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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mary Jane's City Home, by Clara Ingram Judson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Mary Jane's City Home
+
+Author: Clara Ingram Judson
+
+Illustrator: Thelma Gooch
+
+Release Date: September 3, 2008 [EBook #26517]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY JANE'S CITY HOME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: And she pointed out the little seal who was a bit too slow.
+Frontispiece]
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+MARY JANE'S CITY HOME
+
+BY
+CLARA INGRAM JUDSON
+
+Author of
+"Flower Fairies," "Good-Night Stories,"
+"Billy Robin and His Neighbors," "Bed Time Tales,"
+"The Junior Cook Book," and Other Works
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY
+THELMA GOOCH
+
+NEW YORK
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+PUBLISHERS
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Copyright, 1920,
+by
+Barse & Hopkins
+
+PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+TO
+MY MOTHER and FATHER
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                               PAGE
+Finding the New Home             11
+The Folks Around The Corner      22
+Visiting with Betty              35
+Sand Castles                     49
+The Beach Supper                 64
+Mary Jane Goes Shopping          76
+The Bus Ride                     88
+The Birthday Luncheon           100
+Lost--One Doll Cart             115
+A Trip to the Zoo               128
+A Day in the Parks              143
+Visitors--and a Boat Ride       156
+School Begins                   171
+Christmas in Chicago            184
+A Summer Home--and a Telegram   201
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                              PAGE
+
+And she pointed out the little seal who was a bit
+too slow.                                             Frontispiece
+
+And then, sliding in the wet sand, she sat right
+down in the lake and sent a wave of ripples right
+over her castle                                                 60
+
+"But it's all down my dress," said Mary Jane, trying
+her very best not to cry                                       107
+
+This year, seeing Mary Jane was such a _very_ old
+person, she was allowed to put the gold star on the
+top of the tree                                                188
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+MARY JANE'S CITY HOME
+
+FINDING THE NEW HOME
+
+
+The late afternoon sunshine sent its slanting, golden rays through the car
+windows on to the map that Mary Jane and her sister Alice had spread out
+on the table between the seats of the Pullman in which they were riding.
+
+"And all that wiggly line is water?" Mary Jane was asking.
+
+"Every bit water," replied their father, who bent over their heads to
+explain what they were looking at; "a lot of water, you see. You remember
+I told you that Chicago is right on the edge of Lake Michigan. And Lake
+Michigan, so far as looks are concerned, might just as well be the ocean
+you saw down in Florida--it's so big you can't see the other side."
+
+"And does it have big waves?" asked Mary Jane.
+
+"Just you wait and see," promised Mr. Merrill. "Big waves! I should say it
+has!"
+
+"And all the green part of the map is parks," said Alice, quoting what her
+father had told them when he first showed them the map.
+
+"Then there must be a lot of parks," suggested Mary Jane with interest. "I
+think I'd like to live by a park," she added thoughtfully.
+
+"I think I should too," agreed Mr. Merrill, "and it's near a park we will
+make the first hunt for a home."
+
+"Oh, look!" cried Mary Jane suddenly as she glanced up from the spread-out
+map; "what's that, Dadah?"
+
+"That's the beginning of Chicago," said Mr. Merrill. "Let's fold up the
+map now and see what we can of the city. This is South Chicago; and those
+great stacks and flaming chimneys are steel mills and foundries and
+factories--watch now! There are more!"
+
+The train on which the Merrill family were traveling went dashing past
+factory after factory--past an occasional open space where they could see
+in the distance the blue gleam of Lake Michigan and past great wide
+stretches where tracks and more tracks on which freight cars and engines
+sped up and down showed them something of the whirling industry that has
+made South Chicago famous. No wonder it was a strange sight to the two
+girls--they had never before seen anything that made them even guess the
+big business that they now saw spread out before them.
+
+They had spent all their lives thus far--Alice was twelve and Mary Jane
+going on six--in a small city of the Middle West and though they had had a
+fine summer in the country visiting grandma and grandpa and had only the
+winter before taken a beautiful trip through Florida, they had never been
+to a great city. And now they were not going to visit or to take a trip.
+They were going to live there. The great big city of Chicago was to be
+their home.
+
+The pretty little house they had loved so well was sold. The furniture and
+books and dolls and clothes were all packed and loaded on a freight car to
+follow them to the city and all the dear friends had been given a
+farewell. Mary Jane had loved the excitement and muss of packing; the
+great boxes and the masses of crinkly excelsior and the workmen around who
+always had time for a pleasant joke with an interested little girl. But
+when it came time to say good-by to Doris and to her much loved
+kindergarten and to all the boys and girls in school and "on her block,"
+going away wasn't so funny. In fact, Mary Jane felt a queer and
+troublesome lump in her throat most of the morning when the good-bys were
+said.
+
+But the ride on the train (and how Mary Jane did love to ride on the
+train); and the nice luncheon on the diner (and how Mary Jane did _adore_
+eating on a diner--hashed brown potatoes, a whole order by herself and ice
+cream and everything!); and then father's nice talk about all the fun they
+were going to have, made the lump vanish and in its place there developed
+an eager desire to see the new city and to begin all the promised fun. It
+was then that Mr. Merrill showed them the big map of the city and pointed
+out the part of the city where they would likely live.
+
+As the girls watched, the great factories and foundries slipped away into
+the distance, and in their place the girls could see houses and occasional
+stores and here and there a station, past which their train dashed as
+though it wasn't looking for stations to-day, thank you.
+
+"Don't we stop anywhere?" asked Mary Jane after she had counted three of
+these little stations.
+
+"Those are suburban stations," explained Mr. Merrill, "and a big through
+train like ours hasn't time to stop at every one. Pretty soon another
+train will come along and stop at each one of those we are now passing so
+don't you worry about folks getting left. _This_ train we are on has got
+to get us into Chicago in time for dinner."
+
+And just at that minute, when the big three story apartment buildings that
+looked so very queer and strange to Mary Jane, began to fill every block,
+the porter came to brush her off and to help her on with her coat.
+
+"I'm going to live here in Chicago," she said to him as he held the coat
+for her, "and it's a big place with lots of lake and parks and--houses, I
+guess, and most everything."
+
+"'Deed it is big, missy," replied the porter, "and I hope you's going to
+like it a lot, I do."
+
+"I'm a-going to," answered Mary Jane confidently, as she picked up
+Georgiannamore and Georgiannamore's suit case which at the last moment
+couldn't possibly be packed in the trunk, and followed her father and
+mother down the aisle, "'cause mother and Dadah and Alice are going to
+live here too and we always have fun."
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Merrill had decided to get off at one of the larger suburban
+stations and spend a few days in a near-by hotel; they thought the
+comparative quiet of a residence hotel would be better for their girls
+than the flurry and hurry of a big down town hotel. But to Mary Jane,
+accustomed to the sights and sounds of a small city where street cars went
+dignifiedly past every fifteen minutes and where traffic "cops" would have
+very few duties, the confusion she found herself in was quite enough to be
+very interesting.
+
+They stepped off the train, walked down some stairs and found themselves
+on the sidewalk of a very busy street. Overhead the noise of their own
+train rumbling cityward made a terrific din; and as though that were not
+enough, still higher up the great elevated car line made a rumble and
+roar. Mary Jane craned her neck as they walked from under the trains and
+there high in the air, she saw street cars running along as though street
+cars always had and always would, run on tracks high up in the air!
+
+"Can we ride on it, Dadah?" she shouted to her father, "are we going to
+ride on that train up on stilts?"
+
+Mr. Merrill shook his head laughingly and hurried them into a waiting
+taxi.
+
+"We're not going to ride there to-day," he explained when the door of the
+car shut out some of the noise, "but some day soon we'll take a long ride
+on the elevated and then you can see all the back yards and back porches
+and parks and streets and everything about the city, just as plain as
+plain can be."
