Tish plays the game

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

“I knew it would come!” she said triumphantly. “The sixth tee, of course, and the sand box! And those dratted boys are ahead of us!”

Anyone but Tish, I am convinced, would have abandoned hope at that moment. But with her, emergencies are to be met and conquered, and so now. With a “Hold tight, Lizzie!” she swung the car about, and before I knew what was on the tapis she had let in the clutch and we were shooting off the road and across a ditch.

VI

So great was our momentum that we fairly leaped the depression, and the next moment were breaking our way through a small woods, which is close to the fourteenth hole of the golf links, and had struck across the course at that point. Owing to the recent rain, the ground was soft, and at one time we were fairly brought to bay—on, I think, the fairway to the eleventh hole, sinking very deep. But we kept on the more rapidly, as we could now see the lights of the stripped flivver winding along the bridle path which intersects the links.

I must say that the way the greens committee has acted in this matter has been a surprise to us. The wagon did a part of the damage, and also the course is not ruined. A few days’ work with a wheelbarrow and spade will repair all damage; and as to the missing cup at the eighth hole, did we put the horse’s foot in it?

Tish’s eyes were on the lights of the flivver, now winding its way along the road through the course, and it is to that that I lay our next and almost fatal mishap. For near the tenth hole she did not notice a sand pit just ahead, and a moment later we had leaped the bunker at the top and shot down into it.

So abrupt was the descent that the lamps—and, indeed, the entire fore part of the doctor’s car—were buried in the sand, and both of us were thrown entirely out. It was at this time that Tish injured one of her floating ribs, as before mentioned, and sustained the various injuries which laid her up for some time afterward, but at the moment she said nothing at all. Leaping to her feet, she climbed out of the pit and disappeared into the night, leaving me in complete darkness to examine myself for fractures and to sustain the greatest fright of my life. For as I sat up I realized that I had fallen across something, and that the something was a human being. Never shall I forget the sensations of that moment, nor the smothered voice beneath me, which said:

“Kill be at odce ad be dode with it,” and then sneezed violently.

“Aggie!” I shrieked.

She seemed greatly relieved at my voice, and requested me to move so she could get her head out of the sand. “Ad dod’t screab agaid,” she said pettishly. “They’ll cobe back ad fidish us all if you do.”