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<p>“Well, your aunt certainly must be a queer one to think up all these conditions,” observed Doris.<br />
“Oh, she hasn’t much to do,” said Alice, “except to think about those two nephews who are her heirs. I guess we’ve given her a new interest.”<br />
“What does she look like?” asked Florence.<br />
“I don’t know; the only picture we have is one of those old-fashioned things in a family album. She was eighteen then, and looked thirty-eight. You know the kind that I mean. But I have always imagined that she resembled that fake lieutenant those boys we met on the train fixed up for our benefit the summer we went on the ranch.”<br />
“Speaking of boys,” interrupted Doris, “they will soon be here. And you girls won’t even have your hats off—let alone be dressed. Don’t you think we had better adjourn to our rooms, especially the girls who have to go over to Marie Louise’s?”<br />
“Right you are, Doris!” exclaimed all of her guests, hastening to carry out her suggestion.
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<p>“Anybody here yet?” she asked, crossing the room to give Doris her customary kiss.<br />
“No, not yet,” replied her hostess. “I sort of expect that the five girls from Turner College will come together. But Ethel Todd will come by herself.”<br />
Marie Louise disappeared into the dining-room for a minute and returned carrying a vase of roses, which she had arranged most artistically in a wide blue china bowl. She set it down upon the table, hardly listening to Doris’s thanks for the flowers, so eager was she to talk of the latest development.<br />
“Tell me more about this new idea—is it Alice’s or Marjorie’s?—I haven’t got the gist of it yet. Ethel Todd called me up on the telephone, but the connection was so poor—”<br />
“I really don’t know myself,” replied Doris; “except that it is a trip of some sort, and Alice’s aunt is paying the expenses. None of the girls wrote to me in detail, because they all assumed that I couldn’t go.”<br />
“Well, you wouldn’t, would you?”<br />
“No, of course not,” replied Doris, laughingly. “I’d be too homesick. But how about you, Marie Louise?”<br />
“Unfortunately I’ve arranged to go on studying all summer. You know I spoke of some such plan—well, I had already made my arrangements before Ethel called me up. But I am crazy to see the girls and hear all about it.”<br />
She seated herself upon the wide window-sill so that she might catch the first sight of her friends when they arrived. But she did not have long to wait; in less than ten minutes Ethel Todd put in an appearance. Both girls jumped up joyfully and hurried to the door.<br />
“Aren’t the others here yet?” asked Ethel, as soon as the greetings had subsided.<br />
“No, not yet,” replied Doris. “But they won’t be long and they’re all coming together. Now—come on upstairs, Ethel, and put your hat and coat away, for I want you to stay here. You know,” she explained laughingly, “I have only room enough to put up three of the girls, so three will have to stay at Marie Louise’s.”
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<p>“To continue,” said Alice: “you know that I told you my aunt is queer—a little ‘off’ we always considered her. Well, she goes on to add that we must make the trip inside of six weeks, follow the Lincoln Highway, not spend more than a certain sum of money she is depositing in my name, and—the last is worst of all—”<br />
“What?” demanded two or three of the scouts at once.<br />
“We are not to accept help of any men along the way!”<br />
The girls all burst out laughing immediately at the absurdity of such a suggestion. Yet there was not one among them who doubted that she could fulfill the conditions.<br />
“And what happens if we do take assistance?” asked Florence, when the merriment had subsided. “Do we have to pay for our own trip?”<br />
“No, but the guilty girls have to go home,” replied Alice.<br />
“Can’t you just see us dropping one by one ‘by the wayside’” remarked Lily, “because we accept masculine chivalry. Really, it will be hard—”<br />
“Oh, we can do it!” said Marjorie, with her usual assurance. She put down her hockey stick and went over to the tea-table to make tea. The subject was too interesting to allow her guests to depart.