+
+While he was talking, the Merrills drove through streets lined on both
+sides with three-story apartment buildings. But before Mary Jane had time
+to ask a question or even think what she would like to say, they whisked
+around a corner and out into the beautiful wide driveway on the
+Midway--the long, green parkway that stretched, or so it seemed to Mary
+Jane, for miles in both directions. The taxi pulled up in front of a
+comfortable looking hotel right on the side of the park and Mary Jane
+wasn't a bit sorry to get out and take a breath of fresh air and look at
+the lovely view before her.
+
+"Now just as soon as you are washed up," said Mrs. Merrill, briskly, as
+they went into the hotel, "you and Alice may come out onto this nice porch
+and watch the children play on the Midway and get a little run before
+dinner."
+
+You may be sure that with that promise before her, Mary Jane didn't take
+very long to primp. She had spied a group of children about her age, who
+seemed to be having a beautiful time playing ball out there on the grass
+and she couldn't help noticing that they played just as she and Doris did
+and she couldn't help wishing that she too, even though she was a new
+little girl just come to town, could play with them. So she stood very
+still while Mrs. Merrill tied the fresh hair bow and slipped on a clean
+frock and then, holding tight to big sister Alice's friendly hand she went
+down the one flight of stairs--she was in far too big a hurry to wait for
+the elevator--and out onto the long roomy porch.
+
+Just across the narrow street in front of the hotel and on the nearest bit
+of parkway, three little girls about Mary Jane's age were still playing
+ball. One was dainty and small and had yellow curls; one was rather tall
+and had long straight dark hair and the third had dark, straight hair
+bobbed short, and snapping black eyes.
+
+"Wouldn't it be funny," said Mary Jane as she looked at them wistfully,
+"if I'd get to know those girls and they'd be friends. If I _did_," she
+added, "I think she'd be my mostest friend," and Mary Jane pointed to the
+little girl with the dark, bobbed hair.
+
+While they watched and were trying to get up courage to go over and play
+too, a pretty girl about Alice's age came along the street. Her hair was
+copper colored and curly and very, very pretty. And her smile when she saw
+the little girls who were playing, made her seem so friendly and "homey."
+
+"I've been hunting you, Betty," she said to the little girl Mary Jane
+liked best. "It's time to come home for dinner."
+
+So the four girls, three little folks and one bigger one, went around the
+corner toward home, and two strangers, standing on the porch, watched them
+till they were quite out of sight.
+
+"It would be funny," said Alice, "if we'd ever get to know them. I'm sure
+I'd like to."
+
+"Wouldn't it though!" exclaimed Mary Jane. "I hope we do!"
+
+And all the time they were eating their first dinner in Chicago, and
+telling mother and father about the children they had seen and making
+plans about what to do to-morrow, they were thinking about those two girls
+and wishing to know them better.
+
+Little did they guess what would really truly happen before the week was
+over!
+
+
+
+
+THE FOLKS AROUND THE CORNER
+
+
+Three whole days of flat hunting! And of all the fun she had ever had in
+her more than five years of life, Mary Jane thought flat hunting in
+Chicago was the most fun of all! She loved the mystery of each new
+apartment; the guessing which room might be hers and which mother's; the
+hunting up the door bell and hearing its sound (for as you very well know
+each door bell has a sound of its own); the poking into closets and
+pantries and porches. It was the most delightful sort of exploring she had
+ever come across and she couldn't at all understand why mother and father
+got tired and somewhat discouraged. For _her_ part Mary Jane was tempted
+to wish that they would never find a flat, well hardly that; but that
+finding the right one would take a long, oh, a very long time!
+
+But by the afternoon of the third day, her legs began to get a little
+tired too, and her eyes looked more often to the green of the Midway they
+occasionally saw and she thought that flats, even empty flats, really
+should have chairs for folks to sit on. So, as a matter of fact, she
+wasn't half as sorry as she had thought she would be, when, on the
+afternoon of the third day of hunting the Merrill family came across a
+charming little apartment.
+
+It was on the second floor of a very attractive red brick building; it had
+five rooms, quite too small, father thought, but then one can't have
+everything, they had found, and every room was light and sunny and
+cheerful. But the part about it that Mary Jane and Alice liked the best
+was the back porch. To be sure there was a front porch, a pretty, little
+porch with a stone railing and a view way down the street toward the park
+and lake. But off the dining room the girls discovered a small balcony
+that overlooked the back yard next door, a back yard that had a garden
+laid out and a chicken house and everything so homey and comfortable
+looking that the girls immediately wanted to sit out and watch.
+
+"I think if we'd stay here maybe some children would come out to play,"
+suggested Mary Jane in a whisper.
+
+"I think they would, too," agreed Alice. "And I think if we lived here
+maybe we could get acquainted and play with them."
+
+"Let's live here!" exclaimed Mary Jane and she ran back into the house
+just at the very minute Mr. and Mrs. Merrill decided to rent the
+apartment.
+
+"So you think you'll like it, do you?" said Mrs. Merrill, smiling; "the
+rooms are pretty small."
+
+"I know we'll love it," said Alice eagerly, "and you should see the back
+porch."
+
+But Mr. Merrill laughed when they showed him the porch.
+
+"Do you call this a porch," he exclaimed, "why it's not half big enough
+for a porch! I'd call it a balcony."
+
+"Yes," agreed Mrs. Merrill, "and then when you watch folks in the yard
+down there,--for you _are_ planning to watch and get acquainted, aren't
+you?--then you can pretend that this is your balcony seat and that the
+folks down there are in a play for you--wouldn't that be fun?"
+
+The girls thought it would, but there was so much to plan and think about
+that they didn't stay on their little balcony any longer just then, which
+was something of a pity, for right after they went indoors, somebody came
+out into the yard-- But then, there's no use telling about _her_ for Mary
+Jane didn't see her.
+
+So Mary Jane and Alice went with their father and mother into the room
+that was to be theirs and they planned just where each bed should be and
+where was the best place for the desk and dressing table and who should
+have which side of the closet. And by that time, it was nearly six
+o'clock--time to go back to the hotel for dinner.
+
+Mr. Merrill stopped at the desk for mail as they went up to their room and
+there he found a message telling him that their furniture had arrived in
+Chicago and that it must be taken out of the freight house the next
+morning.
+
+"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill with a gasp of dismay, "I think it's a
+good thing we found that flat! What ever would we have done if we hadn't!
+Well, girls, I think we'd better eat a good dinner and then go to bed
+early for we'll have to get down there and clean up the flat while father
+tends to getting our things delivered."
+
+So bright and early the next morning everybody started to work. Mr.
+Merrill went down town to meet the moving men he had engaged by 'phone and
+Mrs. Merrill and the two girls put aprons and cleaning rags and soap, all
+of which they had brought in their small trunk, into a little grip and
+went down to the new home.
+
+Mary Jane had lots of fun that morning. First she went down to the
+basement and borrowed a broom from the janitor. Then she went back for
+clean papers which she folded neatly and spread on the pantry shelves
+which Mrs. Merrill with the good help of the janitor's wife had cleaned
+and ready. Then she put papers on the shelf of the closet she and Alice
+were to share and papers in the drawers near the floor of that same
+closet. By that time--it takes pretty long to fold papers neatly and get
+every bit of the shelf covered, you know--the door bell rang--a great,
+long, hard ring.
+
+"Oh, dear! Can you go, Mary Jane?" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill, "Alice and I
+both have wet hands!" You see, Alice had been washing mirrors that were on
+the closet doors while her mother and the janitor's wife did windows and
+wood work.
+
+"Yes, I'm dry," said Mary Jane, "and my papers are done and I'd like to
+go."
+
+To tell the honest truth, Mary Jane had just that very minute been wishing
+the door bell would ring. For the janitor's wife had showed her how to
+press the buzzer that would release the lock of the front door and let a
+person come up the stairs. And of course Mary Jane wanted to try it. So
+she hurried over to the house 'phone, took down the receiver and said,
+"Who is it?" just as any grown-up person would.
