CHAPTER XII.
THE RETURN.
With the exception of her three best friends, Billie Campbell had never met people who pleased her so much on short acquaintance as the Hooks and their guest. It had not taken them half an hour to bridge over the gap of unfamiliarity.
“What is it?” she asked of Maggie Hook, Richard’s small, whimsical sister, black haired, black eyed, with quick alert movements like a bird’s.
“I can tell you exactly the reason,” replied Maggie. “It’s because we all belong to the road. There is a bond between us. We go Gypsying in our van and you go Gypsying in your car. We be all of one blood like Kipling’s Mowgli and the animals in the jungle.”
“Only we aren’t the real thing as much as you,” said Billie modestly. “The ‘Comet’ is a dear old thing, but he’s not a house.”
“You wouldn’t enjoy it if he were,” said Maggie. “A motor traveling van would never do. You see the point of this kind of life is that it’s lazy and contemplative. We just amble along and it doesn’t matter whether we make ten miles or five. We are not attempting long distance records. We are just getting intimate with the ups and downs of the country; the streams and rivers; the little valleys and bits of green by the roadside. Sometimes, if we find a place that’s secluded enough, a little glen or a grove that screens off the road, we stay there for several days.”
“But what do you do?”
“We all do the things we like best. Richard reads and takes long walks or fishes, if there is a stream. I clean the van from top to bottom and polish everything up and bake a cake in the little oven. Then I darn all the stockings and mend the clothes.”