Chapter VI: The Big Tour Is Planned

Mr. Maynard, as the fat man had called Dot's new acquaintance, grumbled something or other at the chauffeur because of his treatment of the Alice-doll; but he was not yet quite himself and the fellow merely laughed and urged Maynard toward the car. The fat man laughed, too.

"Come on, Mr. Maynard. We'll take you home," said the big man, holding open the door of the tonneau.

Just as Neale O'Neil and Agnes reached the spot, the chauffeur pushed Maynard in and stepped quickly into his own place.

"Say! what did you do to this little girl?" demanded Neale, with some heat, addressing the chauffeur.

The fellow did not answer; neither did the big man; and Maynard had tumbled into a seat without a word. Dot had already picked up her doll; it was not hurt. The car started and rolled away.

"The mean thing!" exclaimed Neale. "Don't cry, Dot."

"I--I'm not going to," sobbed the smallest Corner House girl. "I don't b'lieve they'll be kind to that man. He's awful sick."

"Who is?" asked Neale quickly, exchanging glances with Agnes.

"That man they took away. I got him a drink of water. But Sammy Pinkney told a story 'bout him."

"What did Sammy say?" asked Agnes, but her attention scarcely on what Dot was saying.

The little girl told her. "But he was sick. I know it. I got him a drink of water. He wasn't carrying a brick at all."

Neale had grinned faintly; but his face was quickly sober again.

"I know who that Mr. Maynard is," he said. "He used to work in the court house. I believe he was in Mr. Collinger's office--and he was a real nice man once."

"Why, he is now," cried Dot, listening with very sharp ears. "Only he is sick."

"Perhaps you are right, Dottie," agreed Neale, still gravely, but speaking to Agnes. "Anyhow, he lost his wife and then his little girl. He's gone all to pieces, they say. It's an awfully sad case. And do you know who that big man is?"

"No," said Agnes, still unnoticing and gazing after the disappearing car.

"That's Jim Brady. He's a ward leader on the other side of town. He's very powerful in politics----"

"Oh, Neale!" cried Agnes, suddenly, seizing her friend's arm.

"Hul-_lo_! What's the matter?" asked Neale.

"Do you know who that fellow was that drove the car? Did you see him?"

"No-o. I didn't notice him much. He had dust goggles on----"

"I know! I know!" cried the excited girl. "They concealed his face a good deal. But I saw the freckles."

"The freckles?" repeated Neale, wonderingly.

"Yes. Of course. It was that freckled fellow who spoke to Ruth that day."

"Not Joe Dawson?" cried the boy.

"Yes. If that's his real name. Oh, Neale! Let's have him arrested."

"Cricky!" ejaculated the surprised youth. "Arrest your aunt!"

Agnes burst out laughing at that--serious as she was. "Aunt Sarah Maltby certainly did not steal Mr. Collinger's motor car," she said.

"Well. We don't know that Saleratus Joe did," grinned Neale. "Come on home. Don't cry any more, Dot. Just the same I would like to punch that fellow who threw down your doll."

"Can't we find out who he is--all about him?" demanded Agnes.

"Maybe. That Mr. Maynard knows him, I s'pose. I could ask him. I used to clean Mr. Maynard's yard and sidewalks for him. I'll see," promised Neale O'Neil.

When the trio reached the Corner House that day, however, they found a subject afoot that put out of Neale's and Agnes' minds for the time being all thought of the stealing of Mr. Collinger's car. And yet the county surveyor's aunt had something to do with this very interesting topic under discussion.

Mrs. Heard was present, having a neighborly cup of tea with Mrs. MacCall, who was quite as much a friend of the family as she was housekeeper. Mr. Howbridge had chanced to drop in as well, and Ruth had arrived home ahead of the other Corner House girls.

"Oh, Aggie!" cried Ruth, running out of the sitting room where tea was being served, Uncle Rufus having rolled the service table in there at Mrs. MacCall's request. "Just guess!"

"Going to have rice waffles for supper," put in Neale, with a cheerful grin.

"That boy!" said the oldest girl, scornfully.

"What _has_ happened?" demanded Agnes, excitedly. Ruth was seldom given to exuberance of speech or action, and she was plainly stirred up now.

"He says we can do it!"

"Huh?" grunted Neale, staring.

"Who says we can do what?" demanded Agnes, her blue eyes almost as wide as saucers. "How you talk, Ruth Kenway!"

"It will be most delightful, I am sure," said the older girl, more composedly. "We shall all enjoy it. And Mrs. Heard has agreed to act as chaperone, for Mrs. MacCall _can't_ go, and you know how Aunt Sarah Maltby feels about the auto."