+
+"Here's your things!" said a gruff voice, "we'll bring 'em up the back!"
+
+Mary Jane didn't stop to press any buzzer. She dashed over to the window
+nearest the alley and there, sure enough, was a great big moving van and
+it was piled up full of boxes and barrels and crates--all the things that
+Mary Jane had watched the packing of only such a few days before. Talk
+about fun! Moving was surely the best sport ever!
+
+Mary Jane stayed at the window watching till the men brought the first
+load up. Then they announced that they were going for lunch and Mrs.
+Merrill said she and the girls had better eat while the men were away. So
+hastily putting on wraps, they went over to a small tea room only a few
+doors away, where they had a tasty little luncheon so quickly served that
+they easily got back to their flat before the moving men arrived again.
+
+How that afternoon went, Mary Jane never quite remembered. It was one long
+succession of excitement and fun. The unpacking of boxes and crates, the
+piling up of rubbish, the finding of cherished belongings and putting them
+where they belonged in the new home, and the gradual change of the living
+room from a mess of boxes to a place that might some day really look like
+home, all seemed thrillingly interesting to a little girl who had never
+moved before.
+
+But by half past four or thereabouts, even Mary Jane began to get a little
+tired.
+
+"I'll tell you something to do," suggested Mrs. Merrill, when a pause in
+her own work gave her a chance to notice that Mary Jane was getting
+flushed and tired. "Here is a box of doll things I have just come across.
+Suppose you take them out into your own little balcony and sort them over.
+Put in this box (and she handed her a little box) all the things you must
+surely have upstairs; and leave in the big box all the things you will be
+willing to put in the store room. Now take your time, dear, and sit down
+while you work."
+
+Mary Jane was very glad for that advice. For even though moving men are
+wonderful to watch, and even though rubbish and boxes and barrels are all
+very fascinating, a person _does_ get tired and sitting down isn't at all
+a bad idea.
+
+One of the men who was unpacking gave her her own little chair that he had
+just uncrated and so she sat down in state, in her own chair, on her own
+balcony and opened the box of doll things. But that's every bit that got
+done to those doll things that day, every bit.
+
+For at that very minute, who should come out of the house around the
+corner, the house with the back yard and garden and chickens and
+everything, but--yes, you must have guessed it--the same two girls that
+Alice and Mary Jane had seen on the Midway the day they arrived in
+Chicago. Think of that! Right under Mary Jane's own balcony and, moreover,
+it was plain to see that they lived there.
+
+"Now I guess we'll get to know them," whispered Mary Jane to herself
+happily. But of course, she didn't say a thing out loud. She only sat very
+still and watched.
+
+And as she watched, two boys came out on the back porch of the house
+around the corner and one of the boys called, "Say, Fran, did you feed the
+chickens?"
+
+The girl who was about Alice's age answered back, "No I didn't, Ed, I
+thought it was Betty's turn to-day."
+
+"Now I know a lot," Mary Jane whispered to herself. "She's Frances, I'm
+sure, and he's Ed; and Betty must be the little girl that's 'bout as big
+as me."
+
+Just then, when Mary Jane was wishing and wishing and wishing that she
+would come, Alice came to the door of the balcony and looked out.
+
+"Sh-h-h!" whispered Mary Jane, tensely, "they're here, both of 'em, and
+there's more of 'em, too!"
+
+Alice seemed to understand exactly what Mary Jane meant, even though her
+sentence was decidedly mixed up, and she stepped out onto the balcony.
+
+Frances heard the door shut and looked up. For a long minute the two girls
+looked at each other, then Frances, the girl with the auburn hair and the
+friendly smile, nodded shyly.
+
+Little Betty didn't take long deciding what she would do. She called
+eagerly, "Moving in?"
+
+"Yes, we are," laughed Alice, waving her hand toward the piles of boxes
+and rubbish stacked up on the back stairs of the building.
+
+Ed, who had started back into the house, looked around and, seeing his
+sisters had made a small start toward conversation, called a question on
+his own responsibility.
+
+"Going to use 'em all?" he asked, pointing to the boxes.
+
+"Dear me, I guess not," said Alice. "I don't see how we could!"
+
+"Then will you give me a box?" he asked, running back in the yard till he
+stood right under the balcony. "We're going to get some rabbits, John and
+I are, and we want a box for their home."
+
+"Come on over and see which one you want," suggested Alice, "and I'll ask
+father."
+
+Ed and his brother John lost no time climbing over the fence and
+inspecting the boxes. By the time Alice brought Mr. Merrill, he had picked
+out just the one he wanted and was very grateful when it was given him for
+his own.
+
+"Don't you want to come over and see 'em make the rabbit house?" suggested
+Frances shyly. "Oh, maybe you're busy."
+
+"I'm sure we can come," replied Alice, "because mother just told me she
+wished we'd get some fresh air." So Alice and Mary Jane followed the
+others to the back yard and helped hold nails and boards and make the
+rabbit house. When it was nearly finished the children's mother, who
+proved to be very charming Mrs. Holden, came out with a plate of cookies
+and a welcome for the two little strangers.
+
+"Thank you for the cookies," said Mary Jane politely, "but we're not
+strange--that is, not any more, we aren't, we know each other--all of us
+do!"
+
+And so it really seemed to all the children. They were friends from the
+first day and making the rabbit house was just the beginning of many nice
+times in that friendly back yard.
+
+
+
+
+VISITING WITH BETTY
+
+
+Three days of hard work for everybody and then the little flat into which
+the Merrills had moved began to look like a real home. The unpacking was
+all done and the rubbish cleared away; the furniture was polished and set
+in place; the closets were in order and every cupboard and shelf held just
+the right things for comfort. It wasn't such an easy matter to stow away
+all the things the Merrills had used in their pretty house--the five room
+apartment was much smaller than the house of course--but with everybody's
+help the job was done.
+
+"Now then," said Mrs. Merrill, happily, in the late afternoon of the third
+day, "if you'll run the rods in these curtains, Mary Jane, I'll hang them
+up where they belong and then we'll all three go to market and then--guess
+what? We'll have dinner in our own new home!"
+
+Mary Jane thought that would be fun, for, much as she loved eating in the
+hotel where they had been living while getting the new home fixed, she
+liked better to eat her mother's cooking. So it was a very happy little
+girl who slipped the rods into the living room curtains and then put on
+her hat and hunted up the market basket from the pantry.
+
+Now many times before this, Mary Jane had been marketing with her mother.
+But never had she been to such a market! Before, marketing meant going to
+the grocery store about three blocks from their home; it meant talking to
+the very interested and friendly grocer who had known Mary Jane ever since
+she first appeared at the grocery in her big, well-covered cab--she was
+then about two months old; it meant telling Mr. Shover, the grocer, just
+what they wanted and picking out the sorts of things they liked best. But
+marketing in Chicago was very different. In the first place there wasn't a
+person around they had ever seen before; and then everything was so big
+and there was so much food. Mary Jane thought there couldn't possibly be
+enough folks in Chicago to eat all those good things! But when she and her
+mother actually got into the store and began to buy, Mary Jane forgot all
+about the strangeness and remembered only the fun. For they didn't get
+somebody to wait on them as they used to at Mr. Shover's--not at all! They
+waited on themselves! They went through a little turnstile and then
+wandered around among the good things all by themselves and they took down
+from the well-stocked shelves anything they wanted. It certainly was
+queer.
+
+"Can we just take _anything_?" exclaimed Mary Jane in amazement as her
+mother explained what they were to do.
+
+"Well," laughed Mrs. Merrill, "you must remember we have to pay for things
+just the same as we used to at Mr. Shover's. But we can take anything we
+want--if we pay for it."
+
+"Then I'll pick you out some good things to eat, mother!" cried Mary Jane
+happily, "don't you worry about thinking what we're going to have!"
