"I have a notion to drive up and see them," said Connie. "Literary material, you know."
"I want to see the horsies fly, too," cried Julia quickly.
Carol thought it might do David good, and David was sure Carol needed a vacation. They would think it over.
Connie immediately went down-town and returned with a road guide, and her arm full of literature about frontier days in general. Then it was practically settled. A little distance of a hundred miles, a splendid car, a driver like Connie! It was nothing. And Carol was so excited getting ready for their first outing in the years of David's illness, that she forgot his medicine three times in succession, and David maliciously refused to remind her.
They all talked at once, and agreed that it was very silly and dangerous and unwise, but insisted it was the most alluring, appealing madness in the world. David, for over three years limited to the orderly, methodical, unstimulating confines of a screened porch, felt quite the old-time throbbing of his pulse and quickening of his blood. Even the doctor waxed enthusiastic. He looked into David's tired face and said:
"I think it will do him good. It can not do him harm."
In the excitement of getting ready for something unusual, he developed an unnatural strength and simply could not be kept in bed at all. He slept soundly, ate heartily, and looked forward to the trip in the car so anxiously that to the girls it was really pitiful.
Then came a glorious day in September when the Harmer Six stood early at their door, the lunch basket, and suit-cases were carefully arranged, and they were off,—off in the beautiful Harmer,—off to the country,—to the mountains and canyons,—to climb one of the sunny slopes that had beckoned to them so enticingly. Almost they held their breath at first, afraid the first creak of the car would waken them from the unbelievable dream.
Always as they climbed a long hill, Carol reminded them that they were climbing a sunny slope that would lead to a city of gold at the top, a city where everything was happy and bright, and there was no sickness, no sorrow, no want. And looking ahead to the spires of a little village, nestling cloudy and blue on the plains, she vowed it was a golden city, and they leaned forward to catch the first sparkle of the diamond-studded streets. And when they reached the city itself, little, ugly, sordid,—a city of gold, perhaps, to those who had made a fortune there, but not by any means a golden city of dreams to the Arcady travelers,—Carol shook herself and said it was a mistake, she meant the next one.
Rooms had been engaged in advance at the Bijou, on the ground floor, for the sake of David's softened muscles, and they reached the town ahead of the regular Frontier Day crowds, allowing themselves plenty of time to get rested and to see the whole thing start.