The Motor Girls at Lookout Beach: or, In Quest of the Runaways

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 class. 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.

“Would ye mind that now!” exclaimed Patrick, admiringly. “It’s as – as slick as a pig’s whistle, miss, savin’ yer presence.”

Bess laughed merrily.

“I’m glad to see that some one besides myself uses a bit of – I mean an expression that means something – once in a while, Patrick,” she said, as she threw in the clutch, after adjusting the lever to low speed.

“Yis, miss,” answered the man, as he looked with admiration at the trim and pretty figure in the little car. “Now I wonder what did she mane?” he asked himself, when Bess was out on the road. “Sure them is two great gurls – Miss Isabel and Miss Elizabeth – great gurls!” and Patrick went to curry the horses kept by Mr. Robinson, this being work that the genial and faithful Irishman understood perfectly well.

Isabel, meanwhile, continued to sun her splendid hair over the railing of the side porch, in spite of the almost constant danger that it might become entangled in the honeysuckle vine, or be mistaken by a wandering bee or humming bird for some nest or hive in which to nestle.

Isabel was always the “dreamer.” She had “nerves,” and she loved everything aesthetic. Bess, on the contrary, was always “on the spot,” as her boy friends declared, and, while she might be a trifle over-enthusiastic at times, there was this consolation, that she was never glum, as her personal supply of good-nature never seemed to be lacking. Not that Isabel was moody, save at such times when she was alone, and thought of many things – for, in company, she entered into the fun with a zest equal to almost anyone’s save her more volatile sister. So the Robinson twins were an interesting study – so different in disposition – so unlike in taste – but so well matched on two points – their love for motoring and a good time during vacation, and their love for their chum and companion, Cora Kimball.

While her sister was lazily dreaming away amid the honeysuckle vines, letting the gentle breeze riffle through, and dry her hair, Bess was skimming along the fine Chelton roads, her mind intent on the good times in prospect when she, with her mother and sister, were to go to a cottage at Lookout Beach.

“Oh, I just know it will be perfectly bang-up!” exclaimed Bess, half aloud, and smiling at the chance to use words that meant something, without shocking Belle. “We will have no end of good times. My! It makes me want to go fast to think about it,” and, suiting the action to the word, she pressed her foot on the accelerator pedal, and the car shot forward, while the hand on the dial of the speedometer trembled around the twenty-five miles an hour mark.

“I don’t care!” thought Bess, as she kept her foot on the pedal. “I’m going to speed for once. Belle never will let me.”

As she suddenly swung around a turn in the road she was made aware of how fast the pace was, for the car skidded a bit dangerously, and, a moment later, without a warning blast of the horn, another auto, moving in the opposite direction, shot into view.

By a quick twist of the steering wheel, nearly sending the car into the ditch at the roadside, Bess avoided a collision.

“Why didn’t you blow your horn?” she shot indignantly at the occupant of the car – a young man, who had also turned out quickly.

“Why didn’t you blow your own?” he wanted to know, and then he smiled, for he, too, had slowed down. “I guess it’s horse and horse,” he added, good-naturedly, if slangily. “I was thinking of something else.”

“So was I,” admitted Bess with a half smile, and then, having slowed down too much to allow going ahead on high speed, she had to throw out the clutch just as she was about to proceed, and change back to low gear. Quickly she threw into second, as a preliminary to third, but she was not quick enough. The motor stalled, and the car came to a stop, amid a grinding of the gears.

“Can I help you?” asked the young man, jamming on his emergency brake.

“No, thank you,” answered Bess coolly and quickly. “I can manage,” and, before he could reach her car, for he had alighted from his own, she had gotten out, cranked up, and was in her seat again. Then she hurried off down the road, leaving a rather crestfallen young chap standing in the dusty highway.

“Remarkably pretty girl – that,” he said, aloud. “I wish I could have helped her. But she was cool, all of a sudden. Maybe she didn’t like my slang – I wish I could break myself of using it – hang the luck – there I go again,” and, with a shake of his head he went back to his car.

“Adventure number one,” mused Bess, as she swung along, not so fast this time. “I wonder what will come next? I guess I am getting a little too high-spirited. I must calm down. But I can’t, when I think of Lookout Beach.”