+
+Now Mary Jane really did know how to read, at least a little, but she
+didn't stop to read on this important occasion. She looked at the pictures
+on the cans of goodies and she picked out a can of all her favorites and
+set them in the basket Mrs. Merrill carried on her arm. But that didn't
+work, for Mrs. Merrill had a long list and the basket wouldn't hold only
+so much. So they decided to let Mrs. Merrill pick out three things from
+her list and then Mary Jane could buy one favorite; then three more things
+from the list and then another favorite. That proved to be great fun and
+it certainly did fill the basket in a hurry! Mary Jane was just trying to
+decide between a box of marshmallows and a pan of nice, gooey, sugary
+sweet rolls when Mrs. Merrill said, "whichever you decide, Mary Jane,
+you'll have to carry the bundle yourself, because this basket won't hold
+another parcel--not even a little one."
+
+Mary Jane decided on the rolls and she took them over to the counter to
+have them wrapped up and there she almost bumped into--Betty Holden, no
+less! Betty and her mother were shopping too, and their basket was almost
+as full as Mrs. Merrill's.
+
+"We market after school," said Mrs. Holden, "and then Ed brings his wagon
+to meet us and hauls the stuff home. We'll get him to give you a lift
+too."
+
+"And then can Mary Jane come over to our house to play?" asked Betty.
+
+"For a little while," agreed Mrs. Merrill, smilingly, "but she won't want
+to stay very long to-day because we're going to have our first dinner in
+our new home and she's promised to help me lots--and I need it."
+
+Just then they spied Ed's face at the door so they hurried through the
+second turnstile, paid for their groceries and left the store. Ed's wagon
+proved to be very big and he was glad to give them plenty of room for the
+Merrill basket.
+
+"Are you going to start in school to-morrow?" asked Betty as they walked
+off toward home.
+
+"I'm going over to see about that to-morrow morning," said Mrs. Merrill.
+"We've been so busy unpacking and settling that we haven't even thought
+about it till now. Do you like your school, Betty?"
+
+"Yes, I do, lots!" exclaimed Betty heartily. "I'm just through
+kindergarten this spring, I am, and next fall I'm first year."
+
+"Then I think you must be just about where Mary Jane will be," said Mrs.
+Merrill.
+
+The two little girls ran skipping ahead, talking about what they would do
+and where they would sit and all the things that girls plan for school.
+
+But when Mrs. Merrill took Alice and Mary Jane over the next morning, it
+didn't work out as planned. Alice was entered and found herself in the
+very same room and only two seats away from Frances, which seemed perfect.
+But there wasn't room for Mary Jane! The kindergarten was crowded, very,
+very crowded, and new little folks weren't allowed to come in. Miss
+Gilbert, the teacher, talked with Mary Jane a while and Mary Jane told her
+all the work she had done and all the things she had learned about.
+
+"I really think, Mrs. Merrill," said the teacher finally, "that your
+little girl is ready for the first grade. She seems very well prepared.
+But they don't take new first graders so late in the year. Why don't you
+keep her out of school the rest of this term and then next year, enter her
+in the first grade?"
+
+Mrs. Merrill thought that was a fine plan. There would be so many new
+sights to see and things to learn in the city that Mary Jane would find
+plenty to do.
+
+But Mary Jane was keenly disappointed. "I wanted to stay in Betty's room,"
+she explained to the teacher. "She asked me to sit by her this morning,
+she did, and I promised yes I would."
+
+"Then I'll tell you what you may do," suggested the teacher kindly. "Two
+of our folks are absent this morning so we have enough chairs to go
+around. Wouldn't you like to stay with Betty and visit? And then just a
+little before time for school to be out, Betty can take you up to your
+sister's room and she can bring you home."
+
+Mrs. Merrill agreed that that was a fine plan, so Mary Jane went to the
+cloak room to hang up her hat and her mother hurried back home.
+
+At first Mary Jane felt very strange in the new school room. There were so
+many children there and the songs were new and the games were new and
+everything seemed different. She almost--not really, but _almost_--wished
+she had gone home with her mother. And then, after singing three songs
+Mary Jane didn't know, the children made a big circle and let Mary Jane
+stand in the middle and they sang the song Mary Jane knew so very well,
+
+"I went to visit a friend to-day, She only lives across the way, She said
+she couldn't come out to play Because it was her ----"
+
+Quick as a flash Mary Jane dropped onto her knees and began to act out
+packing things into a box.
+
+For a minute the children hesitated. That was a strange thing to be
+acting; Mary Jane was not washing or ironing or churning or sweeping or
+any of the things the children usually acted and they were all puzzled.
+Then suddenly Betty remembered the back stairway and all the piles of
+boxes and excelsior on Mary Jane's back stairway and she called out the
+end of the song--"because it was her moving day!" And everybody finished
+the verse with a flourish.
+
+After that Mary Jane felt more at home and the morning went oh, so very
+quickly, till recess time, when they all went out into the big yard to
+play in the sunshine.
+
+Betty and her particular friends were gathering together for a circle game
+in the corner of the yard when Mary Jane heard a soft, helpless little
+sound close at hand. Without stopping to say anything to any one, she ran
+over to the fence and there, caught in between the tall iron bars, was the
+tiniest, blackest little dog she had ever seen. He evidently had seen the
+children coming out to play, had wanted to play with them and had supposed
+he could slip right through between the bars of the fence.
+
+Mary Jane tried to pull him out but he was stuck fast. So she called
+Betty.
+
+"Here!" shouted one of the boys, "I'll pull him out!"
+
+"No you don't," cried Betty imperatively, "you let him alone! We'll do
+it!" And her snapping black eyes flashed so positively that the boy
+obeyed. But Betty couldn't pull the dog through either, the bars were too
+close, she couldn't move him either way.
+
+"I'll tell you what let's do," she said. "Mary Jane, you stay here and
+guard him so nobody tries to pull him out and I'll go and get Tom and
+he'll know what to do." Tom was the janitor.
+
+Mary Jane stood close by the dog and patted his head and talked kindly to
+him so he would know somebody was trying to help him. And all the girls
+and boys who had started to play together gathered around and watched Mary
+Jane while Betty ran back to the school building and down into the
+basement to fetch the janitor.
+
+Fortunately, Tom was in his office and came quickly in response to Betty's
+call. He saw at once what the trouble was and discovered a way to remedy
+it. It seems that the big iron bars that made the fence were heavier at
+the bottom than nearer the top, so the space between the bars got wider
+higher up. Tom took firm hold of the wiggling little creature and gently
+but very firmly pushed him straight up between the bars. That didn't hurt
+like trying to pull him out, so the dog stopped barking and whining. And
+in a second Tom had him out--half way up the fence there was plenty of
+room to lift him right through.
+
+Poor little doggie! He was so glad to be out and so frightened by his
+experience that when Tom laid him down on the grass he looked quite
+forlorn. Mary Jane sat down beside him and gathered him up into her arms.
+
+"Don't you be afraid, doggie," she said softly, "we'll take care of you,
+don't you be afraid a bit!"
+
+"What you going to do with him?" asked one of the girls.
+
+But Mary Jane didn't have to answer that question. Before she could speak,
+a small boy came running along the street, crying as hard as he could cry
+and shouting between sobs, "I've lost my dog! I've lost my dog! Somebody's
+stole my dog!"
+
+"No they haven't," called Betty, "maybe this is yours!"
+
+The little boy rubbed his eyes, looked through the fence--and a look of
+happiness spread over his small face.
+
+"It's him! It's him! It's him!" he shouted happily, "then he isn't
+stole!"
+
+It took only a minute to run around the gate, dash across the school yard
+and grab the tiny little dog into his arms. And the children could tell by
+the way the little creature snuggled down that the love wasn't all on one
+side--evidently the little boy was a good master.
+
+Right at that minute, before there was a chance to start a game or any
+play, a great bell in the school doorway began to ring. Mary Jane was used
+to a small school of course--a school so small that the teacher came to
+the window and simply called when recess was over. So she stared in
+amazement when the great bell rang out so noisily.
+
+"Come on!" shouted Betty, "recess is over!"
