forced them to go slower, they raced, and when they
slowed down they looked at each other and laughed in morning delight.

"I may not be very wise," said Linda, "but didn't I do the smartest
thing when I let Eileen have the touring car and saved the Bear Cat for
us?"

"Nothing short of inspiration," said Donald. "The height of my ambition
is to own a Bear Cat. If Father makes any mention of anything I would
like particularly to have for a graduation present, I am cocked and
primed as to what I shall tell him."

"You'd better save yourself a disappointment," said Linda soberly. "You
will be starting to college this fall, and when you do you will be gone
nine months out of the year, and I am fairly sure your father wouldn't
think shipping a Bear Cat back and forth a good investment, or
furnishing you one to take to school with you. He would fear you would
never make a grade that would be a credit to him if he did."

"My!" laughed Donald, "you've got a long head on your shoulders!"

"When you're thrown on your own for four of the longest, lonesomest
years of your life, you learn to think," said Linda soberly.

She was touching the beginning of Los Angeles traffic. Later she was on
the open road again. The mists were thinning and lifting. The perfume
was not so heavy. The sheeted whiteness of the orange groves was broken
with the paler white of plum merging imperceptibly into the delicate
pink of apricot and the stronger pink of peach, and there were deep
green orchards of smooth waxen olive foliage and the lacy-leaved
walnuts. Then came the citrus orchards again, and all the way on either
hand running with them were almost uninterrupted miles of roses of every
color and kind, and everywhere homes ranging from friendly mansions, all
written over in adorable flower color with the happy invitation, "Come
in and make yourself at home," to tiny bungalows along the wayside
crying welcome to this gay pair of youngsters in greetings fashioned
from white and purple wisteria, gold bignonia, every rose the world
knows, and myriad brilliant annual and perennial flower faces gathered
from the circumference of the tropical globe and homing enthusiastically
on the King's Highway. Sometimes Linda lifted her hand from the wheel
to wave a passing salute to a particularly appealing flower picture.
Sometimes she whistled a note or cried a greeting to a mockingbird, a
rosy finch, or a song sparrow.

"Look at the pie timber!" she cried