“Well, there won’t be any excitement about this trip,” said Percy. “It’s just a ride across the country to the shore, one grand, large meal, and then home again in time for another feed, and you’ll all be ready for bed.”
It was arranged for those who were to drive to start well ahead of the others in the “handicap race,” as Percy called it, in order to get to Mrs. Ruggles’ at the same time. The Motor Maids went in “The Comet” with their particular friends, which was tacitly agreed upon, and Roly Poly McLane drove with Belle and Fannie and three boys in the St. Clair trim-looking depot wagon. They were not even to take the same road as the motor car, but were to go by a short cut over a road too sandy for automobiles.
Mrs. St. Clair, who was not to be in the party, inspected each girl with motherly interest before the start. She appeared to have an endless store of wraps, ulsters, sweaters and fur coats, veils and scarfs, which she bundled on her guests without the slightest regard for sex or size.
“Young people never know how to keep warm,” she said. “Especially girls. They always think warm clothing is unbecoming, when really nothing is more unbecoming than purple noses and blue lips. Percival, my darling, don’t you think you’ll need your ear muffs?”
“No, mother,” answered her son firmly, “not on the first of November.”
“Oh, I implore you, my son; I entreat you,” cried the importunate woman, and Percy, with admirable patience permitted her to slip them on his ears, though he promptly removed them when the motor car had turned into the road and he could no longer see his mother waving her handkerchief.
“I must look remarkably like Dr. Cook,” he said, laughing, as he removed some of the layers of wraps and scarfs his mother had loaded him with.
“The Comet” was in splendid trim that morning.
“He gets cranky and unmanageable exactly like a human being,” Billie had often said about him, but to-day he appeared almost to take human enjoyment in the long stretch of hard-beaten road and the crisp autumn air.
“Does this mysterious Mrs. Ruggles live in a palace or a hut?” asked Billie, after a while, her curiosity increasing as the salty breeze straight from the ocean reminded her that they were approaching the coast.