+
+"Soon as I tell this doggie good-by!" replied Mary Jane.
+
+Betty didn't hear and, supposing Mary Jane was right behind her, she went
+on into her place in line. And Mary Jane, remembering how leisurely folks
+went up after recess at her old school, didn't pay any attention to the
+rapidly forming lines. She turned around and patted the tiny dog and
+nodded and smiled and whispered her good-by.
+
+When she did turn to go in with Betty, she was amazed to see all the
+children had disappeared into the building. She scampered over to the door
+as fast as ever she could. And up the stairs--but not a soul did she see!
+Only the click of a closing door could be heard--a click that made Mary
+Jane feel really shut out and lonely.
+
+"Now let's see," said Mary Jane to herself, "Betty's room was right around
+a corner--" But there wasn't any room around that first corner--only a
+long hall. A lump came into Mary Jane's throat. The building was so big,
+so very, very big. And she felt so little, so very, very little. She
+swallowed twice, determined not to cry and then she said out loud in a
+queer frightened little voice, "I guess I'm lost. I'm lost in school!"
+
+
+
+
+SAND CASTLES
+
+
+"I Guess I'm lost! I'm lost in school!"
+
+Mary Jane's frightened little whisper sounded like a shout and the doors
+and walls and hallways seemed to echo back, "Lost! Little girl lost!" in a
+most desolate fashion. Mary Jane was so frightened that she stood
+perfectly still--just as still as though her shoes were fastened to the
+floor. And she looked straight ahead as though she was trying to see
+through the wall at which she was staring. To tell the truth, Mary Jane
+wasn't trying to see through the wall. She didn't even know a wall was in
+front of her. She couldn't see a single thing, not even a big wall,
+because a mist of tears was in her eyes and a great lump was growing in
+her throat.
+
+Now Mary Jane wasn't a baby. And she never cried--or any way, she _hardly_
+ever cried because she was going on six and girls who are going on six
+don't cry. But to be lost in a strange school and in a strange city
+and--everything; well, it's not much wonder that Mary Jane felt pretty
+queer.
+
+But before the tears had time to fall, there was a heavy footstep behind
+her and Mary Jane whirled around to see--the kindly face of Tom the
+janitor smiling at her.
+
+"Aren't you pretty late getting to your room?" he asked.
+
+Mary Jane couldn't answer. She was so relieved to have someone around that
+for a minute she just couldn't get the lump out of her throat enough to
+talk.
+
+Tom must have been used to little girls--maybe he had one of his
+own--because he didn't pay any attention to Mary Jane's silence. He took
+hold of her hand and said pleasantly, "Now don't you worry a minute. You
+just show me which your room is and I'll go with you."
+
+"I'm looking for it too," said Mary Jane, finding her voice again, "but I
+don't know where it is."
+
+"Don't know where your room is?" asked Tom in surprise.
+
+"No," replied Mary Jane with a decided shake of her head, "I don't." And
+then, for talking was now getting comfortable and easy, she added, "you
+see, it isn't really my room. It's Betty's. And I'm just a-visiting her.
+I'm just moved to Chicago and they haven't any chair for me only just to
+visit in when somebody's absent."
+
+"That sounds like the kindergarten," said Tom.
+
+"It is," agreed Mary Jane with a laugh of relief, "I'm kindergarten, I
+am."
+
+"Then here we go, right down this way," said Tom, and off they started in
+just the opposite direction.
+
+Before they got clear up to the kindergarten, though, they met Miss
+Gilbert, who was coming in search of the little visitor. "Betty missed
+her," she explained, "but I thought you'd find her, Tom." With a thank you
+to her janitor friend, Mary Jane took tight hold of the teacher's hand and
+they went into the kindergarten room together.
+
+After that, the morning went very quickly and happily and Mary Jane could
+hardly believe her ears when the big whistles began to blow for twelve
+o'clock and Miss Gilbert told them to put away their scissors and cut-out
+papers and get ready to go home. Mary Jane had cut out two beautiful
+tulips and she was very happy when she was told they might be taken home
+as a souvenir of her visit.
+
+On the way home they met Frances and Alice and Ed so they had plenty of
+company.
+
+"What you doing Saturday?" asked Ed as they neared their own corner.
+
+"I don't know," replied Alice, "is there anything nice to do--special?"
+
+"Well," answered Frances, "we were afraid you might all be busy--but--well
+you see, we were going to have a beach party and we thought maybe you
+folks would like to go along. All of you."
+
+Now Alice and Mary hadn't the slightest idea what a beach party was, only
+of course they knew it must be something about the lake. But there wasn't
+time for questions and talk just then for Frances discovered that they had
+walked so slowly that they must rush on home to lunch.
+
+"We'll get mother to tell you," she promised, "and do say you'll come
+'cause it's a fire and cooking and marshmallows and piles of fun."
+
+"And we've plenty of wires," added Betty, "and they're plenty long so you
+won't burn your fingers."
+
+It sounded amazingly puzzling to Alice and Mary Jane, who couldn't in the
+least understand what a fire and wires and all that had to do with a
+beach. But they were to find out before so very long. For that same
+afternoon, while Alice was still in school, Mrs. Holden and Betty came
+over to call on Mrs. Merrill and Mary Jane and then the beach party was
+all explained.
+
+"We go over to the lake very often," said Mrs. Holden. "And on the sandy
+beach, close by the water, the children build a big fire. Then, when the
+coals are good, we toast sandwiches and roast 'weenies' and toast
+marshmallows. The children are so anxious to show your girls just how it
+is done," she added, "and as the weather promises to be warm and sunny I
+think we should have an extra fine time."
+
+So it was settled. And a person would have thought from the excitement and
+fun of preparation that the party was to be that same day instead of
+twenty-four hours away. For as soon as Alice and the older Holden children
+came home from school, they all set to work planning the menu and getting
+out baskets and cleaning the wires on which, so the Merrill girls learned,
+marshmallows were held over the coals to be toasted.
+
+But when everything that could be done the day before, was finished, there
+was still some time for play, so the children went down into the Holden
+yard and the boys, Ed and John, showed the girls how to run a track
+meet--how to jump and vault and race in proper track style. Alice and Mary
+Jane thought the boys wonderfully skilled and the boys, thrilled by such
+warm admiration, broke all their previous records and had a beautiful
+time.
+
+At four o'clock the next afternoon the two families set out for the beach
+party. And it surely was quite a procession that made its way the four or
+five blocks to the park. First there was John with the wagon which held
+all the heavy things--baskets of food and such. Next came Ed, who started
+out walking behind the wagon to see that nothing dropped off. He and John
+were to take turns pulling the load. Then the others carried bundles of
+kindling and the wires for marshmallows and toasting racks for meat. They
+had such a jolly time getting off that everybody felt sure the party was
+to be a success.
+
+Mary Jane had been so busy helping get settled and all that, that she
+hadn't had time for a real visit on the beach. To be sure she had had
+glimpses of the big blue they could see down their own street, but to
+really come over and see the lake and play in the sand--this was her first
+trip. So she skipped along very happily and thought she could hardly wait
+till they got there.
+
+Fortunately they hadn't far to go. Three blocks down and two blocks over
+and there was the park--such a beautiful park with tiny lakes and bridges
+and great trees whose buds were swelling in the warm afternoon spring
+sunshine. Mary Jane thought she must be in fairyland come to life, it was
+all so beautiful. They crossed an arched bridge; saw a lovely view off
+toward the south where other bridges and lagoons and trees made such a
+pretty picture they were tempted to stay and look longer; walked around a
+big circle where, so John told them, the band gave concerts in the summer
+time; circled a tiny little inlet lake and came out, quite suddenly, right
+close to the big lake--Lake Michigan. It almost took Mary Jane's breath
+way, coming suddenly that way, upon the sight of so much water. It was all
+so blue and clear, she thought, for the minute, that surely it must be the
+very same ocean she had seen in Florida only a few weeks before.
