"I just got light-headed," she said, in a weak voice. "I think maybe it"s because I"m--I"m hungry."
"Why didn"t we think of it before?" asked Hinpoha, filled with self- reproach. "We might have known you hadn"t had anything to eat since yesterday if you stayed in that storeroom all night. We"ll stop in this village and get you something."
"I"d rather you wouldn"t," said Pearl, in a somewhat embarra.s.sed manner. "I really don"t want anything to eat."
"Not want anything to eat!" echoed Hinpoha. "Why don"t you want to eat if you"re hungry?"
"You see," answered Pearl, still more embarra.s.sed, "when I, when I ran away, I didn"t stop to take my purse and I haven"t any money to pay--"
"That"s nonsense," said Gladys, firmly. "You have got to let us help you. It isn"t any more than you would do for someone in the same position."
They stopped and got her something to eat and the others drank pop to keep her company. In spite of her being as hungry as she must have been Pearl did not eat very much; her trouble had evidently taken away her appet.i.te. The girls exerted themselves to cheer her and a.s.sured her that everything would come out all right as soon as they found Nyoda and got her advice.
Somebody must have been moving a crockery store in the neighborhood and dropped it in the middle of the road, for, as they were pa.s.sing through the outskirts of the little village where they had stopped they ran into a regular field of broken china. Gladys stopped short when she saw it, but it was too late, they were already in the midst of it. Both the front tires breathed their last. I think it should be made a criminal offense to leave things like that in the road. But then maybe the man carrying the china was knocked down by an automobile in the first place, and left the pieces in order to get revenge on some member of the auto driving fraternity. Ever since then I have been wondering how many of our calamities are brought down upon us by our best friends.
Gladys backed out of the mess and set about repairing the damage. The Striped Beetle carried two extra tires done up in a nice shiny cover all ready for emergency, but for some reason or other Gladys couldn"t get the old tires off. It seems the demountable rims refused to demount, or whatever it is they are expected to do when you take a tire off.
Don"t expect me to get the details straight or I shall throw up the job of reporter right here. I never could see through the workings of a motor car. I am like the Indian who had the automobile explained to him until he knew every part like a brother and then, when asked if he understood it, he replied that he understood all but one thing and that was what made it go without horses. So if the reader, who knows a car from A to Z, will kindly forbear to smile when I muddle things up, I will be her debtor forever.
Gladys saw that she would have to have help in getting those tires off and began scanning the horizon for a man. There are times when a man is a most useful member of society. There was not a man on the horizon at that time, though, and the only promising thing was a house set far back from the road in a grove of trees, and with a vegetable garden running down to the road. They had already left the village behind and habitations were scarce. Gladys went up to the house and returned in a short while with a man, who wrestled with the tires awhile and then proposed driving the car into the yard in the shade of the trees, as the sun was scorching hot in the road. Gladys accepted the invitation with alacrity.
While the Striped Beetle was holding up its poor cut front shoes for the man to take off the girls strolled over to the pump for a drink. A tired-looking woman, holding a fretful baby in her arms, came to the door and asked the girls to come up on the porch and sit down until the exchange of tires was made. Medmangi promptly offered to hold the baby while the woman finished her work. With a sigh of relief the woman handed her the baby.
"Such a time I"ve had with him to-day," she said, mopping her forehead.
"He"s cried steady since morning. He acts sick and he"s got a fever."
Medmangi took the fretful child and endeavored to soothe him while his mother went about her work. Hinpoha, who is crazy about babies, insisted on holding him half the time, but neither of them could make him stop crying. A three year old girl, red-faced and heavy-eyed, as if she had recently awakened from sleep, peered shyly through the screen door and Chapa coaxed her to come out and sit in her lap. The mother came to the door every few minutes to tell us how thankful she was for the relief.
The relief promised to be one of considerable length, for the Striped Beetle steadfastly refused to put on its new tires. At last, the man proposed going after another man who lived down the road to help him.
Gladys joined us on the porch while he was gone and helped amuse the babies. Still the little fellow cried. Medmangi explored for pins with a skilled hand but there was nothing sticking into him. Neither did he appear to be teething.
"There"s something the matter with this baby," she said to the mother, when next she came to the door. "Hadn"t you better have a doctor?"
The woman came out on the porch and looked down at the child in a worried way. "I sent my husband to town for the doctor this morning,"
she said, "but he had gone out into the country on a call and would not be back until late to-night. The next nearest doctor is in B----; that"s eight miles away and we have no horse. So we"ll have to wait until Dr. Lane gets back from the country."
"Wouldn"t you like to have me drive over and get the doctor from B---- as soon as the tires are on?" asked Gladys. Gladys is always the one to offer the helping hand.
"Would you?" asked the woman, eagerly.
"I would be very glad to," said Gladys.