She had not gone a hundred rods farther when a flock of chickens crossed the road, just ahead of the machine.

“Shoo!” cried Bess. “Shoo! Scat! Get out!” and she blew the horn vigorously. “I wonder why someone doesn’t invent a horn or something to scare dogs and chickens?” she went on, as the fowls showed little disposition to do more than run, fluttering and squawking, right ahead of the car. Then they darted to one side – all but one unfortunate, and the big rubber tires passed over one leg, crippling it.

“Hi, you! Stop!” commanded a woman’s harsh voice, and Bess, who was running slowly now, saw an unlovely personage rushing from the yard of a dilapidated house, toward the machine. “I’ve got your license number,” went on the woman, “and I’ll make a complaint if you don’t pay for my chicken. You automobile folks is allers running over ‘em, and cripplin’ ’em so they ain’t fit fer nothing.”

“This is the first time I ever ran over anything,” retorted Bess indignantly. “I guess I know how to drive a car!”

“Well, it won’t be the last time you run over somethin’ if you scoot along like I seen you just now,” went on the owner of the limping fowl. “I want pay for my chicken, or I’ll have th’ law on ye,” and she planted herself determinedly in front of the now stationary car.

“Very well,” answered Bess, not wishing to argue with such a character. “Here is fifty cents. The chicken is a small one, and that’s all it’s worth. Besides it is hardly hurt at all.”

“It’s wuth seventy-five cents, ef it ain’t a dollar!” stormed the woman, as she accepted the coin that the girl handed her. “I’ve a good notion to – ”

But her further words were lost, for Bess turned on the power, threw in the clutch, shifted the gear lever, and was off down the road.

“Adventure number two,” she remarked grimly. “I hope it isn’t three times and out. Patrick’s clover works by opposite, I guess,” but she drove along, her high spirits not a whit repressed by what had happened.

For Bess was not a girl easily daunted, as those of you who have read the previous volumes of this series know. She was almost the equal of her chum, Cora Kimball, was Bess Robinson. In my first book, entitled “The Motor Girls,” Cora Kimball, the tall, handsome, dark-haired daughter of Mrs. Grace Kimball, and, likewise, the well-beloved sister of Jack Kimball, had first secured her auto. It was a four cylinder, touring machine, capable of good speed, and the color was Cora’s special choosing – a handsome maroon. The story dealt with a mystery of the road, and told how Cora successfully solved it, in spite of the efforts of Ida Giles and Sid Wilcox to make trouble. As her guests Cora had, on many runs of her car, the Robinson twins, Walter Pennington, Jack’s college chum, and Ed Foster. The latter was one of the chief figures in the road mystery, for one day he suddenly missed his wallet, containing money and negotiable securities to the amount of twenty thousand dollars. A little later the pocketbook, with the money missing, was found in the tool box of Cora’s car.

Then there followed a “whirlwind” of excitement, which did not end until those responsible for the taking of the money had been discovered and the cash and papers returned. Among other troubles Cora and her friends had to contend with the meanness of Sid Wilcox and the jealousy of Ida Giles.

In the second volume of the series, called “The Motor Girls on a Tour; or, Keeping a Strange Promise,” there was related how Cora and her friends were instrumental, after making a strange promise, in restoring to a little cripple a long-lost table, containing a will. How the hunt for the strange piece of furniture, with a secret drawer, was made, while the girls were on a tour, how the Robinson twins managed their car, which they had secured in the meanwhile, and how Jack Kimball also succeeded in getting a runabout – all this is set down in the book. Paul Hastings, a young chauffeur, and his pretty sister Hazel, also had their parts to play, and well they did.

Now it was coming on summer again, and, after much planning and discussing, the Robinson twins and their mother had decided on a seashore cottage. They hoped that Cora Kimball could be induced to go with them, and, if Cora did go, why, of course, it meant that Jack would come down, occasionally, or, perhaps, oftener. And Ed and Walter might also happen to drop in – which would be very pleasant.

“Oh, it’s just glorious,” thought Bess, as she continued to skim along. “I hope the season will be miles long and years old. We will have a gay time.”