+
+But the boys didn't give much time for sight-seeing of lakes--they had
+seen the good old lake many a time and they were thinking more about
+supper than any view, however pretty.
+
+So they hurried their wagon across the boulevard driveway, and of course
+all the folks had to follow close behind, and down the beach walk a couple
+of hundred yards and there they settled themselves on a stretch of clean
+white sand.
+
+"Now," said big brother Linn, whom the girls hadn't seen much of as yet,
+but who seemed to be master of ceremonies, "you boys gather those big logs
+down there, you girls fix the kindling and I'll set these stones up so we
+get a good draft when we light our fire."
+
+Everybody set to work. The logs proved to be so big and heavy that Ed and
+John were very glad to have the help of their father and Mr. Merrill to
+roll them into place. The four girls sorted out the kindling in their
+basket and added to it by picking up drift wood on the beach. Frances
+explained that they always brought some along to be sure they had some
+real dry wood for a start.
+
+With such good help and so much of it, of course it wasn't long till a
+fine blaze was going and the beach party was actually begun.
+
+"Go ahead and play now," said Linn, when he saw the fire was started and
+that there was a big pile of reserve wood close by. "You know we can't
+cook till we get some coals."
+
+"But I'm starved," hinted Ed, with a hungry look toward the baskets his
+mother and Mrs. Merrill were guarding.
+
+"Then you'll have to stay starved, young man," said his mother, laughing,
+"because not a basket is to be opened till the coals are ready for
+cooking."
+
+"Then let's make a sand castle," suggested Betty and she ran down to a
+smooth place on the beach, away from possible smoke, and began molding the
+white sand.
+
+That pleased Mary Jane. She hadn't forgotten the fun she had playing on
+the beach in Florida, and while this beach was different--it didn't have
+any of the pretty shells or funny little crawdads she had found on the
+Florida beach--still it had lovely white sand and dainty little waves and
+was quite the nicest place for play that Mary Jane had seen.
+
+"I'll tell you what let's do," suggested Alice, as she saw that all the
+children were going to play in the sand, "let's each build a castle and
+make it any way we like best and then when they're all finished, have an
+exhibition and everybody look and see which is the best."
+
+"All right, let's," agreed the children and they set to work.
+
+Mary Jane chose for her castle a place down close by the water. She loved
+the nearness of the waves and the thrill of knowing that maybe, if she
+didn't watch out, a wave would come up really close and get her wet. Betty
+picked out a spot nearer the fire on the side away from the smoke and
+Alice chose a place where a few pretty pebbles would give her material
+with which to pave a "moat" she intended to make.
+
+And then everybody set to work. So busy were they that Linn had to tend
+the fire all by himself and Ed forgot he was hungry.
+
+Before very long that beach looked like a picture book. Towers and ditches
+and castles and bridges were where flat sand had been a few minutes
+before. The Holden children had made many a sand house and they knew just
+how to pack the damp sand so it would stay in place and just how to put a
+small board here and there to hold a second story or a tower straight and
+tall.
+
+But with all their experience, Alice's castle was as pretty as theirs, or
+at any rate she thought it was, and Mary Jane's was quite wonderful. She
+smoothed off the "garden" in front of her palace, stuck in a few sticks
+for flowers, made a pebbly path down to the tiny lake she had scooped out
+at one side and then shouted, "Mine's done! Look at mine!" and stepped
+aside so all could see her handiwork.
+
+[Illustration: And then, sliding in the wet sand, she sat right down in
+the lake and sent a wave of ripples right over her castle _Page 61_]
+
+But Mary Jane wasn't used to working so close to the water and she forgot
+entirely where she was! Instead of stepping to one side, as she should
+have done, she stepped backwards--straight into the big lake! And then,
+sliding in the wet sand, she sat right down in the lake and sent a big
+wave of ripples--right over her castle and garden and lake and everything
+and washed it all away, every bit!
+
+
+
+
+THE BEACH SUPPER
+
+
+A minute before Mary Jane slid into the lake, the beach was a scene of
+busy building and fun. Linn tended the fire, the grown folks gathered wood
+and visited and guarded baskets and the children all were intent on their
+sand castles. But with Mary Jane's tumble everything changed.
+
+Sand flew helter skelter as the children jumped hastily and ran to Mary
+Jane's assistance; castles were trampled on as though they didn't exist
+and fire wood and baskets were all forgotten.
+
+"Don't be afraid, you're all right!" called Mrs. Merrill as she ran toward
+her little girl.
+
+"Coming! Coming! Here!" shouted Mr. Merrill reassuringly as he dashed over
+to his little daughter, picked her up by the shoulders and set her, safe
+and sound, on dry sand just in time to miss a fair sized wave.
+
+"I guess I'm wet!" said Mary Jane.
+
+"I guess you are," laughed Mr. Merrill, "but I guess things will dry and
+you're not so very awfully too wet--not enough to spoil the party, is she,
+mother?"
+
+Mrs. Merrill looked thoughtful and all the children waited anxiously for
+her answer. Would Mary Jane have to go clear off home and miss the party
+and everything! But it wasn't to be as bad as all that. Mrs. Merrill
+remembered the warm day, the glowing sun that was still bright and warm
+and she also remembered the hot fire Linn had underway and the warm sand
+all around the fire.
+
+"Of course she isn't wet enough to spoil the party," said Mrs. Merrill,
+much to every one's relief. "Only she'll have to stay close by the fire
+till she gets warm and dry. Suppose we appoint her head cook and make her
+stay right there where it's hot?"
+
+"She'll get dry then!" exclaimed Ed, so fervently that they all knew he
+had had many a hot face from working by the fire at previous picnics.
+
+"But how about your castles?" asked Mr. Holden, "weren't we to have an
+exhibit?"
+
+But the castles! Dear me! In the excitement of Mary Jane's tumble, no one
+had given a thought to the castles. They were stepped on, and trampled
+down and all matted down into the sand.
+
+"That's just too bad!" said Mrs. Merrill.
+
+"Pooh!" exclaimed John, dismissing the whole question of castles with one
+wave of the hand, "who cares about castles! _We're_ going to have supper."
+And every one set to work.
+
+Mary Jane was supposed to be head cook, but as she had never before been
+to a beach party, she really didn't know what to do. So she simply stayed
+close by the hot fire while the boys brought three benches and made them
+in a triangle around the fire--a little way back of course. Then Mrs.
+Holden and Mrs. Merrill unpacked the baskets and fixed a place on the
+bench for each person. To be sure nobody was expected to sit on the
+bench--that would be quite too proper for a beach party meal. But the
+mothers put a paper plate and a cup for each person on the benches and
+then they put on the plate as many sandwiches and pickles and cookies and
+everything as each person was entitled to.
+
+While they were doing this, Linn raked down the hot coals, set in place a
+light wire rack he had made and spread a couple of dozen weenies out to
+roast.
+
+"Now then, Mary Jane," he said to the head cook, "you take this long fork.
+And as soon as a weenie begins to sputter and brown, turn it over so it
+browns on the other side too."
+
+That was a very important job, Mary Jane could easily see, and she
+determined that every weenie _she_ cooked would be done just to a turn.
+She bent over the fire till her back got a crook in it; then she sat down
+on the hot sand close to the coals and by the time the weenies were done
+ready to eat she was so dry and hot that she felt sure she had never
+slipped into the lake--never!
+
+And all the time Mary Jane was cook, Linn and Mr. Merrill stayed close to
+see that the coals kept evenly hot and that no bit of flame started up to
+burn the head cook.
+
+At last the weenies were ready. Each one was beautifully brown and was
+sizzling and sputtering and sending a most tempting odor to hungry folks.
+
+"Form a line, folks," said Mrs. Holden, "ladies first!"
+
+With much laughter, each person got their own roll, which had been split
+and buttered, and filed passed Mary Jane. And Mary Jane, instructed by
+Linn just how to do her job, picked up one weenie after another on the
+long fork and dropped each one in an open roll held out before her. It was
+a scary job, for the sand was close below and Mary Jane knew that weenies
+dropped into the sand wouldn't taste very good. But she took her time--too
+much time, John thought.
