“And doesn’t the prospect please you, Cousin Helen?”
Billie had slowed down the car and now turned to look at her cousin’s face.
“Don’t you think it will be thrilling, exciting, wonderful to have the Comet take us across all of this interesting country?”
The corners of Miss Campbell’s lips drooped and she gave a pathetic smile.
“It would, dearest Billie, I am sure it would appear to me in all its true glory if I wasn’t so—so very hungry.”
Hungry! Here was a solution of this great depression. They were all of them famished with hunger. Not a decent meal had they eaten for two days. It was hunger gnawing at their vitals that had plunged them into the very depths of homesickness.
In the automobile was a complete outfit for cooking, a little alcohol stove and various dainty little utensils made of aluminum, all a rather costly present from their old friend, Mr. Ignatius Donahue, which he had sent, on being informed of the great journey of the Motor Maids across the continent.
“Have a piece of chocolate and a graham cracker, Miss Campbell?” Mary was asking in a tone of sympathy.
“Heavens, no, child,” replied the little lady as near to being cross as she had ever been in her life. “Don’t offer me such rubbish, as a substitute for good beefsteak and coffee that’s really coffee?”
“Let’s set up housekeeping,” cried Billie, “and start in ten minutes by stopping at the next farm house for supplies!”