The Corner House Girls on a Tour

“Come!” exclaimed Ruth suddenly, “let us drive on to this gentleman’s house.”

“Where is it?” asked Neale, getting in behind the steering wheel again.

“You can see our kitchen lamp twinkling in the window yonder,” said the blacksmith, stepping upon the running-board as Neale started the car.

They jolted down the rough road, and quickly came to the house in question. As far as they could see, it was rather a large country house with a terraced lawn before it and a driveway running up beside the dwelling to the rear premises.

“Drive her right up to the door, young man,” advised the blacksmith.

“Room to turn around up there?” asked Neale, the careful.

“Plenty,” agreed the man. “Don’t have no fear about that.”

Neale immediately turned the car up the little incline and the blacksmith leaped to the ground as it stopped.

“Now,” he said jovially, “one of you young misses just go up there on the porch and tell mother how you’re fixed. You can git out, ma’am, I’m sure,” he added, to Mrs. Heard, as Ruth jumped from the car. “Get out your baggage too – this here little shaver can help at that,” and he rumpled Sammy’s hair with his big hand.

“But – but – Do you mean we can stay here?” gasped Mrs. Heard.

Ruth had scarcely reached the door when it was opened from within. A comfortable figure of a woman, with spectacles and gray hair, faced the oldest Corner House girl.

“Well, well!” said “Mother,” in just the hearty tone of voice a mother should possess. “An automobile party? Well, well! how many of you air there, my dear?”

“But, my goodness me!” gasped Ruth. “You’re not going to take us in ‘sight unseen,’ in this way, are you?”

The woman laughed. “Why not?” she asked. “If you are going to do anything for anybody, it ain’t perlite to hem and haw about it, I’m sure. Leastways, that’s the way I was brought up, my dear. And there’s little children with you, too! Of course you shall stay.”

Ruth and the others were speechless. Such hospitality – and evidently this was not a house of public entertainment – was quite unexpected.

“That you, Buckley?” she called to her husband. “You see to putting up the car. How many did you say there was? I want to know how much ham to slice,” and she chuckled unctuously again.

“There’s seven of ’em, Mother,” called the blacksmith’s mellow voice from the dark, “and a dog. B’sides, mebbe you’d better take notice that two of ’em’s boys, and like enough they’ve got their appetites with ’em,” and he broke into another mellow guffaw.

“Well,” Agnes later whispered to Ruth, “this is certainly the unexpected end of a perfect day! Goodness! what should we have done if these good people hadn’t taken us in? The blacksmith says they are rebuilding the bridge over Mason’s Creek and we couldn’t have got across.”

“Oh!”

“And that would have made us go around so far that the run to Tailtown would have been nearer sixty miles than forty-five.”

They were all glad; and such a supper of ham and eggs as they ate! The accommodations the blacksmith’s wife put at the party’s disposal were ample too.

“Just the same,” yawned Neale, before retiring, “this has sure been an empty day. There hasn’t been much doing.”

“Well, what do you expect to happen in these perfectly civilized places?” responded Agnes.

“And we have surely had enough excitement to last us for a while – the children getting lost, and all,” Ruth said.

“And you hunted for that car of Mr. Collinger’s,” said Agnes, slyly. “That was exciting, I’m sure.”

“Oh – ouch!” yawned Neale. “Don’t knock, Aggie. We may find that car – and Saleratus Joe – yet.”

“Your desire for low company shocks me, Neale,” giggled Agnes. “Saleratus Joe, indeed!”

“Don’t say a word,” the boy retorted. “You and Ruth met the gentleman first – don’t forget that,” and they separated for the night with laughter.

CHAPTER XVII – ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER

Things began to happen, however, bright and early the next morning. “The kids,” as Neale called the two smaller Corner House girls and Sammy Pinkney, were out of their beds betimes, and out of doors as soon as they were dressed. The blacksmith’s house was an old-fashioned place, and there were many things interesting to the little folks about it. Besides, if there had not been a thing in sight, the three juveniles would have dug up something interesting in a very short time.

The blacksmith was already off to start his smithy fire in the shop at the fork of the roads. “Mother,” with the help of a neighbor’s daughter called in for this emergency, was hurrying about the kitchen and dining room preparing the huge breakfast she thought necessary for these unexpected guests.

Neale O’Neil came out, yawning as he had gone to bed, and opened the door of the shed in which the automobile had been lodged in lieu of a proper garage. Neale always looked over the car before they started the day’s run, as all careful chauffeurs should.

