The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea Part 1

The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea.

by Janet Aldridge.

CHAPTER I

A DELIGHTFUL MYSTERY

"I think we are ready to start, girls." Miss Elting folded the road map that she had been studying and placed it in a pocket of her long dust coat. There was a half-smile on her face, a merry twinkle in her eyes.

"Which way do I drive?" questioned Jane McCarthy.

"Straight ahead out of the village," answered Miss Elting, the guardian of the party of young girls who were embarking on their summer's vacation under somewhat unusual circ.u.mstances.

"It's the first time I ever started for a place without knowing what the place was, or where I was going," declared Jane McCarthy, otherwise known as "Crazy Jane."

"Won't you pleathe tell uth where we are going?" lisped Grace Thompson.

Miss Elting shook her head, with decision.

"Do my father and mother know where we are going?" persisted Grace.

"Of course they know, Tommy. The parents of each of you know, and I know, and so shall you after you reach your destination. Have you everything in the car, Jane?"

"Everything but myself," nodded Jane. The latter's automobile, well loaded with camping equipment, stood awaiting its pa.s.sengers. The latter were Miss Elting, Jane McCarthy, Harriet Burrell, Grace Thompson, Hazel Holland and Margery Brown, the party being otherwise known as "The Meadow-Brook Girls." "Get in, girls. We'll shake the dust of Meadow-Brook from our tires before you can count twenty,"

continued Jane. "If Crazy Jane were to drive through the town slowly folks surely would think something startling had happened to her. Is there anything you wish to do before we leave, Miss Elting?"

"Not that I think of at the moment, Jane."

"Oh, let's say good-bye to our folks," suggested Margery Brown.

"I have thaid good-bye," answered Grace with finality.

"We'll give them a farewell blast," chuckled Jane. With that she climbed into the car, and, with a honk of the horn, drove down that street and into the next, keeping the horn going almost continually.

As they pa.s.sed the home of each girl the young women gave the yell of the Meadow-Brook Girls:

"Rah, rah, rah, Rah, rah, rah!

Meadow-Brook, Meadow-Brook, Sis, boom, ah!"

It was shouted in chorus at their homes, and as the car pa.s.sed the homes of their friends as well. Hands were waved from windows, hats were swung in the air by boy friends, while the older people smiled indulgently and nodded to them as the rapidly moving motor car pa.s.sed through the village.

"I think the town knows all about it now. Suppose we make a start?"

suggested Miss Elting.

"We haven't therenaded the pothtmathter yet," Tommy reminded her.

"Nor the butcher, the baker and the candle-stick maker," answered Harriet Burrell laughingly. "How long a drive have we, Miss Elting?"

"Four or five hours, ordinarily. Jane undoubtedly will make it in much less time, if she drives at her usual rate of speed. Straight south, Jane. I will tell you when to change."

The faces of the girls wore a puzzled expression. They could not imagine where they were going. Miss Elting had made a mystery of this summer vacation, and not a word had the girls been able to obtain from her as to 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, p.r.i.c.king 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 isingla.s.s, was next set in place to protect the driver from the front, the wind s.h.i.+eld 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 pa.s.sed. 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 gra.s.s 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."