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<p>“Provided we traveled one hundred miles a day, which really is not a tiring distance, we ought to be able to make the trip in thirty days,” Marjorie estimated. “And that will give us fifteen days surplus.”<br />
“We can surely afford three days at Mae’s,” announced Lily. “And perhaps we could visit some other school or college friends along the way.”<br />
But Marjorie shook her head decidedly.<br />
“No,” she said; “I am willing to visit Mae, but nobody else. We shall need every one of those twelve remaining days. Suppose we have to stop for repairs, or get lost, or are held up by a bad storm—”<br />
“That will do, Calamity Jane!” exclaimed Alice, putting her hand over Marjorie’s mouth. “We don’t expect any misfortunes at all!”<br />
“No, we don’t expect them, but we don’t want to lose our cars just because we didn’t allow enough time.”<br />
“Marj!” exclaimed John, suddenly. “I have it! If you get in trouble, wire for us, and we’ll put on skirts! We used that disguise effectively last year—why not now?”<br />
The girl gazed at him mournfully.<br />
“Too bad, John, but it couldn’t be done! Unfortunately we’ll be on our honor now, and we’d know you were boys. Unless—” she smiled at the idea—“unless you were clever enough to deceive us!”<br />
“Nobody’s clever enough to deceive you, Marjorie! Not that I want to, but—”<br />
“Speaking of deception,” interrupted Alice, “I have been wondering how my aunt is going to be sure that we do live up to her conditions. She doesn’t know us, or anything about our characters.”<br />
“Maybe she wrote to college for references,” suggested Marjorie. “Or maybe she knows the high standards of all Girl Scouts.”<br />
“Let us hope so!” said John. “But perhaps she knows about Alice, and judges you all from her.”<br />
“Anyhow,” concluded Marjorie, “we’ll send her a detailed plan of our trip, so she can check us up if she wants to. Then we’ll go ahead, with the motto of ‘do or die’!”
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<p>“Tell us more,” urged Florence.<br />
“The best is yet to come,” said Alice, her eyes sparkling with pleasure, because of the further revelation she was about to make. “There is a reward at the end!”<br />
“A reward!” repeated Marjorie. “As if the trip itself weren’t enough—”<br />
“Yes, this is the marvelous part. If we fulfill all the conditions, and reach Aunt Emeline’s house by midnight of August first, each girl is to receive a brand-new runabout, for her very own!”<br />
“What? What?” demanded all the girls at the same time, unable to believe their ears.<br />
“Shall we accept the offer?” continued Alice.<br />
“Shall we?” cried Florence. “As if there were any doubt!” She jumped up and gave Alice an ecstatic little squeeze.
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<p>Just at this point Marjorie’s brother commenced to chuckle to himself, as if he were enjoying some private joke.<br />
“Tell us, Jack, so we can have some fun,” suggested Ethel.<br />
“Oh, it’s nothing!” replied Jack. “Only—well, I don’t want to be a kill-joy, or anything like that, you know; but I just couldn’t help but think how funny it would be if somebody were playing a practical joke on you all.”<br />
“What do you mean?” demanded Marjorie.<br />
“Why, suppose you went ahead and made all your plans and bought a lot of things, and then found out in the end that the letter was all a joke—”<br />
“You mean that you don’t believe that I have an Aunt Emeline?” interrupted Alice.<br />
“No, not that. With due respect to your aunt, you must admit it’s a mighty unusual proposal for her to make to a bunch of girls she never saw, no matter if she is as rich as all get out. The proposition’s wild enough, but the idea of her giving each girl a runabout as a reward if she wins through—that’s what gets me.”<br />
“Anyone rich enough and crazy enough to pay our expenses would be crazy enough to do anything,” said Alice.<br />
“And she probably doesn’t expect us to win,” put in Florence.<br />
“Well, I’d wait till I saw a check for those expenses, if I were you; then, if it turned out to be a joke, you wouldn’t be so much out of pocket. That’s what I mean!”<br />
“Silly! As if we haven’t thought of those things!” exclaimed his sister. “I’ve been pinching myself every day, expecting to wake up from a dream—until Alice wrote a letter saying we could go, and then received that check by return mail. Think up some other excuse to keep us home, Jackie; that one won’t work.”<br />
“You needn’t worry about the money, Jack,” explained Alice. “It’s safely deposited in bank to my account!”<br />
“Well, anyway,” Jack replied, “I object to this party’s being turned into a business meeting. Let’s forget it—and dance!”<br />
“Jack is right,” agreed Doris. Then, turning to her husband, “Put on a record, Roger, and let’s begin.”<br />
The remainder of the evening passed entirely to the boys’ satisfaction.