+
+"Don't be 'fraid of any old sand," he assured her when she put his weenie
+in his roll so very carefully, "I eat 'em any way--sand or not."
+
+Betty eyed Mary Jane a bit enviously. This being chief cook and having a
+chance to fill the rolls of each person must surely be fun.
+
+"Next time we have a beach party," she announced between bites, "_I'm_
+going to fall into the lake too!"
+
+"I'll save you the trouble," replied Mr. Holden understandingly, "I'll let
+you be chief cook without getting wet."
+
+Betty needn't have worried about Mary Jane's being willing to give up her
+job. For there was one disadvantage in that position Miss Betty hadn't
+thought of and Mary Jane had just discovered--the head cook had no time to
+eat. And Mary Jane was getting fearfully hungry. She was more than willing
+to give up the big fork, let Betty fill her roll for her and stand up with
+the others to eat the good hot morsel.
+
+Did anything ever taste as good as those hot weenie sandwiches, eaten
+there on the edge of Lake Michigan, with the fine lake air blowing in
+their faces and the sunshine warming them and making them forget the chill
+of the long winter? The Merrills thought they had never had so much fun
+and tasted such good things. Every weenie (and there had seemed to be far
+too many) was eaten up; every roll disappeared and cookies and pickles and
+sandwiches just vanished as though a warm breeze had melted them away.
+
+Supper over, the sun going down reminded the children that they must get
+the fire ready for dark. They scampered up and down the broad beach,
+gathering together all the pieces of drift wood they could find. Later in
+the year wood along that beach would be hard to find. But in the early
+spring, before the driftings of the winter's storms had been burned up by
+picnickers like themselves, there was plenty to be had.
+
+Linn and Ed put away the cooking rack in the case they had made for it,
+the two mothers packed up debris and burned it so the beach would be left
+clean and tidy, and all the others gathered wood. Such a lot as they did
+find! Linn piled it on high and by the time the sun went to sleep in the
+west, the fire was so bright that nobody noticed the growing darkness.
+They all sat around on the warm sand and sang--college songs that the
+children had learned from the fathers, school songs and popular songs that
+they all knew. It was fun to sit there close by the big lake, to watch the
+sparks fly upward, to hear the waves swish against the sand and to sing
+and sing as loud as they liked.
+
+But when the darkness settled down enough so that mysterious shadows
+lurked over every shoulder and the stars helped the fire make a light, Ed
+announced, "Now let's play Indian."
+
+So they did. Playing Indian, the Merrill girls found, meant a queer
+follow-the-leader game. Ed led off first and everybody had to follow. He
+ran round and round the fire, prancing and yelling like a wild man. And
+the point of the game was for everybody to do exactly as he did. They ran
+and jumped and yelled till everybody was breathless with exercise and
+laughter and was glad to sit down again and do nothing.
+
+By this time the fire had again died down to a bed of coals.
+
+"_Now_ it's time for the marshmallows, isn't it?" asked Betty. She was
+right, it was.
+
+The boxes of marshmallows were opened, wires pulled out of the baskets and
+all the children sat around the fire a-toasting. 'Twas just as Betty had
+promised. The wires were plenty long enough so that no fingers needed to
+be burned or dresses scorched and the bed of coals was big enough to make
+room for all.
+
+Betty and Mary Jane thought they would keep count and see who could eat
+the most, but after six they lost count, and they ate and ate till they
+simply couldn't eat any more.
+
+"Let's play still pond," suggested Frances.
+
+She stood up near the fire and announced, "Twenty steps, two jumps, three
+hops and a roll. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
+ten--STILL POND."
+
+As she said the numbers off, the children began scampering to a place to
+safety. All but Mary Jane. She wasn't used to playing on the slippery,
+slidy sand. And though she started off just as big as anybody, she slipped
+and stumbled and hadn't more than got to her feet when the words, "Still
+pond!" were called. And after that she couldn't move but just to use the
+steps, jumps, hops and roll Frances had given them.
+
+To make matters even more exciting, Frances started off exactly in her
+direction.
+
+But Mary Jane hadn't played "Still Pond" in her own yard for nothing.
+Perhaps she hadn't learned to run on slippery sand as yet, but she did
+know how to play that game. Instead of trying to quietly take her twenty
+steps in an effort to get out of Frances' way, she took two quick steps,
+dropped down on the sand, gave one little roll, and--was safely hidden
+under one of the picnic benches they had used for supper!
+
+Frances passed so close Mary Jane could have touched her. Other folks were
+chased and found, but Mary Jane's hiding place was undiscovered. Of course
+when she rolled in under the bench, Mary Jane had expected to roll right
+out again when somebody else was caught. But when she found that they
+couldn't see her; that they went right around close at hand, talking about
+her and wondering where she was and all that, she thought it was such a
+good joke that she lay very still and watched.
+
+She heard them asking each other where she was seen last; she heard her
+father say she couldn't be so very far away; and she saw them all start
+off in search of herself. Then, just the minute their backs were turned
+but before they had had time to be really frightened, she slipped out from
+under her seat, stood up close by the dying fire and shouted, "Here I am,
+can't you see me?"
+
+They thought it a very good joke she had played and Mary Jane was sure she
+would always remember that the best hiding place is often the nearest
+one.
+
+"Time to go home," said Mr. Holden, looking at his watch, "the fire's most
+out and the party's over."
+
+"But there'll be another one, won't there?" begged Mary Jane.
+
+"Let's have it next week," said Betty.
+
+The boys loaded up the empty baskets on their wagon--not much of a load
+going home! Mr. Merrill raked out the fire so no harm would come to
+anything; Mr. Holden gathered the children together and started the line
+of march. It was a happy little crowd that wandered homeward and they all
+agreed with Mary Jane when she said, "Well, anyway, I think a beach
+party's the mostest fun I know. It's more fun than moving!"
+
+
+
+
+MARY JANE GOES SHOPPING
+
+
+The days after the beach party seemed to fly past on wings. First it was a
+Monday and then, before a person could do half the nice things planned,
+Saturday was coming 'round again and Alice was home all day from school
+and fun for the four Merrills could be planned. Mrs. Merrill and Mary Jane
+took to doing all their "Saturday marketing" on Friday afternoon so they
+could have more time on Saturday for trips and sight-seeing and all the
+lovely things folks like to do when they've just moved to a big city.
+
+One Saturday morning, not so very long after the beach party, dawned--not
+bright and warm and sunny as Mary Jane had hoped it surely would--but
+rainy and cold and windy as some May mornings are sure to be in Chicago. A
+cold northeast wind raced across the city and folks had blue noses and
+shivery finger tips and not a single thing to be seen looked like spring.
+
+"Now just look at it!" exclaimed Mary Jane as she stared out of the
+living-room window, "and we were going to take a trip through the parks
+and I was going to wear my new hat and everything. And look!"
+
+"And we can't go to the parks again for another whole week!" bemoaned
+Alice, "'cause there's school!"
+
+"Just look!" exclaimed Mary Jane again as a hard gust of wind tossed the
+rain against the winds exactly as though Mr. Rain was saying to Mary Jane,
+"Thought you'd go out, did you? Well, look what I'm doing!"
+
+"You girls talk as though parks were the only things to see in Chicago,"
+said Mrs. Merrill as pleasantly and comfortably as though there was no
+such thing as a disappointment in the world.
+
+Alice and Mary Jane turned away from the window quickly. Something in
+their mother's tone of voice made them suspect that the day wasn't to be a
+disappointment after all.
+
+"It's funny to me," continued Mrs. Merrill in a matter of fact voice,
+"that you folks haven't asked to go to the big stores--wouldn't you like
+to?"
+
+"Like to!" exclaimed Alice.
+
+"Would we?" cried Mary Jane. "But we didn't think about it!"