The children ran for the automobile, of course, before Neale could back it out of the shed; and as Tess and Dot and Sammy jumped on the steps to ride out, a white hen flew from the tonneau with a wild squawk.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” cried Tess. “What do you s’pose that hen was doing there?”

The hen had flown to the top rail of the calf pen, and there proceeded to “cut, cut, cu-da-cut!” just as loud as she could.

“Aw, what are you squalling about?” Sammy demanded. “Nobody hurt you.”

“Maybe she wants to go to ride with us in our automobile,” said Dot demurely.

When the automobile was backed out upon the gravel it was Tess who looked into the tonneau and spied the reason for Mrs. White Hen’s loud remarks. There it lay, white and warm, upon the rear seat.

“Goodness! Goodness me!” gasped Tess, with clasped hands. “Isn’t that cunning? She laid an egg right here for us, Dot.”

“My,” Dot observed, “maybe she thought she could pay for a ride with us.”

“I guess she must know something about the way gas has gone up,” chuckled Neale O’Neil, “and she wanted to pay for her share.”

They had to secure that egg at once and run to ask “mother” if they could have it. Though, as Dot Kenway declared:

“It’s the most mysteriousest thing why that blacksmith calls her ‘mother’ when she isn’t, but she’s his wife.”

However, that “mysteriousest thing” was not on the carpet just then. It was the egg found in the automobile that was in question, and the blacksmith’s wife said:

“Yes, of course you shall have it. Them dratted hens lay everywhere. I guess they’d lay in the parson’s hat.”

“Oo-oo! not if he had it on,” murmured Dot.

Then immediately, there was another subject of discussion. What should they do with the fresh-laid egg?

“Eat it, of course,” said Sammy.

“It won’t go far – one egg – among three such savage appetites as you kids possess,” Neale declared.

“Why – no,” murmured Tess. “You couldn’t very well divide an egg in three parts.”

“Not till it’s cooked,” Sammy put in, promptly. “Let’s have it fried.”

“Oh! I like eggs soft-boiled,” Dot exclaimed.

“Why! then we can’t divide it even after it’s cooked,” cried Tess; “for I like my eggs hard-boiled.”

“It can’t be done, then,” said Neale O’Neil, solemnly, but vastly amused. “You can’t first boil an egg hard, and then soft, and then fry it.”

“She – she ought to have laid three eggs,” growled Sammy.

“You should speak to her about that,” Neale returned. Then he added, as a suggestion: “Why don’t you cast lots for it?”

“Cast lots for what, Neale O’Neil!” demanded Dot, wonderingly.

“Is – isn’t that wicked– like gambling?” asked Tess, slowly, “or playing marbles for keeps?”

“No,” Neale told her, “I don’t believe it is. You can take three straws of different lengths. I’ll hold ’em. The one that draws the longest straw takes the egg – and can have it cooked any way she or he pleases.”

“But then the others won’t get any,” wailed Dot, whose appetite was evidently sharpened by the morning air.

“Shucks!” said Neale, washing his hands of the matter. “Give it to Tom Jonah, then. He’ll eat it raw – shell and all.”

“Oh, no,” said Tess, with sudden inspiration. “We must give it to Mrs. Heard for her breakfast. I’ll ask the blacksmith’s wife to cook it.”

That suited everybody and Tess and Dot ran to make the proper culinary arrangements for the wonderful egg laid on the automobile seat.

It was a very hilarious breakfast, indeed; and the older girls and Mrs. Heard thought the “automobile egg” quite wonderful indeed. And such a breakfast as it was – with eggs galore, and fried chicken, and hot bread, and honey from “Mother’s own combs.”

When Dot heard that, she was puzzled a good deal at first, for all the comb she had seen about the blacksmith’s wife was a high-backed, old-fashioned tortoise-shell comb that was prominent in the woman’s “bob” of hair. It had to be explained to the smallest Corner House girl what “honey from the comb” meant. All of that succulent dainty Dot had ever seen before had been strained honey.

The blacksmith’s wife put up a hamper of lunch for the automobile tourists, too, and when they drove away at nine o’clock the Corner House girls and their companions felt as though they were bidding good-bye to two old and valued friends. It did not seem possible that they had never met the jolly blacksmith and his kindly wife before the previous evening; and they promised to stop again, if only to call, on their return journey.

“I’m sure we shall never forget the dears,” Agnes sighed, some hours later, when they had stopped for lunch. “Just look at all this fried chicken!”