The man came back with his friend and between the two of them they managed to get the Striped Beetle shod anew. Gladys drove off to B----, leaving Chapa and Medmangi and Pearl and Hinpoha on the porch with the babies and taking Mrs. Martin with her. She had seen Mrs. Martin give a wistful glance toward the big car and surmised rightly that she had few chances to go automobile riding. They were back in less than an hour saying that the doctor would be right along, and he appeared presently in a dusty roadster with another man beside him, probably a friend.
I suppose everybody has been taught from childhood that virtue is its own reward and one good turn deserves another. But once in awhile they discover that the reward of virtue is just as apt to be trouble as not, and that one good turn can unscrew the lid of a whole canful of calamities. Thus it was that Gladys"s generous offer to fetch the doctor from B---- ended up in disaster for all five of us. For the doctor examined the fretful baby and the heavy-eyed little girl and announced that they both had scarlet fever.
Scarlet fever! The girls looked at each other in dismay. Not one of them had had it. And they had all handled both the babies; Medmangi had hung over the little boy most of the time.
"If we have ourselves disinfected," said Medmangi, as they moved hastily toward the car, "there won"t be much danger of our getting it.
Scarlet fever isn"t really contagious in the first stages."
"Stay right where you are," said the doctor, in a tone of authority.
"No one must leave this house. You are all under quarantine."
"But we can"t stay here," said Gladys. "We"re touring and only stopped here."
"That makes no difference," said the doctor. He was a very young doctor and had recently been appointed health officer in his district. There was a serious epidemic of scarlet fever in that part of the state which it was almost impossible to check because people would not keep to themselves when they had it in the house. Young Dr. Caxton had made up his mind that the next case that was reported would be as rigidly quarantined as they were in the big cities. And automobile tourists would be the very ones to spread the infection abroad through the countryside. He was determined to hold them there at all costs.
They argued and pleaded in vain; he was obdurate. He had brought a friend with him in the car and he proceeded to station him as guard over the house to see that no one left it. Oh yes, he would see to it that they got all necessary supplies; they would suffer no hardship, but, on no account, would a member of that household set a foot off the grounds. He ordered the babies put to bed and the curtains taken down in that room and the rugs taken out. Mrs. Martin obeyed his orders in a flutter of distress. She was frightened because her children had the scarlet fever and worried half to death at the predicament her pa.s.sing guests were in. She had been so grateful to Gladys for taking her along in the automobile to B----.
But her distress over it was nothing compared to theirs. To be held up in the midst of a tour and quarantined with a scarlet fever case!
Whatever was to become of them? If Nyoda were only there!
"Now you"ll have to telegraph your father," said Chapa.
Gladys"s face was drawn with distress. "Mother would be frightened to death if she knew about it," she said. "I don"t believe I"ll tell her yet. I"ll wait until I hear from Nyoda."
"How will we get word to Nyoda?" asked Hinpoha.
"Ft. Wayne," answered Gladys. "We were to stay there to-night and she must be there by this time."
"You"ll send a wire for us?" she asked the doctor beseechingly.
"Certainly," he answered, amiably. "Any service--"
But Gladys cut him short. He was plainly enjoying the situation. The doctor departed with his horrid shiny little case and the message in his pocket and left the guard to watch the house. The first thing he did was to take something out of the Striped Beetle--I don"t know what--so Gladys couldn"t start it and make a dash for liberty. Gladys was ready to cry with rage at this high handed act, but that was all the good it did her.
"Well, there"s one thing about it," said Hinpoha, who was far more philosophical than the rest, "if we have to stay prisoners here we might as well get busy and help Mrs. Martin. It"s no fun to have five people quartered on you when there are two sick children in the house."
Medmangi was already in the sick room giving medicine and drinks of water in an accomplished manner. It seems that the Winnebagos have a specialist in every line.
The others went down to the kitchen and finished paring the peaches which Mrs. Martin had been trying to can.
Later in the evening the guard slipped an envelope through the screen door. It was a telegram. It was signed by the telegraph company and read: "Yours date addressed Elizabeth Kent Potter Hotel Ft. Wayne undelivered. Party not registered."
CHAPTER IX.
The girls were entirely at sea at not reaching Nyoda at Ft. Wayne. They had counted so confidently upon her advice to help them out of the difficulty in which they found themselves. Being lost from her was the worst calamity they could conceive of. They were very much puzzled and a little hurt that she should have run away and left them as she did.
It was so unlike Nyoda. On all other expeditions she had kept them under her eye every minute, like the careful Guardian she was. None of them slept much that night for worrying over the strange predicament they were in. Besides that they had to sleep three in a bed. Gladys made up her mind to wire her father in the morning when the doctor came.
When they looked out of the door in the morning the guard of the day before was gone and a new one had taken his place. Evidently Dr. Caxton was going to do the job thoroughly. Towards noon a buggy drove into the yard and a white-haired man got out and came up on the porch. He carried a shabby medicine case.
"Why, Dr. Lane!" exclaimed Mrs. Martin cordially, when she saw him.
"You left a call for me yesterday when I was out in the country," said Dr. Lane, in a pleasant voice. "I did not get in until early this morning. What"s the trouble?"