The way led out along a pleasant country road, which, for some distance, wound in and out among great maples that formed a leafy shade which might be most acceptable later in the day, since there was the promise of considerable heat at noon.

As yet it was early, a prompt enough start having been made to allow of an easy pace along the road.

“For,” Betty had said in reviewing the procedure to be followed, “we don’t want to tire ourselves out on the first stage of our trip.  We ought to begin gradually.  That is the way all athletes train.”

“Oh, then we are going to be athletes?” asked Amy.

“Walking athletes, at least,” responded the leader.  “Now, girls, if any of you feel like resting at any time, don’t hesitate to say so.  We want this to be an enjoyment, not a task, even if we are a regular club.”

So perfect was the day, and in such good spirits were the girls, that even the simplest sights and happenings along the highway brought forth pleased comments.  The sight of a cow placidly chewing her cud in a meadow, the patient creature standing knee-deep amid the buttercups, was a picture they all admired, Mollie carried a little camera, and insisted on snapping the bovine, though the other girls urged her to save some films with which to take their own pictures.

“But that cow will make such a lovely enlargement,” said Mollie.  “It’s like an artist’s painting.”

Bravely they marched along, with a confident swing and firm tread—­at least, all but Grace trod firmly, and she rather favored herself on account of her high heels.  But her chums were good enough not to laugh.

They passed farm houses, in the kitchen doors of which appeared the women and girls of the household, standing with rolled-up sleeves, arms akimbo, looking with no small wonder at the four travelers.

There were comments, too, not always inaudible.

“I wonder what they’re selling?” one woman asked her daughter, as they paused in their work of washing a seemingly innumerable number of milk pans.

“They take us for peddlers,” said Amy.

A little later a small boy, who had been playing horse in front of his house, scuttled back toward the kitchen, crying out: 

“Ma—­ma!  Come an’ see the suffragists!”

“Oh, mercy!” exclaimed Betty.  “What will we be taken for next?”

But it was fun, with all that, and such a novelty to the girls that they wondered why they had not before thought of this means of spending part of their vacation.

The sun crept higher in the sky, and the warmth of the golden beams increased.  The girls were thankful, now, for any shade they might encounter, and they were fortunate in that their way still lay in pleasant places.  They came to a little brook that ran under the road, and not far from it a roadside spring bubbled up.  Their collapsible drinking cups came in useful, and they remained for a little while in the shade near the cool spot.