Bess turned the Flyaway into the gravel road that wound up to the handsome and stately Kimball homestead. A toot of the horn brought Cora out of doors quickly, while Bess jammed on the brake and threw out the clutch, and then, as the car came to a squeaking standstill, she shoved over the spark and gasolene levers, with a ripping sound along the ratchets, and turned off the sparking device.

“Come on in and cool off,” invited Cora. “It’s very warm. Summer has almost arrived. I’m delighted to see you, Bess.”

“And I you. Indeed I am coming in. Such news – you’ll never guess in your whole life, Cora.”

“You’re going to get a new machine!”

“No, not yet, though I think we will next season. Papa is sort of softening toward a six cylinder. No, but it’s almost as good as that.”

“What is it, dear?” and Cora placed her arm around the waist of Bess, as they mounted the broad steps.

“Cora Kimball, we’re going to take a cottage at Lookout Beach! Such a delightful place – and Cora dear,” she panted on, “can you come? Will you come?”

“Shall I come? Should I come,” went on Cora, teasingly. “Why, my dear,” she went on, “do sit down, and catch your breath before it escapes further. The boys are around here somewhere, and they are always on the still hunt for – ”

“Cora Kimball! I’m not one bit out of breath,” panted Bess, “but I am just dying to tell you – ”

“Oh, that is it! Well, let me make you comfortable so that the death – ” She stopped, and swung back a porch chair for Bess. The latter threw aside her motor bonnet and “ripped off” her gloves.

“No, but seriously, Cora,” Bess said. “Will you go with us? We have taken a cottage, and we are, of course, going to take our car, and we do so want to take you!”

“You dear!” exclaimed Cora. “I haven’t planned for summer yet, but I do think mother is going abroad, and I honestly feared I would have to tag along. I just hate to think of Europe, so maybe I could induce mother to let me go with you. She has such confidence in Mrs. Perry Robinson.”

“Mother would take all sorts of care of you. I can assure you and your mother of that,” declared Bess. “And we have almost decided, without ever asking you, that you shall come along. What fun would we have motoring without you?”

“Without me, or without Jack?” teased Cora. “Well, never mind, Bess, perhaps we can take turns. I am sure I would rather go to Lookout Beach and camp than to go to Europe and tramp – there I have made a rhyme, and will see my beau before nine. Pray, Bess, come indoors with me while I complexion. I have been motoring all morning, in this stiff breeze, and I feel as if my face will crack if I don’t hurry to cream it. And then, that I am to see my beau – ”

The splendid color in Cora’s cheeks belied her words. Nevertheless the girls went indoors, and, while Cora removed a surprising amount of grit on each piece of cotton she daubed her cheeks with, Bess had a better chance to talk over the plans for the summer at the seaside.

Following her cream-wash Cora turned on her face the tiny spray of tepid water from her own little silver faucet in the corner, and then “feeling clean,” as she expressed it, she just touched her cheeks and nose with another piece of cotton “to pat off the shine.”

“You know I have to go out again this afternoon, and I do find that it pays to keep in order. I suppose Belle would think this sort of fixing up not half thorough enough?”

“Oh, she takes a regular Turkish when she has been out in a dusty wind,” declared Bess. “But, for my part, I prefer a thick veil, in front of a cream setting. Then I catch all the dirt in the cream and only have to wash it off instead of – ”

“Washing it on. A good idea, Bess. But I can’t breathe back of cream. It makes my lungs sticky,” and Cora put a last touch to her heavy dark hair, just as her brother’s voice was heard in the lower hallway.

“There’s Jack!” exclaimed both girls at once.

“Let’s tell him,” suggested Bess, who was not always able to conceal her interest in Cora’s handsome brother.

“Oh, no, don’t,” whispered Cora, as Jack was almost at the door of the sitting room. “It will be a joke to plan it all out, and surprise the boys!”

But Jack was actually tumbling into the room before he saw Bess. He, too, was evidently “too full of good news to keep!”

“Oh, sis!” he yelled, still unconscious of the presence of Bess, “take my hand and squeeze it, or I shall ‘bust.’ It’s too good to be true, and too good not to be true. We are going – ”

Then his eye fell upon Cora’s visitor. Instantly and in a boy’s inimitable way he “pulled himself together” and finished: “We are going down to the post-office this evening!”

