Dorothy Dale's Camping Days
Margaret Penrose
Paperback
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, April 11, 2014)
"Oh, my!" exclaimed one girl. "Oh, mine!" amended another. "Oh, ours!" called out a third. Then there was one awful bump, and the chorus was understood. The old-style hay wagon, which was like a big crib, wobbled from side to side. The young ladies followed its questionable example, and some of them "sort of" lapped-over on the others. "Dorothy Dale!" gasped one particularly sensitive member of the party, "we thought when you vouched for this affair that it would turn out all right!" "But it hasn't turned out anything yet," replied Dorothy, "although we all came pretty near it—that time." She clasped her hand around one of the braces of the hayrick, evidently determined that should she be "turned out" her arm would be responsible. "That's just like you, Nita Brant," declared Tavia Travers, the latter really being manager of the occasion. "When I go to work, and hire a car like this, and especially stipulate that the ride shall be—rural—you kick on the bumps." But scarcely had she uttered these words, when a "bump" came, with neither time nor opportunity for Nita's "kick." In fact, it was remarkable that the old hay wagon did not actually carry out its threat, to roll over in the direction toward which it wobbled.