Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer.
THE MOTOR GIRLS
by Margaret Penrose
CHAPTER I
CORA AND HER CAR
"Now you've got it, what are you going to do with it?" asked Jack
Kimball, with a most significant smile at his sister Cora.
"Do with it?" repeated the girl, looking at her questioner insurprise; then she added, with a fine attempt at sarcasm: "Why, I'mgoing to have Jim break it up for kindling wood. It will make such alovely blaze on the library hearth. I have always loved blazingautos."
"Now, sis," objected the tall, handsome boy, as he swung his armabout the almost equally tall, and even handsomer girl, "don't getmad."
"Oh, I'm not in the least angry."
"Um! Maybe not. Put I honestly thought—well, maybe you would likesome of the boys to give you a lesson or two in driving the new car.There's Wally, you know. Ahem! I thought perhaps Wally—"
"Walter can run a machine—I'm perfectly willing to grant you that,
Jack. But this is my machine, and I intend to run it."
The girl stepped over to a window and looked out. There, on thedriveway, stood a new automobile. Four-cylindered, sliding-geartransmission, three speeds forward and reverse, long-wheel base, newignition system, and all sorts of other things mentioned in thecatalogue. Besides, it was a beautiful maroon color, and the leathercushions matched. Cora looked at it with admiration in her eyes.
An hour, before, Jack Kimball and his chum Walter Pennington, hadbrought the car from the garage to the house, following Mrs.Kimball's implicit instructions that the new machine should not bedriven an unnecessary block between the sales-rooms and the Kimballhome.
"The car must come to Cora on the eve of her birthday," Jack'smother had stipulated to him, "and I want it to come to her brandnew, with the tires nice and white. Hers must be the first ride init."
So it was, after "digesting her surprise," as she expressed it, andspending the intervening hour in admiring the beautiful machine,climbing in and out of it, testing the levers, turning the steeringwheel, and seeing Jack start the engine, that Cora was able to leaveit and enter the house.
"It's—it's just perfect;" she said, with a longing look back at thecar.
"Yes, and isn't it a shame mother won't let you go out in itto-night?" spoke Jack as he joined his sister at the window. "Ifthey had only unpacked it a little earlier—it's too bad not to havea run in it while it's fresh. But," he concluded with a sigh, "Isuppose I'll have to push it back in the shed."
"Yes," assented Cora, also sighing. "But mother must be humored,and if she insists that I shall not take a trial spin after dark,I'll simply have to wait until daylight. Jack, you're a dear! I knowperfectly well that you influenced mother to give me this," and Corabrushed her flushed a cheek against Jack's bronzed face.
"Well, I know a little sister when I see one," replied the lad; "andthough she may want to drive a motor-car, she's all right, for allthat," and Jack rather awkwardly slipped his arm around his sister'swaist again, for she did seem a "little sister" to him, even if shewas considered quite a young lady by others.
"Girls coming up to-night?" asked Jack after a pause, during whichthey both had been silently admiring the car and its graceful lines.
"I don't know," replied Cora. "They haven't heard about my