The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea | Page 2

where they were to go: whether to tour the country in Crazy Jane's automobile, or to go into camp. Tommy declared that it was a perfectly delightful mythtery, and that she didn't care where they were going, while Margery on the contrary, grumbled incessantly.
The start had been made late in the afternoon. The day had been cloudy. There were even indications of rain, but the girls did not care. They were too well inured to the weather to be disturbed by lowering skies and threatening clouds. In the meantime Jane McCarthy was bowling along to the southward, throwing up a cloud of dust, having many narrow escapes from collisions with farmers' wagons and wandering stock. They had been traveling about two hours when the guardian directed their daring driver to turn to the left. The latter did so, thus heading the car to the eastward.
"I think I begin to understand," thought Harriet Burrell aloud.
"What ith it that you underthtand?" demanded Tommy, pricking up her ears. "You know where we are going, don't you?"
"I can make a close guess," replied Harriet, nodding brightly.
"Oh, tell uth, tell uth," begged Tommy.
Harriet shook her head.
"I couldn't think of it. Miss Elting wishes it to be a surprise to you."
"Well, won't it be jutht ath much of a thurprithe now ath it will be thome other time?" argued Grace Thompson.
"Perhaps Harriet just imagines she knows. I do not believe she knows any more about our destination than do the rest of our party," said the guardian. "But why worry about it? You will know when you get there."
Jane stopped the car, and, getting out, proceeded to put the curtains up on one side, Harriet and Hazel doing the same on the opposite side. The storm curtain, with its square of transparent isinglass, was next set in place to protect the driver from the front, the wind shield first having been turned down out of the way.
"Now let the rain come," chuckled Jane, after having taken a quick survey of their work.
"Yes; it is nice and cosy in here," answered Miss Elting. "I almost believe I should like to sleep in here during a rainstorm."
"Excuthe me," objected Tommy. "I'd be thure to get crampth in my neck."
"She would that," answered Jane laughingly, starting the car and a moment later throwing in the high-speed clutch.
The party was not more than fairly started on the way again when the raindrops began pattering on the leather top of the car.
"There it comes," cried Jane McCarthy. "Sounds like rain on a tin roof, doesn't it?"
The downpour rapidly grew heavier, accompanied by lightning and thunder. The flashes were blinding, dazzling Jane's eyes so that she had difficulty in keeping her car in the road. It was now nearly evening, and an early darkness had already settled over the landscape. There was little hope of more light, for night would be upon them by the time the storm had passed. True, there would be a moon behind the clouds, but the latter bade fair to be wholly obscured during the evening.
Despite the blinding storm that masked the road, and the sharp flashes of lightning that dazzled the eyes of the driver, Crazy Jane McCarthy went on driving ahead at the same rate of speed until Miss Elting begged her to go more slowly. Jane reduced the speed of the car, though so slightly as to be scarcely noticeable.
The guardian smiled but made no further comment. Being shut in as they were, they would have difficulty in getting out were an accident to befall them. All at once, however, Jane slowed down with a jolt. She then sent the car cautiously ahead, this time driving out on a level grass plot at the side of the road. There she shut down, turned off the power, and, leaning back, yawned audibly.
"Whoa!" she said wearily.
"Why, Jane, what is the matter?" cried Miss Elting.
"Like a sailboat, we can't make much headway without wind. As it happens, we have no wind on the quarter, as the sailors would say."
"I don't understand."
"She means the tires are down," explained Harriet Burrell.
"Yes. I told Dad those rear tires were leaking, but he declared they were good for five hundred miles yet."
"Can't we patch them?" queried Harriet.
"We can," replied Jane, "but we aren't going to until this rain lets up a little. Please don't ask me to get out and paddle about in the wet, for I'm not going to do anything of the sort." Jane began to hum a tune. Her companions settled back comfortably. It was dry and cosy in the car and the travellers felt drowsy. Jane was the only really wide-awake one. Margery finally uttered a single, loud snore that awakened the others. The girls uttered a shout and began shaking Margery, who pulled herself sharply together,