CHAPTER IX
THE START
"Dear me! I did think something else would happen to prevent us from getting off," said Bess, as she and Belle, with Cora, actually started out to get the autos ready for the tour to the Berkshires. "And to think that Miss Robbins can go with us!"
"I'm sure she will be a lot better than a nervous person like dear mamma," said Belle. "Not but what we would love to have mamma go, but she does not enjoy our kind of motoring."
"It does seem fortunate that Miss Robbins wanted to go," added Cora.
"I like her; she is the ideal type of business woman."
"Is she?" asked Belle, in such an innocent way that the other two girls laughed outright.
"Oh, I suppose I ought to know," and Belle pouted; "but we always think
Cora knows so much better—and more."
"Which is another fact I have bumped into," said Cora.
"I just feel that we are going to have the jolliest of good times," remarked Bess, as they started down the road. "I never care what route we take. Isn't it fine that the boys attended to all that arrest and police business for us?"
"Very fine," agreed Cora, "but I like to have my say now about our plans. We are going to take the main road along the New York side. We will touch Bridgeport and Waterbury. You might like to know that much."
"There are the boys, and there is Miss Robbins! My, doesn't she look smart!" suddenly exclaimed Bess.
"That's a smart outfit," Cora agreed, as they saw the party approaching, Miss Robbins "done up" in a tan suit, with the exact shade in a motor cap.
"I'm so glad we have all the things in the cars. It is so much better to do that the night before," remarked Belle.
"But you didn't do it the night before; I did!" her sister reminded her.
"Did you bring the hot-water bottle?" asked Cora. "If Belle gets a headache, you will surely need it."
This was not a joke, neither was it intended for sarcasm, for on previous tours Belle had suffered, and the getting of reliable remedies was one of the real discomforts of the trip.
"I put in the water bag and mustard, too," said Belle. "Bess is just as likely as not to get a cold, and she has to have mustard."
"I suppose Cora brought cold cream," called Bess, with a laugh. "That is usually the important drug in her medicine chest."
"I did," admitted Cora. "I will surely have to use a barrel of it going through the changes in the hills. I cannot stand a stinging face."
Mrs. Robinson had taken a notion that her twins were outgrowing their twinship, consequently their outfits for the mountain trip had been made exactly alike in material and effect. The result was, the boys purposely mixed the girls up, asking Belle what made her so thin, for instance, when they knew perfectly well that she was always thin, and that it was Bess who had to own to being stout.
The twins' costumes were of hunter-green corduroy, with knitted green caps. Cora wore mole-color cloth, with a toque to match, and as they now stood before the garage, waiting the coming of the others, who had stopped at the post office, many admiring eyes turned in their direction.
"They have a lot of mail," remarked Cora gleefully, as Jack waved letters and cards to her. "I hope it is nothing we don't want just now."
"As long as the gypsy man is safe, we needn't fear anything unpleasant," said Bess, "but I did feel a lot better when I heard that they took him to the real county jail."
"Oh, yes," and Cora laughed. "You seemed to think that man was our particular evil genius. Bess, all gypsies are supposed to steal."
"Hello!"
"Here we are!"
"Everybody and everything!"
"No, Wallie forgot his new handkerchief—the one with the pretty rose in the corner."
"And Jacky forgot his rope. We won't be able to haul him this time."
"I forgot something," began Miss Robbins, "my absorbent cotton. See to it that if you must get hurt you don't get——"
"The nose-bleed," Ed finished more practically than eloquently.
Miss Robbins was to travel in Cora's car, with Cora and Hazel Hastings. The boys had tried to alter this plan, they declaring one boy, at least, should go in the big car, but Cora argued that the Whirlwind was distinctly a girl's auto, and only girls should travel in it. This put Jack in his own runabout and Walter and Ed in the Comet. The Robinson girls, of course, were not to be separated, as the Flyaway seemed to know all about the twins, and the twins knew all about the Flyaway.
The weather was uncertain, and the fog horn at the point lighthouse had blown all night, so that the girls were naturally apprehensive. Only Cora's car was canopied, so that should it rain they would be obliged to stop and wait for clear weather.
Nevertheless it was a very jolly party that now waited at the garage for the machines to be run out. The boys went inside and attended to the very last of the preparations, while Cora, too, insisted upon looking over her machine before starting off.
"You'll have a fine trip," remarked the man at the garage. "I think the run through the Berkshires one of the best there is. Fine roads and nice people along the way."
