CHAPTER I – THE UNEXPECTED ALWAYS HAPPENS

“I think I’d make a pretty good housemaid,” said Barbara, on her knees, energetically polishing the floor of the cottage parlor.

“Only housemaids don’t wear gloves and all-over aprons and mobcaps,” replied Mollie.

“And they don’t protect their skins from dust with cold cream,” added Barbara, teasingly. “Do they, Molliekins?”

“Oh well,” replied Mollie, “duty and beauty rhyme, and every woman ought to try and keep her looks, according to the beauty pages in all the papers.”

“Poor old Molliekins!” exclaimed her sister. “Crowsfeet and gray hair at fifteen!”

“Going on sixteen,” corrected Mollie, as she gave a finishing rub to the mahogany center table, a relic of more prosperous days, and flourished an old, oily stocking that made an excellent polisher. “But the papers do say that automobiling is very harmful to the complexion and the face should be protected by layers of cold cream and powder, and a veil on top of that.”

“I’m willing to take the chance,” laughed Barbara, “if ever I get another one.”

“I suppose Ruth is so busy getting ready for her six weeks’ trip abroad that she won’t have much time for her ‘bubble’ this August,” observed Mollie. “But, dear knows, we can’t complain. There never was a rich girl who knew how to make other people happy as well as she does. Sometimes I think she is really a fairy princess, disguised as a human being, who is just gratifying her desire to do nice things for girls like us.”

“No, she is no fairy,” commented Barbara. “That is why we love her so. She is just a jolly, nice girl and as human as anybody. When she asked us to go to Newport it was because she really wanted us. She has often told me, since, that she had been planning the trip for months, but the girls she knew were not exactly the kind who would have fallen into such a scheme. Gladys Le Baron would never have done, you see, at that time, because she always wanted Harry Townsend hanging about.”

Harry Townsend, our readers will recall, appeared in a former volume of this series, “The Automobile Girls at Newport.” He was the famous youth known to the police as “The Boy Raffles,” whose mysterious thefts were the puzzle of the society world. It was Barbara Thurston, by her grit and intelligence, who finally brought the criminal to justice, though not before Newport had been completely bewildered by a number of inexplicable jewelry robberies.

Following the visit to Newport came another delightful trip to the Berkshire Hills. The romantic rescue of a little girl whose birth had been concealed from her rich white relatives by her Indian grandmother; Mollie Thurston lost in an unexplored forest; the thrilling race between an air ship and an automobile – these and other exciting adventures were described in the second volume of the series entitled “The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires.”

“How hot it is!” continued Bab. “Suppose we have some lemonade. These forest fire mists are really fine ashes and they make me quite thirsty.”

She polished away vigorously while Mollie tripped off to make a cooling drink in the spotless little kitchen. Except for the tinkle of ice against glass the house was very still. Outside, not a breeze was stirring, and the meadows were draped in a curious, smoky mist. The sun hung like a red ball in the sky; the air was hot and heavy. The flowers in the garden borders drooped their heads in spite of persistent and frequent waterings. Three months’ drought had almost made a desert of Kingsbridge. The neat little scrap of a lawn was turning brown in patches, like prematurely gray hair, Barbara said. Even the birds were silent, and Mollie’s cherished family of bantams, a hen, a rooster and one chick, crouched listlessly in the shadow of the hedge.

Just then the stillness was broken by the distant crunch-crunch of an automobile. But the girls were too intent on what they were doing to take any notice until it stopped at their own front gate, and the sound of gay laughter and voices floated up the walk. Mollie and Barbara rushed together to the front porch.

“It’s Ruth herself!” they cried in the same breath, running down the steps without stopping to remove their long gingham aprons and dusting caps. “And there’s mother, too,” exclaimed Mollie.

“And Mr. Stuart and Aunt Sallie, all complete!” cried Barbara.

In a moment the three girls were engaged in a sort of triangular embrace while the others looked smilingly on.

“Well, young ladies,” said Mr. Stuart, “are those automobile coats you’re wearing, and bonnets, too?”

“I think they would do pretty well for motoring,” replied Barbara, “they are specially made for keeping out the dust.”

“They are just as cute as they can be,” said loyal Ruth, who was too tender-hearted to let her friends be teased.

“But where on earth did you come from, Ruth?” asked Mollie. “We were just talking about you a moment ago. We thought, of course, you were still in Denver, and lo and behold! you appear in person in Kingsbridge.”

“Well, papa had a call East,” replied Ruth, bubbling with suppressed joy, “and I had a call, too. Papa’s was business and mine was – well, just to call on you.” By that time they had reached the cool, half-darkened little parlor whose bare floor and mahogany furniture reflected their faces in the recently polished surfaces.

“Oho!” cried Mr. Stuart. “I see now where Queen Mab and her fairies have been working in their pinafores and caps.”

“Take them off now, girlies,” said Mrs. Thurston, “and get a pitcher of ice water. I know our friends must be thirsty after their dusty ride.”