"Oh! I see," grumbled Neale. "A glimmer of intelligence reaches my brain. You are talking about the trip in the auto after school closes."

"Is that it?" cried Agnes, clasping her hands. "Oh, Ruthie!"

"That is it, my dear! Mr. Howbridge just spoke about it himself. He has known Mrs. Heard for years, you see, and he thinks she would be just the nicest person in the world to go with us."

"And so she is," agreed Agnes.

"Well," said Dot, who had listened in grave silence, "if we are going off on a long journey with our car, my Alice-doll must have her complexion 'tended to. You take her, Neale, and get her doctored," and she thrust the precious doll directly into the boy's hands, and marched out of the room with quivering lip. It was really very hard for the smallest Corner House girl to part from her most loved child even in such an emergency.

"There now! What did I tell you?" demanded Agnes, of Neale. "You've got your hands full."

"Of doll," he admitted, but he did not appear rueful. "I know just where they will fix her up as good as new," and he laughed. "I believe in preparedness. I foresaw this when I spoke about the doll the other day."

But now was the time to talk about the tour. Agnes had prepared for this since the very first day she knew they were to have the automobile. The height of her ambition was to travel in the most modern way--by motor car.

With Neale--and sometimes aided by her sisters--she had planned elaborate routes through the surrounding country--sometimes into neighboring states. She had borrowed maps and guide books galore and had purchased not a few. In fact, in a desultory way, she and Neale had picked up a smattering of knowledge of roads and towns and hotels and general geographical information which really might be of use if, as Ruth said they would, the Corner House girls should go on a tour in the new seven-passenger car.

They talked about it to the exclusion of almost everything else that evening, and Agnes spread the news abroad at school the next day. That the Corner House girls really owned a car was already an important fact to their school friends.

For Ruth and Agnes were not likely to be selfish in their enjoyment of their new possession. Stinginess was not a fault in the Kenway family.

On the very second Saturday after they had come into possession of the car Neale had taken out the older girls and a party of their friends in the morning, and in the afternoon Tess and Dot had played hostesses to a lot of little girls. As Mr. Howbridge remarked with a laugh, the cost of the new car was a mere drop in the bucket. Maintenance and gasoline were the items that would deplete the pocketbooks of his wards.

As for Neale O'Neil, he almost lived in the car.

Of course, the entire family had to try it--even to Linda. Linda enjoyed it, and in her broken English stated it as her opinion that "heafen could be not like dis." Which was a statement not to be contradicted.

Mrs. MacCall was doubtful about the utility of the machine after all. Uncle Rufus, when he went out with Neale and the little girls and not a few of the pets, including a couple of kittens and Tom Jonah, just clung to the seat-rail with both hands and actually turned gray about the corners of his mouth.

As for Aunt Sarah Maltby, she had set her face against the innovation from the first.

"But of course," she said, in her severe way, "it doesn't matter what _I_ say or what my opinion may be. Nobody asks me to advise. I am a non-entity in this house."

That was the beginning. Ruth and Agnes and even Mrs. MacCall had to coax and plead and cajole before the old lady would promise to take a ride in the car. When she did, she dressed in her Sunday dress--the one she always went to church in--and carried her prayer-book.

_This_ was a state of "preparedness" that amused Agnes and Neale very much. Aunt Sarah evidently expected the worst. She even carried in her pocket the peppermint lozenges which she always took to church with her and nibbled at in sermon time.

Indeed, Aunt Sarah, who was a pessimist at the best of times, approached the ordeal in such a way that Ruth really began to pity her.

"I don't care! she'd spoil all our fun," protested Agnes, exasperated.

But the older sister said: "Perhaps she can't help it after all, Aggie. And if she really is scared, I am sorry."

At that Agnes whispered sharply: "Look at her face!"

Neale was running the car carefully, but at a good speed, on one of the pleasantest and smoothest highways around Milton. The air was invigorating, the outlook was beautiful, and the car ran like a charm.

In a moment of forgetfulness, perhaps, Aunt Sarah's grim countenance had changed. It did actually seem as though there was a smile hovering about her lips. To the two girls who rode with her in the tonneau it seemed as though it must be impossible for anybody not to enjoy the ride.

"Isn't it splendid, Aunt Sarah?" queried Ruth, with shining eyes, leaning toward the old woman.

Instantly Aunt Sarah's face became--as usual--forbidding. She shook her head with determination.

"No, Niece Ruth, it is nothing of the kind," she declared. "I do not like it at all. I knew I shouldn't. I wish to return."

"Well!" Agnes had gasped in her sister's ear. "Don't try to tell me! If Aunt Sarah was not almost laughing then, why, then her face slipped!"