“We won’t forget ‘Mother’ while the grub holds out, that’s sure,” grinned Neale O’Neil.

“Horrid boy!” retorted Agnes. “We girls, I should hope, think of something besides our stomachs.”

“Hm – yes. But you weren’t talking about anything else,” rejoined Neale.

The party had another subject of thought the next moment, however. Neale was just setting up the tripod, and Sammy was scurrying about for dry wood for the fire to be built under it, when a tall and roughly dressed man broke through the brush into the open patch of turf on which the party was preparing camp, and at once hailed them:

“Hey, you! what are ye doing here, I’d like to know?”

Neale took it upon himself to reply – and he did not feel very pleasant about it. The man did not speak in a nice way.

“I don’t know that it’s any of your affair,” the boy said quietly; “but we are just preparing lunch.”

“Oh, you be?” snarled the fellow. “Wal, by jinks! ye ben’t neither! We don’t want no ortermobile parties here. Get out!”

“Do you own this land?” asked Neale, his voice shaking.

“Never mind him. Come away – do!” cried Ruth to Neale, while she retreated to the car, dragging the hamper with her.

“I hate to do that,” said the boy, who was very angry. “I don’t believe he has any right to send us away. We’re doing no harm.”

“Ye air trespassin’,” declared the man. “Going to build a fire, too, was ye? That’s against the law, anyway.”

“To build a campfire?” demanded Neale, quickly. “I guess not. And you’ve got to prove trespass.”

“I’ll prove it with the flat o’ my hand on your ears, ye young rascal!” declared the man, hotly. “You ain’t paid anybody for the right to camp here, have you?”

“Paid anybody? Of course not. Who’d we pay?” demanded Neale, still inclined to stand his ground.

“Shows ye don’t know the law in this town,” said the man, with satisfaction. “I’m a consterble – see?” and he threw back his coat and showed a big, shiny star pinned to his “gallus.” “I got the authority.”

“You’ve got the authority to what?” asked Neale, sourly. “Trying to tree us for a collection, are you? I – guess – not!”

“Oh, Neale,” begged Ruth. “Do come away.”

“The boy is right,” said Mrs. Heard, vigorously. “I believe the man is overstepping his rights. But we don’t want to fight him here. Oh! what is that child about?”

Sammy Pinkney had procured several smooth pebbles of about the size of hen’s eggs, and now approached the contending parties. Tom Jonah, too, stood beside Neale and began to show his remaining fangs.

“What are you going to do with those stones, Sammy Pinkney?” demanded Agnes.

“Goin’ to give some of ’em to Neale if he wants ’em,” declared the youngster, with a grin.

Neale O’Neil laughed at that. “I guess we won’t come to blows, Sammy,” he said. “We’ll just get in the car and have our lunch. This constable can’t keep us from eating on the county road, that is sure. Get out the alcohol lamp, folks, if you want your tea.”

They put up the board, and unlimbered the lamp and soon had the kettle boiling; but the constable sat down near by and watched them – and with no pleasant face – the while. Evidently, although they had obeyed his command, he was not wholly satisfied.

It was while they were still eating their lunch that the sky became overcast.

“It really looks as though we should have a tempest, and we ought to get under cover,” remarked Mrs. Heard.

“Oh, yes, do!” said Agnes, eagerly. “I dislike getting drenched.”

They were some distance on the road to Tailtown, however, before the first flash of lightning assured them that the storm was going to overtake them before they could reach any haven.

Neale stopped immediately and put up the top and drew the curtains on either side. He made Agnes get back into the tonneau, although that crowded the others somewhat. But under the rubber blanket in front there was scarcely room for Sammy, Neale, and Tom Jonah.

The rain began drumming on the top of the car before they started again. They were in a locality where there seemed to be no farms. At least they had not passed a barn within the hour that promised shelter for the car. So it was better to go ahead and risk it, than to run back.

CHAPTER XVIII – A VERY ANNOYING SITUATION

In a minute or two the rain was falling torrentially – beating upon the automobile cover and quickly turning the sandy road to an actual mire.

It grew rapidly dark, although it was only mid-afternoon. Overhead the lightning crackled and the thunder ricochetted from the distant hills. The trees bordering the road swayed in the wind and the weight of the falling rain bent them like saplings.

Neale O’Neil could not drive the automobile rapidly, much as they desired to reach a place of refuge from the storm, for the wind-shield was blurred so that he had to poke his head out at the side every now and then to watch the road.