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<p>The other girls were just as enthusiastic, and they discussed the affair from every angle, while they drank Marjorie’s tea and nibbled at some nabiscoes which Lily produced from her cake box. When they came to the selection of a chaperone, they were all unanimous in their desire to have Mrs. Remington.<br />
“But would she leave her husband for such a long time?” asked Lily, doubtfully.<br />
“It wouldn’t be a question of leaving him,” answered Marjorie. “Because he has to go to some sort of Boy Scout camp this summer for the months of July and August—she told me about it in her last letter. So she might be very glad of the invitation.”<br />
“Then that settles that,” said Alice. “Marj, will you write immediately?”<br />
“I certainly will, and I’ll write home for permission for myself at the same time.”<br />
“Marj!” exclaimed Lily, suddenly. “What about the Hadleys? Didn’t you promise that you’d go to the seashore—?”
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<p>“What I can’t understand,” mused Florence, who had been carefully considering every aspect of the offer, “is why your aunt should want us to make the trip independent of all masculine assistance. Especially when, as you say, Alice, she shows such preference for her two nephews.”<br />
“Oh, it’s just an idea of hers—a notion that she’s taken, I suppose,” replied Alice. “When you’re awfully rich and awfully old, you sometimes do crazy things just for the novelty of it.”<br />
“My, what a philosopher you are!” joked Florence. “You sound as if you had been both old and rich!”<br />
“My theory,” put in Marjorie, “is that it has something to do with the nephews. She has probably boasted of our work last summer, and perhaps the boys belittled it. So I think this might be a kind of wager.”<br />
“That sounds plausible!” exclaimed Lily. “Well, let’s do all in our power to make the old lady win.”<br />
“And yet,” interposed Florence, “she may be on the other side, hoping we don’t live up to the conditions. It would certainly be cheaper for her if we fell down—”<br />
“Girls, I think you’re all wrong,” said Daisy. “I think she is just a lovely old lady, who has read about our work, and wants to reward us. But she thinks we’ll appreciate our cars more if we earn them, and that’s the reason she put on all these conditions.”<br />
“Come, we’re not getting anywhere!” interrupted Florence, “and the time’s passing.” A glance at her watch assured her that the supper hour was imminent.<br />
“Meet here day after tomorrow,” suggested Marjorie, as the girls rose to take their leave; “and try to have your parents’ permission by then.”<br />
“We’ll have it!” cried two or three of the girls. “We wouldn’t miss this chance for the world!”
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<p>“Now don’t let’s have an argument on a college girl’s chances versus those of a business woman!” protested Lily. “And by the way, wasn’t it too bad that we couldn’t any of us be at Mae’s wedding to see who would catch the bride’s bouquet! We won’t know who will be the next victim!”<br />
“Maybe we’ll all be old maids,” laughed Marjorie. “At any rate, I don’t think any of us will be running off soon, since we’re all six in college. And that reminds me, haven’t we four been mean to go on talking about this marvelous proposition, and not make any attempt to go get Daisy—”<br />
“I’ll go for her this instant!” volunteered Alice, jumping immediately to her feet. “It is a shame—”<br />
She was off in a moment, skipping down the hall like a happy child.<br />
It was not long before she returned with Daisy Gravers, another Girl Scout of the patrol, and the subject was discussed all over again with a thoroughness that omitted no details. The girls’ only regret was that Ethel Todd, a junior at Bryn Mawr, could not be present to hear all about it.<br />
“I’ll write to her,” said Alice. “Then, if we can all six go—and Mrs. Remington—”<br />
“And maybe Marie Louise,” put in Daisy.
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<p>Marjorie Wilkinson and Lily Andrews sauntered down the hall of the dormitory towards their rooms, humming tunes and dragging their hockey sticks along the floor behind them. They were enjoying a particularly jubilant mood, for their team had just been victorious; the sophomores of Turner College had succeeded in defeating the juniors in a closely contested game of hockey. And Marjorie and Lily both played on the team.<br />
As they paused at the door of their sitting-room, Florence Evans, a member of the old senior patrol of Pansy Troop of Girls Scouts, and now a freshman at college, came out to meet them. She had run in for news of the game, and finding the girls away, had decided to await their return.<br />
“Who won?” she demanded, without any ceremony.<br />
“We did!” announced Lily, triumphantly. “Naturally—with such a captain!” She nodded proudly towards Marjorie.<br />
“Congratulations!” cried Florence, seizing both girls by the hands and leading them back to the room. “Now—tell me all about it!”<br />
Marjorie had scarcely begun her account of the thrilling match when she was interrupted by the abrupt entrance of Alice Endicott, another freshman who had been a Girl Scout of the same troop, looking as if she carried the most startling news in the world. Naturally vivacious, her cheeks glowed and her eyes shone with even greater brilliancy than usual. The girls stopped talking instantly, aware that her excitement was not due to any event so ordinary as a hockey game.
