“For heaven’s sake,” cried Billie, “this can’t be the road to Virginia’s.”
The motor had stopped whirring and the place was as still as death.
They climbed out of the car and Edward, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking gravely at the half-sunken wheels.
“I’m afraid I’ve got you into a deuced lot of trouble,” he exclaimed remorsefully. “I ought to have been watching the road instead of talking. I’m a poor chauffeur.”
Billie secretly thought he was and she wished with all her heart that she had run the car that morning. But chauffeurs, like professional singers, are apt to criticise each other, and Billie had great confidence in her powers as engineer of the Comet.
“Now we have relieved him of our weight, maybe he’ll pull out,” said hopeful Mary, pointing to the motor. “Why don’t you start him up and see?”
“Crank him up, Edward,” called Billie, jumping into her own particular seat at the wheel. Somehow she never could feel at home in the other seats.
The machinery began to whir and the poor Comet strained and tugged until his one “all-seeing eye,” as the girls had called it, was almost starting from its socket and his loyal engine heart was nigh to bursting its bonds.
“It’s no good breaking a blood vessel, you poor old dear,” exclaimed Billie, patting the red cushion beside her as she stopped the motor. “Just you wait and we’ll see if we can’t find another way out of this hole.”
The others laughed. It was always funny to hear their friend talk to her machine as if a heart really did beat in his throbbing mechanism. But after all, it wasn’t a joking matter when they began to look about them. It seemed as if the only thing to do was to abandon the Comet and walk back to the main road. But Billie was not one to give up so easily, and before she would consent to a general retreat, her friends knew she would try everything she could think of to release the machine.