“And a good thing there are no more,” spoke Nita, as she looked closely at her chum, wondering, as others had done that day, what was troubling Dorothy.
For that something was troubling our heroine was evident. It plainly showed on her face, though she tried to hide it and be her usually jolly self—jolly, however, in a way different from Tavia.
“Want me to hold the jack?” came from Tavia, in business-like tones, as she watched Jake deftly go about the work.
“No, thank you, miss. It’s a self-regulating one,” he replied. “It’ll hold itself. But you might hold one of the oil lanterns so I can see to unscrew these lugs.”
“I knew there was something queer about this auto,” came from Tavia with a laugh. “It’s been putting on ‘lugs,’ as the boys say. It got too gay, and had a puncture. Isn’t that it, Jake?”
“Yes, miss, I guess so, but if you wouldn’t mind, please, holding that light a little more over this way, I could see better.”
“That’s the time Tavia got a ‘call-down,’ to use some of her own slang,” commented Molly. “But, Doro, what are ‘lugs,’ pray tell?”
“I guess Tavia used it meaning ‘airs,’ or something like that,” was the reply. “Will you be much longer, Jake?”
“No, I’ll soon have it on,” the man said, and he was as good as his word. Then Tavia scrambled up to her seat, after insisting on helping Jake to put away his tools, and the car started off again, amid heart-felt murmurs of thanks from the rather tired young ladies.
The machine was gliding over the hills through the moonlight, and soon the towers of Glenwood would be seen. The “Light House,” the girls always called the big light in the tower that gleamed until the village bell struck midnight.