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<p>By dint of much persuasion, Marjorie was induced to leave the garage and go into the house. Here she found new sources of interest; Mrs. Hadley had collected catalogues of sporting goods and books of advice upon motoring and crossing the country, and had piled them all upon the table in the living-room. The girls literally dived for them as soon as they realized what they were.<br />
“Of course we’ll need tents,” said Marjorie, turning immediately to the fascinating displays that were shown by the various dealers represented in the catalogues.<br />
“And look at these cunning little folding stoves!” cried Lily, pointing to an illustration that captured her eye.<br />
“Don’t forget dishes!” put in Alice. “They ought to be tin or aluminum—”<br />
“You better carry a revolver apiece,” cautioned John.<br />
“I don’t know about that,” remarked his mother. “The books and articles that I have read on the subject say that it is not necessary to carry that sort of protection. There is usually an unfailing courtesy to be found along the road, particularly in the west.”<br />
“But we have to go through the east to get to the west,” sighed Lily; “and it will be just our luck to encounter all sorts of obstacles—ghosts, or bootleggers, or bandits—just because we want so desperately to get there safely.”<br />
“But that only makes it so much more fun!” returned Marjorie.<br />
“Yes, I know you love danger, Marj. But one day you’ll love it too much. Sometimes it seems as if you almost court difficulties.”<br />
“Still, we always gain by them in the end!” she replied, triumphantly.<br />
“I’m more concerned about the little troubles—something going wrong with the car, for instance,” said Alice. “And I’m so afraid we’ll some of us be weak, and accept help, and—”<br />
“And be sent home like bad children!” supplied Marjorie.<br />
“Wouldn’t it be funny,” observed John, “if you would come home one by one until only Alice was left to return the car to her aunt! I’m afraid that I would just have to laugh!”<br />
“Well, if you did, you never need come around us again!” snapped Marjorie. “Girl Scouts wouldn’t want to see you—”<br />
“Then I promise to shed tears!” interrupted the young man, hastily.<br />
“However, nothing like that is going to happen,” said Marjorie, conclusively. “We’re going across the continent with flying colors, as all Girl Scouts could, if they had the chance. It’s the opportunity of a life-time!”
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<p>The girls turned again to their catalogues, and made long lists of articles, stopping every few minutes to discuss flash-lights, spare-tires, khaki breeches, in fact anything that came into their minds or to their notice. Alice’s aunt had told them that she would stand the expenditures for the equipment, and they were only afraid that they would buy more than they could comfortably carry.<br />
Nor did this danger grow any less during the next few days when they actually beheld the things themselves in the stores. Alice and Lily both wanted to spend lavishly; it was Marjorie who laid the restraining hand upon them.<br />
At the end of three days their purchasing was completed; there yet remained the more difficult task of mapping out the trip. Authorities seemed generally to recommend the Lincoln Highway as a good route across the continent, so the girls were glad that their benefactor had stipulated this road.<br />
They planned to start from Philadelphia on the fifteenth of June, aiming to reach their destination by the first of August.
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<p>“That makes seven of us to go,” she said, using her fingers for the calculation. “I should think that two machines would really be enough.”<br />
“Yes,” answered Alice, “because we are to travel light. I forgot to tell you that one of my aunt’s stipulations is that we wear our Girl Scout uniforms all the time. We can express our trunks ahead, packed with the clothing we want to wear after we get to California.”<br />
“Then everybody will know we’re scouts?” asked Florence.<br />
“Yes; you don’t mind, do you?”<br />
“I’m proud of it!” replied the other, loyally.<br />
“If you take a big seven-passenger car,” said Lily, “wouldn’t it be possible to take my Rolls as a second? It really runs wonderfully.”<br />
“It would do beautifully,” answered Marjorie; and all the others approved her decision.<br />
“Do we camp along the way, or do we expect to stop at inns and hotels?” asked Ethel.<br />
“Both,” replied Alice. “You see we have to be a little bit economical because Aunt Emeline is only allowing us a certain amount for our trip; and if we spend any more, even though it is our own money, we forfeit our reward. So we must be rather thrifty.”