“Oh, is that all you were going to say?” asked Bess, in some disappointment, for it was evident that Jack had some news.

“Well, not quite all,” he replied with an air of mystery, “only I happened to hear certain peculiar whispers and admonitions as I was coming in, and I guess girls aren’t the only ones who can keep a secret. I’ll tell if you’ll tell,” he added.

“We’ve nothing to tell; have we, Cora?” and Bess looked as innocent as possible.

“How could you ever imagine such a thing, Jack?” inquired his sister.

“Well, that’s neither here nor there, then,” was the young man’s cool answer. “But if you’re going after the stuff to make jam tarts with this winter, Cora, you’d better start,” and at this somewhat enigmatical remark, Jack began whistling a tantalizing air, while Bess winked at her chum.

CHAPTER II – AT THE STRAWBERRY PATCH

“Yes, I promised mother I would go for a crate of strawberries,” Cora said, by way of explanation. “Would you like to come along, Bess? It is a lovely ride to the berry patch.”

“Then, I think I will run back for Belle, and we, too, may fetch home a crate. Mother will be delighted to get them fresh from the pickers.”

“Suppose we meet in an hour at Smith’s Crossing?” suggested Cora. “I have some little things to attend to, and that will just about give you time to get Belle, and her belongings.”

This was agreed upon, and the girls parted for the short time. Jack insisted upon keeping his wonderful good news secret, for, try as he did, he could not coax Cora to divulge the news which he knew Bess must have brought.

“I could see it in her cheeks,” Jack insisted, “and I can almost read that signal code you two have arranged.”

“Well, when it is all settled I may – tell you,” replied his sister. “But you boys imagine that girls cannot keep anything to themselves – ”

“Wrong there, sis,” he answered, picking up his cap. “We all know perfectly well that you all can keep to yourselves exactly what we want to know,” and in leaving the room he tossed a sofa cushion at Cora’s head, hitting her squarely, and knocking her hair awry. She retaliated, however, with a floor cushion over the banister, which Jack failed to dodge.

At the appointed time, three o’clock, on a lovely June afternoon, Cora and Bess met as arranged with their autos at the cross-roads, Belle dainty as ever in her flimsy veils and airy silk coat, Bess, with her hand on the wheel, her eyes on the road ahead, and her jolly self done up simply in pongee, while Cora, correct as ever, and equally distinctive in her true green auto hood, and cloak that matched, made up a very attractive trio of auto maids.

“It’s only six miles out,” called Cora, “and this road runs straight into Squaton. They have quite a big strawberry farm out there.”

“Yes,” called back Bess, turning on more gasolene and throwing in third speed, “mother was just delighted when I told her we were going there for berries.”

Over the smooth, shaded road the cars sped, the Whirlwind, Cora’s machine, exactly attuned to the hum of the Flyaway, the car occupied by the twins. Just as two clocks, placed side by side, will soon tick in harmony, so two good engines may match each other in the hum of speed.

“I can smell the berries,” exclaimed Belle, as they neared a group of tall elms.

“We are almost there,” remarked Cora, “and I think I, too, smell something good.”

Under the trees by the roadside they espied some boys eating from a pail of berries.

“There,” said Bess, “that was what you scented. Those youngsters have been picking, I suppose, and that is their own personal allowance.”

“Berries! Five cents a quart!” called out one of the urchins, who at the same time stepped out into the road close to the slackened autos.

“Not to-day,” replied Cora, as she passed on, followed by the Flyaway.

“Wouldn’t you think they would want to take those home,” said Bess. “I should think they would be satisfied with their earnings at the patch.”

“Maybe they have not been picking – except for their own use,” responded Cora. “But here we are. Get out now, and we will walk over to the shanty where they crate the fruit.”

“What an ocean of green!” exclaimed Belle, the aesthetic one, looking over the strawberry patch.

“An ocean of dust, I think,” said Bess, as from the afternoon sun and breeze the grind of the picker’s feet in the dusty rows between the countless lines of green vines just reached her eyes.

“There are plenty of them,” remarked Cora, wending her way along the narrow path, toward the shanty.

