Read Ebook: The Motor Maids by Rose Shamrock and Thistle by Stokes Katherine Wrenn Charles L Charles Lewis Illustrator

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Ebook has 1692 lines and 56026 words, and 34 pages

"They're a fightin' lot in America," she said. "At least they are around West Haven. But you mustn't say so to my friend. She's very proud of her blood, and we're making a special trip to the west coast of Ireland just to meet her cousins."

While Billie was eating her poached eggs and breakfast bacon, her new friend had waded through his repast with amazing rapidity. As he was finishing off the last griddle cake, he was joined by an old man who reminded Billie curiously of a Shetland pony. His body was small and a thick growth of shaggy hair covered his large head and hung in his eyes. His face was rugged and strong, and his black eyes twinkled with a kind of secret amusement toward the entire world and everybody in it.

"Good morning, Feargus O'Connor. How's your appetite? Just a bird's, eh? Nothing but toast and tea?"

Feargus smiled placidly at the empty plates in front of him.

"You see naught before me, sir. It might mean anything,--all or nothing."

Billie could not help laughing. She liked this funny young Irishman with his good-natured face and his kind blue eyes that could be fierce at a moment's notice. She rather liked the other man, too. He was very old, but his voice had a wonderfully vibrant quality in it, like that of a person in the habit of speaking in public. Perhaps he was an actor. It was always fun to guess what people were in traveling. Billie would almost rather not discover their identities in order to weave romances about them. Feargus, she imagined, was a young student, returning to Ireland to visit his people. She would have liked to linger at table a little with this agreeable pair of strangers, but she felt that it was her duty to return to her unhappy friends and minister to them, if there was anything that they would allow to be ministered. When Billie and her father had traveled together they had always made it a point to talk to everybody within talking distance at table and on deck, and Billie was not in the least embarrassed, therefore, at having been drawn into conversation with Feargus O'Connor.

As she rose to leave the dining-room she heard him say to his friend:

"Where's Victor?"

"He was pretty low until I gave him the infallible remedy," answered the other. "He's all right now. I daresay he'll be along in a few moments."

"Oh," cried Billie, "do you know something that's good for seasickness?"

"You're not ill?" he asked with a note of surprise in his voice, seeing that her cheeks were ruddy with health and that she showed no signs of precipitating herself from the place as people often did in ship's dining-rooms.

"No, no; but my cousin and my three friends are all very ill and I don't know what to do for them."

"I was at one time a physician on a steamer," said the man, "and I have cured many cases of seasickness. Do you think your friends would permit me to prescribe?"

"Have you really cured them quite quickly?" asked the young girl innocently.

"It certainly worked with me, that remedy," put in Feargus. "And I was about to pass when you took my case. I ought to remember it because it was our first meeting, Mr. Kalisch."

"So it was."

"You really have a remedy for seasickness?" demanded Billie again.

"It has worked in most cases," said Mr. Kalisch. "I should be glad to give it to your friends if they are willing."

"I'm sure they would be very foolish not to be," exclaimed Billie. "I will run and see and let you know in five minutes."

Billie found a deplorable state of affairs in the two staterooms. Elinor had completely succumbed to the miseries of the disease and lay in her berth as white and still as a corpse. Miss Campbell was groaning to herself, and Mary was weeping silently. As for Nancy in the next room, she was too miserable to reply to her friend's inquiry and buried her face in her pillow.

"Cousin Helen," said Billie, "I'm going to bring a doctor in to see you who has an infallible cure for seasickness. Will you see him?"

There was only a moan for answer. The ship was filled with unhappy sounds; Billie felt almost ashamed to be so strong in the midst of all of this misery.

"It sounds very much like the Inferno," she thought as she hurried downstairs to the dining-room again.

"Mr. Kalisch, it would be very kind of you to come and see my friends," she said. "They are all of them very ill."

"I will go with you at once," answered the man, gulping down a last mouthful of coffee.

You will perhaps be surprised that even Billie's confiding nature permitted her to engage this strange physician to see her friends; but the young girl had a keen perception for honest dark eyes and lips that met in a resolute line. Indeed, she felt herself liking this Mr. Kalisch so much that even before they reached the stateroom she was inspired with confidence in his powers.

"Here they are," she said, leading him into the presence of her stricken friends. It was difficult to stand up straight with the rocking of the ship, and the small shaggy-haired man braced himself against the side of the berth and felt Miss Campbell's pulse.

"You feel quite ill, madam?" he asked.

"Quite," she answered faintly, opening her eyes and closing them again wearily.

"You have some pain?"

"No," she replied, looking at the doctor again and this time keeping the lids apart as the strange dark eyes held her attention.

It seemed to Billie almost a minute that he stood looking into the depths of her cousin's eyes. Then he took out of his pocket a small case containing little bottles, like those of homeopathic doctors.

"I'm going to give you a little pill," he said. "You will sleep an hour after taking it and you will wake up refreshed and well, ready to eat some breakfast and go out on deck."

Opening a narrow box in the case he took out a brown pill which Miss Campbell promptly swallowed. Then she turned over on her side and dropped off to sleep.

Mr. Kalisch treated the girls in exactly the same way, and they took their pills without a murmur. One of the tiny brown spheres fell on the bed and Billie took it and touched it with the tip of her tongue.

"I wonder if it will put me to sleep?" she thought.

She tasted it again, then calmly chewed it up and swallowed it. But she felt no inclination to sleep as the others had done.

After administering a brown pill to Nancy, who responded to treatment almost before it was given and fell asleep like a baby immediately, Mr. Kalisch took his departure. Billie tiptoed to the door after him.

"Were the pills made of brown bread?" she asked, smiling.

"How did you find it out?" he demanded, the humorous look deepening in his eyes.

"I chewed one of them up."

The doctor gave her a delightful smile.

"Never tell them," he said. "Let it be a little secret between you and me. Not even Feargus O'Connor knows that he was cured by a 'suggestion pellet.' For some reason it always makes people mad to know that they have been taking bread instead of medicine."

"But it was something else, wasn't it, really?"

"Just pure bread and nothing more."

"But your eyes?" she persisted.

"Just your imagination, my dear young lady," he answered, smiling again as he hurried away.

Nevertheless, in another two hours, Billie had bundled her friends into their steamer chairs on deck, and they were drinking hot broth with much relish.

It was true that the storm had subsided. The wind had died down and the sun was shining cheerfully. Perhaps, after all, it was the change in the weather that had effected so complete a cure.

When a ship is small and the passengers are few, it becomes a floating home for one family. Everybody comes to know everybody else very well indeed after the second day out. The captain is the father of the family, and there is a great deal of talk about small, unimportant things.

So it was with the ship which bore our Motor Maids and Miss Helen Campbell to Europe. Every morning at eleven o'clock when the steward appeared with a tray of bouillon and biscuit, certain of the ship's forty passengers gathered about the Motor Maids in friendly intercourse. At least, already it seemed every morning, because this made the second time.

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