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<p>Five minutes later the girls were seated in John Hadley’s Ford, driving through the city to the suburbs where his mother’s home was located. Marjorie as usual was in high spirits, but again John experienced that intangible sensation of jealousy because her happiness seemed to be caused rather by her bright expectations than by his mere presence. While she was asking him about the new car, he suddenly sighed audibly; somehow he felt that as long as the Girl Scouts continued to plan these novel undertakings, he would never hold anything but second place in Marjorie’s interest. The girl noticed the sigh, and asked him whether she were boring him.<br />
“Of course not!” he declared emphatically. “As if you ever could—”<br />
“Then what is it?” she asked sympathetically.<br />
“Only that I wish that I were a Girl Scout—to merit more of your attention.”<br />
Marjorie laughed merrily; she did not believe that the young man was in earnest.<br />
“You didn’t answer my question,” she persisted. “Has the car come yet?”<br />
“Yes; it’s in our garage.”<br />
“Oh, goody! Drive fast then, John. It seems as if I can’t wait a minute to see it!”<br />
Obedient to her command he put on all his power, in defiance of the speed laws in the city, and reached home in an incredibly short time for a Ford. Marjorie waited only to pay her respects to Mrs. Hadley; then without even removing her hat, she followed John’s machine out to the garage. There she found the new possession, shining and bright and handsome with its fresh paint and polished metal.
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<p>“Let’s get in and drive it immediately!” she cried. “I think it’s the most beautiful car I ever saw!”<br />
“Not the most beautiful,” corrected Lily. “At least I wouldn’t admit it could compare with my Rolls-Royce—”<br />
“Or my Ford!” put in John, and the girls all laughed.<br />
“It will be great to drive into town every day to do our shopping,” remarked Alice. “Won’t we feel grand—?”<br />
“I’m afraid that won’t be very satisfactory,” said John. “On account of the parking rules. You can’t leave a machine alone, you know; you would have to put it into a garage.”<br />
“We can easily do that,” remarked Alice, airily. “Money is scarcely a consideration with us now!”<br />
“Doesn’t that sound fine?” laughed Marjorie. “I guess it’s the first time in our lives that we were ever able to say that.”<br />
“And probably the last time,” added Lily. “Unless some of us marry those rich heirs of your aunt, Alice!”<br />
John glanced up apprehensively at this suggestion.<br />
“What’s this about rich heirs?” he asked, with so much concern that all three of the girls burst into laughter.<br />
“You’ll probably never see Marjorie again!” teased Alice. “When we meet these two cousins of mine who are destined to inherit all of Aunt Emeline’s money, Marj will just fall for them. And of course they’ll fall for her!”<br />
“Oh, of course!” said Marjorie, sarcastically.<br />
“Maybe some of us fellows had better take the trip in my tin Lizzie after all,” observed John.<br />
“Nothing doing!” protested Marjorie, emphatically. “We’d be sure to break our rule not to accept help from men along the way. And then we’d forfeit our trip, and our reward at the end, too.”<br />
“Well, I hope you don’t have any accidents along the way,” said John. “Though I do hate to think of you girls all by yourselves, so far away!”<br />
“Oh, you needn’t worry,” Alice reassured him. “Don’t forget we’re not just ordinary girls. We’re Girl Scouts!”
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<p>Where may she of the hall bedroom hold the love-hour?<br />
In what sweet privacy find her soul before the face of the belovéd?<br />
And the kiss that lifts her from the noise of the shop,<br />
And the bitter carelessness of the streets?<br />
Neither is there garden nor secret parlor for her:<br />
And cruel winter has spoiled the shores of the sea;<br />
The benches in the park are laden with melting snow,<br />
And the bedroom forbidden...
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<p>Outside rumbled the cars between drifts of the gas-lit snow,<br />
And the footsteps fell of the wanderers in the night...<br />
Within, the dark house slept...<br />
But we, in our little cave, stood, and saw in the gleaming dark<br />
Shine of each other’s eyes, and the flutter of wisps of hair,<br />
And our words were breathlessly sweet, and our kisses silent...
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<p>But ah, the love of a woman! She will not be cheated!<br />
Up the stoop she went to the vestibule of the house,<br />
And beckoned to me to come to that darkness of doors:<br />
Here in a crevice of the public city the love-hour was spent...
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<p>Where is there rose-garden,<br />
Where is there balcony among the cedars and pines,<br />
Where is there moonlit clearing in the dumb wilderness,<br />
Enchanted as this doorway, dark in the glare of the city?
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