace. I am not going to drag you away on one of those long walks. But I have something to tell you."
"I knew it," piped Tommy. "Look out! There cometh another automobile." Tommy shied from her position in the road like a skittish horse.
Just then the car that had caused all the trouble came honking toward them and slowed down with a series of explosions that sounded like the discharges of a Gatling gun. The young woman who was driving the car, brought it to a stop, leaped out and running to Grace threw her arms about the slender girl in white.
"Oh, my darlin', my darlin'. My blessed little Tommy. Did I kill you altogether? And I wasn't going a little bit, was I? But didn't I come near to ripping the cowcatcher from that engine? Wasn't it just glorious the way I dodged the old thing? I knew all the time it was going to be a close shave, but I made up my mind I'd beat 'em out even if I took off the hind wheels of my car. Get in, you dears. I'll drive you home."
"What! Ride with you?" questioned Margery. "Not for