The roar of the elements was appalling. The girls and Mrs. Heard shut their eyes and cowered in the tonneau when the sharp flashes of lightning came. But they were perfectly dry.

Sammy was in a state of hysterical delight. He was not frightened, but he jumped every time the thunder broke above them. Once Neale told him to keep still, but Sammy cried:

“I can’t, Neale. I don’t mean to jump – and I wouldn’t if it wasn’t for that old thunder. I know the bolt of lightning I see won’t hit me – my dad told me that. I guess if I was deaf so I wouldn’t hear the thunder, I’d keep as still as still!”

Not much was said by the girls, and Tom Jonah merely hung his pink tongue out like a flag, whining sometimes when the thunder rolled; for, like Sammy, he was mostly disturbed by it.

The narrow road ahead, as they swooped down into a hollow, seemed to be flooded. The shallow gutters could not contain the amount of water which had fallen, and the wheels of the automobile rolled through a brown stream of sand and water. At the bottom of this hill was a sharp turn; but Neale saw this in plenty of time. However, what lay beyond was completely hidden by an outthrust bank. The water in the driveway deepened as they descended. Despite the hard going the automobile gained momentum from the descent, and Neale steered carefully.

“Just like riding through a river, ain’t it, Neale?” shrieked Sammy.

Tom Jonah, as excited as Sammy himself, barked. Neale punched the horn, although he did not expect to meet anybody or anything in such a storm and in such a lonely place. He slipped in the clutch at the bottom of the hill, turning out slightly to make the turn. He could not foresee the result of this last move; but he realized his mistake in just ten seconds – when it was too late.

The rear wheels skidded a little, and then the car, on the right side, slumped down into the mud and water, hub deep, and stopped dead!

The girls screamed, and Mrs. Heard, too, was frightened by the sudden jolt and the way the car tipped over. It did seem for a moment or two as though there might be a complete overturn.

“Now you’ve done it, Neale O’Neil!” cried Agnes, in her excitement.

“I s’pose I made it rain, too,” sniffed Neale, in disgust. “You give me a pain, Aggie.”

“What nonsense to blame Neale,” Ruth, the fair-minded, hastened to put in. “What shall we do?”

“Stay where we are and keep dry,” Mrs. Heard declared, with decision.

“But Neale can’t get the car out of the mud with us in it,” Agnes cried.

“Nor with you out of it, I reckon,” said the boy, crossly; “wait till I see.”

He crawled out with some difficulty to look the situation over, having to drive back Sammy and Tom Jonah with decision. “I don’t want you two ramping around out here,” he growled.

Neale had put on his slicker when the downpour began, and it was well he had, for this was no ordinary rain. The rush of water had filled the gutter with sand in solution, and there was now a regular quagmire where the wheels of the automobile stood. The fury of the storm had somewhat relaxed, but the rain fell steadily. Even should the rain stop, the water would not run out of this spot for hours. It did not take “half an eye,” as Neale himself said, to see that they were stuck.

“And this is a nice place to spend the night in,” complained Agnes.

“Can nothing really be done, Neale?” asked Mrs. Heard, much worried.

“I can’t get her out without help,” admitted the boy, in a discouraged tone.

Tess and Dot were crying a little, and Sammy looked at them scornfully. “Aw, you kids make me sick,” he said. “You don’t see me bawling, do you? S’pose you was in a pirate ship, ‘way out in the ocean, and she was wrecked?”

“I don’t want to be a pirate – so there!” sobbed Dot.

Tess said, solemnly: “Wait till you get hungry, Sammy Pinkney.”

This silenced Sammy – for the time being, at least.

Suddenly Agnes cried aloud: “Oh, dear me! here it comes again.”

It certainly sounded as though the tempest were returning, there was such a rattling and jangling behind them on the hill. Neale ran around the automobile to look.

A big wagon with a tarpaulin over it, making it look as large as a load of hay, and drawn by a pair of drenched horses, came rattling down the hill. There were two figures in slickers and rubber hats on the seat under the hood.

“A tin peddler’s outfit, sure as you live,” he cried.

“Oh, dear, Neale,” said Ruth, “maybe they will be rough men and will not help you.”

“I reckon they’ll help us if we make it worth their while,” said the boy, with assurance, peering through the rain to try to make out the faces of the two on the wagon seat.