“And so many people picking,” added Belle. “Just look at those boys! They are as brown as – their clothes. And see that poor old woman!”

“Yes, her back must ache,” replied Cora. “What a shame for her to be out in this sun.”

“She looks as if she could never bend again if she should straighten up,” said Bess. “See how she stares at us from under her own arms.”

This peculiar remark caused the other girls to smile, but Bess meant exactly what she said – that the old woman was looking up from an angle lower than her elbows.

Just then the autoists faced two of the pickers – two girls.

Both stopped their work and looked up almost insolently. Then they spoke under their breath to each other and “tittered” audibly.

“They’re rude,” said Belle to Bess, picking her skirts as she stepped by.

“Oh, that’s just their way,” exclaimed Cora. “I am going to speak to them.”

So saying she turned in between the rows.

“Is it hard work?” she asked pleasantly.

“No cinch,” replied the older-looking of the girls, with a toss of a very good head of auburn hair.

“Have you been out long?” persisted Cora.

“Oh, we’re always out,” said the younger girl with a sneer. Her voice said plainly that she had “no use” for talking with the motor girls.

“Do you work all day?” asked Bess, a little timidly. Bess was always ready to admit that she could talk to boys, but that she was afraid of strange girls.

“All day, and all night,” replied the younger girl. She had hair just a tint lighter than the other, and it was evident that the pair were sisters.

“But you cannot see to work at night,” Belle deigned to say.

“We have lamps – indoors,” said the girl, “and Aunt Delia keeps boarders.”

“Oh, you help with the housework too?” said Cora. “I should think – ” then she checked herself. Why should she say what she thought – just then?

Perhaps it was the unmistakable kindness shown so plainly in the manner of the motor girls, that convinced the two little berry-pickers that the visitors would be friends – if they might. At any rate, both girls dropped the vines they were overhauling, and stood straight up, with evident stiffness of their young muscles.

“But we are not going to do this all our lives,” declared the older girl. “Aunt Delia has made enough out of us.”

“Have you no parents?” ventured Cora.

“No, we’re orphans,” replied the girl, and, as she spoke the word “orphans,” the ring of sadness touched the hearts of the older girls. Cora instantly decided to know more about the girls. Their youthful faces were already serious with cares, and they each assumed that aggressive manner peculiar to those who have been oppressed. They seemed, as they looked up, and squarely faced Cora, like girls capable of better work than that in which they were engaged, and they gave the impression of belonging to the distinctive middle class – those “who have not had a chance.”

“Can’t you come over in the shade and rest awhile?” asked Cora. “You must have picked almost enough for to-day.”

“Oh, to-day won’t count, anyway,” said the younger girl, with hidden meaning.

“Nellie!” called her sister, in angry tones. “What are you talking about!”

“Well, I’m not afraid to tell,” she replied.

“You had better be,” snapped the other.

“Oh, Rose, you’re a coward,” and Nellie laughed, as she kicked aside the vines. “I’m not going to work another minute, and you can go and tell Aunt Delia Ramsy if you’ve a mind to.”

At that moment a figure emerged from the shed at the end of the long line of green rows.

“There she is now, Nellie,” said Rose. “You can tell her yourself if you like.”

Without another word the girls both again began the task so lately left off, and berry after berry fell into the little baskets. Rose had almost filled her tray, and Nellie had hers about half full of the quart boxes.

“Rose!” called the woman’s shrill voice, from under the big blue sunbonnet. “Come up here and count these tally sticks. Some of those kids are snibbying.”

With a sigh Rose picked up her tray, and made her way through the narrow paths. Cora saw that the woman had noticed her talking to Bess and Belle, and while wishing for a chance to talk to Nellie alone, she beckoned to her companions to go along up to the shed.

“Maybe I’ll see you soon again,” almost whispered Nellie, in the way which so plainly betrays the hope of youth.

“I am sure you will,” replied Cora, smiling reassuringly.

“What strange girls,” remarked Belle.

“Aren’t they?” added Bess, turning back to get another look at little Nellie in her big-brimmed hat.

“They are surely going to do something desperate,” declared Cora, “and I think now that we have found them, as the boys would say, ‘it is up to us’ to keep track of them.”