But Mollie, who had already disappeared, came back in a few minutes bearing a large tray of glasses and a tall glass pitcher against whose sides cracked ice tinkled musically.

“That’s the most delightful sound I’ve heard to-day,” exclaimed Mr. Stuart, and even Aunt Sallie took a second glass without much urging.

“Where is our little Indian Princess from the Berkshire Hills?” asked Mr. Stuart suddenly. “One of my reasons for coming East was to see Eunice. Ruth says she is the prettiest, little brown bird that ever flew down from a mountain to live in a gilded cage. What have you done with her, Mrs. Thurston?”

“I have had to give her up, Mr. Stuart,” Mrs. Thurston replied, sadly. “And I was beginning to love Eunice like one of my own children. You cannot guess how quickly she learned the ways of our home. She soon forgot the old, wild mountain life and her Indian grandmother’s teaching. But just now and then, if one of us was the least bit cross with her, she would run away to the woods; and then only Mollie, whom she always loved best, could bring her home again.”

“Oh, how I hated to have her leave us!” Mollie declared. “But after the one winter with mother, Eunice’s rich uncle, Mr. Latham, came here to see her. He was so charmed with her beauty and shy lovely manners that he took her back to his home in the Berkshires to spend the summer with him. This fall Mr. Latham is going to put Eunice in a girl’s boarding school in Boston, so that she can be nearer his place at Lenox. He wants to be able to see her oftener. The dream of little Eunice’s life is to some day ask ‘The Automobile Girls’ to visit her.”

“Well, girls,” said Ruth, as they moved toward the front porch, leaving their three elders to chat in the parlor, “I suppose you know I’ve got something in my mind again.”

“No, honor bright, we don’t,” declared Barbara. “Isn’t Europe about as much as you can support at one time?”

“But Europe doesn’t happen until next month, children, and after finishing his business in the East, papa is going to be kept very busy for at least a month in the West. In the meantime Aunt Sallie and I have no place to go but out, and nothing to do but play around until it’s time to sail. And so, honored friends, I’m again thrown upon your company for as long a time as you can endure my presence. And this is the plan that’s been working in my head all the way on the train: What do you say to a lovely motor trip up along the Hudson to Sleepy Hollow? Don’t you think it would be fine? Grace can go, and we’ll have our same old happy crowd. It’s really only one day’s trip to Tarrytown, where we will stop for as long as we like, and from there we can motor about the country and see some of the fine estates. It is a historic place, you know, girls, full of romance and old stories and legends. We can even motor up into the hills if we like.”

“It would be too perfect!” cried the other two girls.

“I’m just in the mood for adventures, anyway,” declared Barbara. “I’ve been feeling it coming over me for a week.”

“When are we going?” asked Mollie.

“Well, why not to-morrow,” replied Ruth, “while the spirit moves us?”

“O joy, O bliss, O rapture unconfined!” sang Mollie, dancing up and down the porch in her delight.

“You see, there is no special getting ready to do,” went on Ruth. “The chauffeur will go over ‘Mr. A. Bubble,’ this afternoon, and put him in good shape. He’s been acting excellently well for such a hardworking old party. I mean ‘A. Bubble,’ of course.”

“Does mother know yet, Ruth?” asked Barbara, with a sudden misgiving.

“Oh, yes, she knows all about it. Papa and I laid the whole plan before her when we picked her up in the village. She was agreeable to everything, but of course she would be. She is such a dear! Aunt Sallie was the only one who was a bit backward about coming forward. She seemed to think that the forest fires would devour us if we dared venture outside of New York. But, of course, they are only in the mountains and there is no danger from them. It took me an age to gain her consent. If she has any more time to think about it she may back out at the eleventh hour.”

“Is it all settled, girls?” called Mr. Stuart’s voice through the open window.

“Oh, yes,” chorused three gay voices at once.

“Well, I think we’d better be going up to the hotel, then,” cried Miss Sallie. “If I’m to be suffocated by smoke and cinders I think I shall need all the rest I can get beforehand.”

“But, dearest Aunt Sallie,” said Ruth, patting her aunt’s peach-blossom cheek, “the fires are nowhere near Sleepy Hollow. They are miles off in the mountains. And truly, in your heart, I believe you like these little auto jaunts better than any of us.”

“Not at all,” replied the inflexible Miss Stuart. “I am much too old and rheumatic for such nonsense.”

Whereupon she jumped nimbly into the car.

The others all laughed. They understood Miss Sallie pretty well by this time. “She has a stern exterior, but a very melting interior,” Barbara used to say of her.

“Don’t fail to be ready by ten, girls,” called Ruth as she followed her aunt, while Mr. Stuart was offering his adieux to Mrs. Thurston.

“But, Bab,” whispered Mollie, as the automobile disappeared around a curve in the road, “what about the forest fires?”

“Sh-h!” said Barbara, with, a finger on her lip.

And they followed their mother into the house.