“Be careful, boy,” said Mrs. Heard. “Don’t show them much money. We don’t know what sort of men they may be. Peddlers – ”

Neale reached back into the car and seized a heavy wrench. “Nothing like ‘preparedness,’” he said, with a grin.

“My goodness!” exclaimed Agnes, giggling suddenly, “they’ll think you are a highway robber.”

“I’m going to hold them up all right,” returned Neale O’Neil, with assurance.

The wagon was evidently hung with a large supply of tinware and the like, but all under the canvas cover. Yet it came down the hill at such a pace that the horses must not have found their load a heavy one to draw.

Of course the two strangers saw Neale, and the stalled car could not be overlooked, either. The one driving pulled in his team. Neale could make out the features of neither, for the turned-down brims of their hats hid their faces.

But the one driving called out in a very pleasant and unexpectedly cultivated voice:

“Hello there! What’s the matter? In a hole?”

“That’s just what we are in,” Neale responded, and immediately tossed the wrench back into the car. He knew they had nothing to fear from a man with a voice like that.

“Is she in deep?” asked the stranger.

“You can see how she’s bogged down,” Neale returned. “No chance of my humping her out under her own engine, that’s sure.”

“You need something more – about two-horse power, eh?” said the driver of the peddler’s cart, with a laugh.

“It must be a very annoying situation,” said the second person on the seat of the cart.

Neale fairly jumped. It was a most astonishing thing, and he gaped impolitely for a moment up into the speaker’s face. It was a girl!

Neale O’Neil was sure that she laughed at his surprise. But the young man said nothing further as he wrapped the lines around the whipstock and began to climb down.

By this time the Corner House girls were peering out of the curtains of the automobile, very much interested. The young man, when he got upon the ground, appeared to be about twenty-one, and his face was keen and pleasant, if not handsome. It seemed very queer indeed to find two young people of this character driving a tin peddler’s wagon through the country.

“It is a girl!” whispered Agnes, shrilly. “Goodness me! what fun!”

“And a nice girl, too,” murmured Ruth. “That man looks like a college student.”

“Do you s’pose they are on their honeymoon?” suggested the romantic Agnes.

“For pity’s sake don’t ask them till you are a little better acquainted,” begged Ruth.

Mrs. Heard asked the strange girl: “Won’t you get wet up there?”

“Oh, no; I’m quite dry, thanks. And then I can go inside the wagon if it gets too rough.”

Not only Mrs. Heard, but the girls expressed their surprise at this statement.

“You see,” explained the girl, “we have the cart fixed like a van inside. We can sleep in it if we don’t want to put up our tent. It’s very cozy indeed.”

“Why,” said Mrs. Heard, “this seems to be an entirely new idea. And do you really peddle tinware?”

“Oh, yes. Just like other peddlers. Only the country people would rather trade with us, for we look honest,” and she laughed merrily. “Besides, we did it last summer, too, and almost everybody remembers us in this country.”

“I should think it would be splendid!” cried Agnes, with her usual enthusiasm over anything new.

“Oh, yes; it’s fine. And we are having a nice vacation, Luke and I. Luke is my brother. Luke Shepard. I am Cecile.”

Ruth at once gave in turn the names of the automobile party. Meanwhile Dot said to Tess:

“I guess she knows how to be a wild girl better’n you and me did,” and Tess agreed, though with a whispered protest over her sister’s grammar.

Neale and young Mr. Shepard had finally decided that the only way to get the car out of the mire was to unhitch the team from the peddler’s wagon and use that “two horse power engine.”

“You’ll all have to get out while it’s being done, too,” said Neale to his party. “There’ll be weight enough for one pair of horses, at best.”

At once Cecile Shepard hopped down from the seat of the cart, and while the boys unhitched the horses, she got an umbrella and took Mrs. Heard first from the automobile to the rear of the van. There were steps and a door which gave entrance to the strange vehicle; and a lamp was quickly lighted inside. Then Cecile came back with the umbrella for the girls, and the entire touring party, save Neale and Tom Jonah, but including Sammy, were soon cozily ensconced in the peddler’s wagon.

The Corner House girls were delighted with the way the van was arranged – and they were delighted with the cheerful, intelligent Cecile Shepard, too. They had a very talkative time while the boys worked hard to get the stranded automobile out of the mud.

The rain thundered down upon the huge tarpaulin that covered the van. A sweet breath of damp air blew through the wagon from the opening in front to the open door behind. Cecile told them something of the experiences of herself and her brother as tin peddlers.