"Well, we need both," answered Miss Robbins. "I don't know so much about roads, but people—we always need them."
"All aboard," cried Ed, as finally they all did get into the cars, and, as usual, the Whirlwind led. Next came the Flyaway, then the two runabouts with the young men.
"What a fine chauffeur Miss Cora is?" remarked Miss Robbins to Hazel.
"Yes, but you must call her Cora," corrected Hazel gayly. "We make it a rule to go by first names when we like people."
"Then you must call me Regina," added Miss Robbins. "I hope the young men don't make me Reggie."
"They're very apt to," commented Hazel.
Cora had thrown in the third speed, and was now bending over her wheel in real man fashion. They were getting out on the country roads, where all expected to make good time. Bess also threw on her full speed, following Cora's lead, and the boys, of course, gave the speeding signal on their horns.
"My!" exclaimed Miss Robbins admiringly, as the landscape flashed by.
"Can't we go," added Hazel exultingly.
"It's like eating and drinking the atmosphere," continued the young lady physician.
"I do love autoing," went on Hazel. "My brother is a perfect devotee of the machine. But we do not happen to own one of our own."
"That is where good friends come in," said Miss Robbins. "This trip is a perfect delight to me. And, really, it will fix me up wonderfully for what I have to undertake this fall. You see, we have just closed the bungalow, mother has gone home, and that left me free to go to the Berkshires and have a little pleasure, together with attending to some business. I have a very old patient there. I have to call on her before she leaves the hills."
"And you really have patients?" Hazel looked in surprise at the young woman beside her.
"Of course, I do. But this one I inherited—she is a great aunt of mine."
Hazel leaned forward to ask Cora what her speedometer was registering.
"Only twenty miles an hour," replied Cora. "And we could go thirty easily. But I don't fancy ripping off a shoe, or doing any other of the things that speed might do."
"I shall enjoy it all the more when I am so sure of that," spoke
Regina. "I cannot see why people take risks just for the sake of——"
"Hey, there!" shouted Ed, as his car shot past Cora's. "We are going on ahead."
"So—we—see!" answered Cora dryly.
"What do you suppose they are up to?" asked Bess, as she turned the Flyaway up to the side of the Whirlwind.
"Haven't any idea," replied Cora, just as Jack, too, shot by.
"See you later," called Jack.
"Not deserting us, are they?" asked Regina.
"Oh, no, just some lark," answered Cora.
But scarcely had the boys' machines disappeared than a trail of three gypsy wagons turned into the mountain highway from some narrow crossroad.
"Oh!" sighed Belle, apprehensively clutching the arm of her sister.
"Don't, Belle. You almost turned me into the Whirlwind," cautioned the sister, as she quickly twisted around the steering wheel.
"Those are the beach gypsies," Cora was able to say to Bess.
Then no one spoke. Bess leaned over her wheel, while Cora looked carefully for a place to turn out that would bring her clear of the rumbling old wagons.
A woman sat in the back of one of the vehicles. She poked her head out and glared at the approaching machines. Then she was seen to wave a red handkerchief so that the persons in the next wagon could distinctly see it.
The motor girls also saw it.
This caused some confusion, as the motorists were trying to get out in the clear road, while the wagons were blocking the way.
Then, just as the Whirlwind was about to pass the second wagon, the driver halted his horse and stepped down directly in her path. He waved for Cora to stop.
"Don't!" called Miss Robbins, and Cora shot by, followed closely by
Bess, who turned on more gas.
The gypsy wagons had all stopped in the middle of the road.
The automobiles were now safely out of the wanderers' reach.
"That was the time a chaperon counted," said Cora, "for I had not the slightest fear of stopping. I thought he might just want to ask some ordinary question."
"You are too brave," said Miss Robbins. "It is not particularly interesting to stop on a road like this to talk to gypsies when our boys are out of reach."
"We must speed up and reach them," said Cora. "I might meet more gypsies."
Belle was thoroughly frightened. Hazel did not know what to make of the occurrence, but to Cora and to Bess, who had so lately learned something of queer gypsy ways, the matter looked more serious, now that there was time to think of it.
"There they are!" shouted Bess, as she espied the two runabouts stopped at the roadside.
"They are getting lunch," said Hazel. "Look at Jack putting down the things on the grass."
"They certainly are," confirmed Cora. "Now, isn't that nice of them?
And we have been blaming them for deserting us!"
Neither the motor girls nor the motor boys knew what the meeting of the gypsy wagons was about to lead to—serious trouble for some of the party.