The young folks reluctantly consented to go on although the basket lunch which Alma, the Norwood’s cook, had packed with dainties, was the cause of much yearning speculation on the part of the girls and boys. The lunch was one Alma had insisted on their taking along, saying there was no telling what a motor car might do or when it would get them to their journey’s end.
The next hour passed uneventfully, and Miss Alling, as though to make up for every second of wasted time, burned up mile upon mile of smooth road beneath the wheels of her powerful car.
They came at last to a road marked: Detour—Road Closed for Repairs.
Miss Alling stopped the car so swiftly that the girls were thrown forward in their seats. As Amy afterward remarked, nothing save the luggage kept her and Jessie from being tossed over the heads of the two in front.
Their chaperone regarded the annoying sign with furrowed brow.
“I know this detour,” she said, with a sigh. “It means a half dozen miles out of our way on a most disagreeable stretch of road. Now we surely will be late reaching Forest Lodge!”
“Well, if we are going to be late, anyway, we might as well eat,” suggested Jessie, and Darry, who, with Fol and Burd, had strolled up to inspect the sign, seconded the suggestion with extreme heartiness. The others joined in and made such a clamor that for the sake of peace their chaperone was forced to give in.
Besides, as she admitted later between bites of a chicken sandwich, she had been actually famished herself.
After the hamper had been emptied and they were on their way once more, the boys and girls found out that Aunt Emma had not exaggerated when she classed the detour as a most disagreeable stretch of road. It was all of that, as Burd remarked, and “then some.”
They came at last to a village, a straggling, shabby little place with one main street, a shabby motion picture theater, and a few uninviting-looking stores.