"You embarrass me. I'm blushing," cried Carter pretending to hide his face while Jack bestowed a cyclonic kiss upon his ear, and Nan laughed at his pretended coyness. Then off skipped Jack to find the other two sisters and soon the whole party was busily talking over the morrow's excursion.
Early the next day Carter appeared with the large touring car in which they were to go, and there was much excitement among the children in the getting off.
It was a ride of forty-eight miles to the Camulos ranch, and if they should conclude to extend it further to Santa Barbara they would travel over a hundred miles, but the further the better, said the young people.
It promised to be a delightful trip. Each of the girls settled herself according to her liking. Mary Lee with Miss Dolores by her side was supremely happy, while Jean was content to sit on the same seat with these two. Nan could turn to her Aunt Helen on her right and to her mother on her left, so she was suited, while Jack occupied what to her was the place of honor, by Carter's side. His goggles sent her into shrieks of laughter every time he turned his eyes her way. "You look like some funny bug," she told him. "Like a grasshopper on its hind legs, with poppy eyes and a funny cap."
"Look here; stop making fun of me," said Carter in pretended resentment. "I'll tell your mother on you. Mrs. ——"
"Oh, don't call her," said Jack in alarm, "she might make me change seats with Jean, and I don't want to."
"After that subtle compliment, I can't do anything worse than stop the machine in the middle of the road and leave you to get home the best way you can. How will you manage to do it?"
"The same way you will," returned Jack not at all nonplussed.
Meanwhile Nan on the back seat was making excited remarks to her Aunt Helen. "Isn't it wonderful to think that we are going through California in something as if we were flying through the clouds in a chariot? Those pink flowers are pink clouds, that field is a grayish one, and the sky around it is green instead of blue. Shall we stay long at the Camulos ranch, do you suppose? Oh, me, I am so happy; I'd like to be a bird and sing, sing all day."
"Your throat would get mighty dry with the dust," remarked Mary Lee from the opposite seat.