The Motor Maids by Rose, Shamrock and Thistle

"The water's very black this morning. Lydies wouldn't bithe in it," called the voice of the stewardess outside the stateroom door.

"This lydy would," answered Wilhelmina Campbell from the top berth. "She's only talking," she added in a lower tone. "A cold salt bath, please, stewardess."

"Very well, mum. Will the other lydy have a bath?"

"Nancy, hot or cold?" demanded Billie, dangling one foot out of the berth to attract her friend's attention.

Groans were the only reply of Nancy Brown.

"Not seasick already, and this only the first night out?"

"I don't think I'll last through the day, Billie," said Nancy in a weak voice. "I'm sure I don't want to last, even if I do," she added with Irish inconsequence.

"Why, you poor sick thing," exclaimed Billie, climbing down and leaning sympathetically over the other girl. "Can't I do anything for you?"

"Yes," groaned Nancy. "Leave me alone."

"Won't you have a little hot tea or a soft-boiled egg,--just heated through, you know?"

"Eggs!" Nancy shrieked, and buried her face in her pillow with a shudder of horror.

"It will be all right, Nancy-Bell, if you can just make up your mind to drink something hot and come on deck. Lots of food and fresh air will always cure seasickness," added Billie with a healthy ignorance of upset stomachs.

"Eat something and go on deck?" mumbled Nancy from the depths of her pillow. "I couldn't keep it down till I got there, no matter if it was--air."

Nevertheless, Billie ordered hot tea from the stewardess as she slipped on her dressing gown and started on her pilgrimage to the bathroom. The ship was rolling mightily, and not many people were bathing that morning, but Billie was an old traveler, and she staggered cheerfully along the ship's passage, and in fifteen minutes had emerged glowing from her cold plunge. On the way back she stopped at the stateroom occupied by her cousin, Miss Helen Campbell, and her two other friends, Elinor Butler and Mary Price.

"Come in," called her cousin's voice in a sad, colorless tone.

"Why, dearest Cousin Helen," exclaimed Billie, bursting into the stateroom, "you aren't seasick, too?"

"I can't say I feel very robust, my dear," exclaimed the little lady with the ghost of a smile.

"Don't you think it would do you good to come on deck?" began Billie.

"My dear, I couldn't lift a little finger if the ship were sinking," and Miss Campbell turned her face to the wall and refused to speak again.

"But, Mary--but, Elinor----" began Billie again, feeling something like a race horse who has no competitors.

Mary made no reply. Her face was white and her lips set as she endeavored to draw on her clothes.

Elinor smiled wanly.

"I believe you are all seasick," exclaimed Billie accusingly.

"I'm not in the least seasick," replied Elinor, drawing herself up proudly, "but I've had an attack of indigestion. Something I ate last night for dinner disagreed with me,--I think it was the chocolate ice cream----"

At the mere mention of chocolate ice cream Mary collapsed on her berth and Miss Campbell groaned aloud.

"Dear! dear!" said Billie softly, closing the door and stealing away to her stateroom. "Plague, pestilence and famine aren't worse than seasickness."

Only proud Elinor braved the dangers of breakfast that morning with Billie. Mary Price, stricken down by the memory of chocolate ice cream, could not lift her head from the pillow. Nancy refused to speak and Miss Campbell lay in a comatose state and declined all nourishment.

You will remember that in a former volume,--"The Motor Maids Across the Continent,"--it was prophesied by a Gypsy fortune teller in San Francisco that Miss Campbell and the Motor Maids would soon take a long voyage across stormy waters to a foreign land. Nothing had seemed more improbable at the time, and the travelers had laughed incredulously. Nevertheless, the Comet, their faithful red motor car, was stored at that moment in the ship's hold with other baggage, and the four friends and Miss Helen Campbell were now sailing on the broad Atlantic.

It was Billie and her Cousin Helen, those two insatiate wanderers, who had planned the journey, and it was Billie's indulgent father, Mr. Duncan Campbell, who had actually cabled his permission all the way from Russia.

Through raging seas they had sailed, then, as the old Gypsy had prophesied, for they had scarcely said farewell to the towers of New York that stand clustered together at one end of the island, and sailed around Sandy Hook, when they met with a gale that rocked the deeps and churned the waters into foam. All night the boat rolled and pitched, and all night the suffering passengers groaned in their berths; all save that incorrigible Billie Campbell, who slept the sleep of the perfectly healthy and snuggled under her covers comfortably when the wind whistled through the cordage.

Scarcely a dozen people appeared in the dining-room that morning, and Billie and Elinor were the only women. Elinor almost collapsed as they passed the belt of cooking smells on the way to the dining-room. They had not taken one of the larger and more expensive ships on which science has eliminated all offensive smells of the kitchen. But it's a wonderful thing what will power will do, and strengthened by orange juice and hot tea, Elinor's fortitude returned, the color came into her cheeks and the light to her eyes.

"If seasick people would only eat," Billie was saying, "they wouldn't mind the rocking a bit. It's that empty feeling that makes things so bad."

Elinor nodded her head. She still couldn't trust herself to reply.

"The mistake seasick people make," observed a young man about twenty-one, sitting opposite to them, "is to drink slops. Solids are the thing,--like this, for instance."

The two girls regarded his breakfast for one brief moment; then Elinor fled from the table like a hunted soul. He was eating bananas, cereal, chops, fried eggs, finnan haddie,--which smelt abominably at that unfortunate time,--and griddle cakes.

"It's too bad I mentioned 'slops,'" he observed to Billie in an apologetic tone. "It's a dangerous word to use on a ship. On land it's safe enough."

"It wasn't slops that made her sick," replied Billie indignantly. "It was the sight of--of so--much----"

"Coarse food?" he finished.

Billie nodded.

"And just as I'd got her to order a poached egg on toast, too! It's a perfect shame. It was that smelly fish that did the business."