+
+"Then we'll think about it now," replied Mrs. Merrill. "If you can hold an
+umbrella down tight over your head so as not to get your hat wet, I think
+we could manage to get to the train without getting soaked. And once down
+at the store, we could check our wet umbrellas and shop and sight-see
+through the stores all we wished to without a bit of hurry."
+
+"Oh, may we really go?" asked Alice.
+
+"Well," answered Mrs. Merrill, pretending to hesitate, "if you _really_
+care to--"
+
+That settled it and there was no more time wasted talking about weather
+_that_ morning. Dishes were washed and beds were made and dusting was done
+so quickly that the little flat must have been quite surprised and pleased
+with itself--it got put into rights so very quickly. Then Mary Jane got
+her hair fixed nicely and a pretty hair bow put on--the bow wouldn't show
+very much under the new hat, but even that little had to be just
+right--and then, while mother fixed her own and Alice's hair, she put on a
+pretty dress--not a party dress, of course, but a nice, pretty, dark
+dress. Then they all put on rubbers and raincoats and locked up the doors
+and took their umbrellas and started for the train.
+
+Going down town on the train was fun. In the city where Mary Jane lived
+before, one could walk down town. Or if one really wanted to ride, a
+street car hustled one to the stores in about five minutes. But in
+Chicago, so she discovered, she had to have a ticket and go through a
+gate, and up stairs and onto a platform and aboard a train and everything
+just as though one intended to go away, far off. The girls both liked to
+ride down town. To be sure they couldn't see much of the lake, even though
+they did ride right along beside it, because the rain made it all look dim
+and gray and foggy. But they knew the lake was there; they could see the
+spray the waves made and once in a while they could hear the noise of
+splashing water above the roar of the train. All too soon, for there was
+so much to see, the train pulled into their station and the conductor
+shouted, "Randolph Street! Everybody out! Far's we go!" And all the folks
+aboard got their umbrellas ready and went out into the rain.
+
+Fortunately it was only a very little way from the station to the big
+store where Mrs. Merrill took the girls, so they didn't have a chance to
+get tired or very wet. And as soon as they got indoors, Mrs. Merrill found
+a checking place and they left wet umbrellas and wet raincoats and wet
+rubbers and started out for fun.
+
+"I think that's awfully convenient--just to leave things that way," said
+Alice as she settled her collars and cuffs and made sure she was tidy,
+"and of course we'll get them back safely?" This checking system was new
+to her and she wanted to be assured it was all right.
+
+"To be sure we will," said Mrs. Merrill. "See? I have the checks for
+them."
+
+"Well, then," said Mary Jane, "let's begin."
+
+"Yes," said Alice, "let's. And let's see _everything_!"
+
+"All right," laughed Mrs. Merrill; "shall we take an elevator first?"
+
+"Oh, no," answered Alice, "'cause then we'd miss the first floor."
+
+So they "did" the first floor, seeing all the handkerchiefs and jewelry
+and bags and fans and pretty decorations and ribbons--Alice could hardly
+leave those lovely ribbons--and neckwear--Mary Jane saw five different
+neckties she needed--and so many things.
+
+"Do they have anything left for the second floor?" asked Mary Jane when
+they finally got around to where they had started.
+
+"You just see," said Mrs. Merrill.
+
+And sure enough there were plenty of things on the second floor, pretty
+dishes and lamps and so many things that, really, Mary Jane almost got
+tired looking at them all.
+
+By the time they got ready for the third floor, Mary Jane was wondering if
+there were any seats in that store. Not seats where you sit down to buy
+things, but really seats where you just sit down whether you buy anything
+or not. And sure enough there were just those seats. Nice, big comfy ones,
+that appeared to be made for Mary Janes who went a-shopping and wanted to
+sit down. The Merrills sat down on a big couch and Mary Jane leaned back
+ready to rest when--who should she see right in front of her but Frances
+Westland! The girl she met at grandmother's house nearly a year ago.
+
+In a jiffy Mary Jane forgot all about wanting to sit down. She slid down
+from the comfortable couch, dashed after Frances, who, not guessing that a
+friend was so near, was hurrying by, and brought her back to meet mother
+and Alice.
+
+Then they all sat down for a visit.
+
+"No, I'm not living here," said Frances in answer to Mrs. Merrill's
+question, "I've been spending the spring with my auntie and going to
+school here. But just as soon as school is out I'm going back home. Mother
+needs me."
+
+"I don't doubt it," replied Mrs. Merrill, who was much pleased with the
+little girl, "I'm sure your mother misses you greatly. But where are you
+living and can't we see you before you go and can't you take lunch with us
+to-day?"
+
+It seemed that Frances's auntie lived in the same part of the city the
+Merrills lived in and there was every reason to believe that the girls
+might see each other at least once or twice in the little time left of the
+school year.
+
+"But I don't believe I can eat lunch with you," added Frances, "'cause
+auntie and I have to hurry home." So with a promise to come to see them
+soon at the address Mrs. Merrill wrote out on her card for Frances, the
+friends said good-by.
+
+"I'll declare!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill, looking at her watch after Frances
+left them. "It's almost twelve o'clock already! And we were to meet father
+at one. If you girls want to see anything of the toys and dolls and
+playrooms, we'd better not be sitting around here any longer."
+
+Of course the girls did want to see the toys and dolls and everything.
+When they got to the fourth floor where all the children's things were
+kept, they were sorry they had spent even a minute any place else. For all
+the lovely dolls and marvelous toys and enticing games and beautiful
+pictures and fascinating puzzles made a person think that Santa Claus's
+shop and fairyland and magic were all mixed up together and set down in
+one place. The girls looked and looked and looked. They "oh-ed" and
+"ah-ed" and exclaimed till they couldn't think of anything more to
+say--and then they kept right on looking just the same.
+
+Mary Jane picked out the doll coat she wanted Georgiannamore to have and
+Alice selected a lovely desk. They agreed upon a set of dishes and upon
+charming furniture for their balcony--just the right size too.
+
+"And we'll pretend we'll buy it all, mother," said Mary Jane, who knew
+perfectly well she couldn't buy all the things she talked about getting,
+"and we'll pretend we'll have it all sent up, that'll be such fun."
+
+So they pretended and looked and looked and pretended till they had been
+over most all that part of the store.
+
+"Now then," said Mrs. Merrill, "if we're to meet Dadah for lunch--"
+
+"Oh, goody!" cried Alice, "are we to meet him here?"
+
+"Not here," said Mrs. Merrill, "but in this store in the lunch room and in
+ten minutes. So we'd better wash our hands and go to the lunch room
+floor."
+
+Mr. Merrill was waiting for them and had a table engaged close by a
+charming fountain ("Just think of a fountain in a house!" exclaimed Mary
+Jane when she spied it) and all the time Mary Jane sat there eating, she
+could look right over and watch the fishes and she could hear the splash
+of the water.
+
+But Mary Jane wasn't thinking of fishes or water just then. She was
+hungry. And the things her father read to her sounded so good--oh, dear,
+but they did sound good! She and Alice had a dreadfully hard time deciding
+just what did sound the best. But Alice finally decided on stuffed chicken
+legs (she hadn't an idea what they were but they sounded good) and potato
+salad and strawberry parfait. And Mary Jane chose chicken pie--a whole one
+all her own--and hashed brown potatoes and orange sherbet.
+
+While the lunch was being fixed, Mr. Merrill took Mary Jane over to the
+window so she could look down, down, way down, to the street below, where
+the folks appeared so little and upside down and where the automobiles
+looked like the ones they had just seen in the toy department.
+
+When the lunch came, it proved to be just as good as the menu promised it
+would be and the girls enjoyed every bite. Mary Jane was afraid for a
+minute that she had made a mistake. For Alice's parfait came in a tall
+glass, with a long spoon that made the girls think of the story of the fox
+and the goose and the banquet, and Mary Jane was sure nothing she had
+ordered could be as nice as parfait. But when the maid set the orange
+sherbet at her place, Mary Jane was quite satisfied, for the ice was set
+in a real orange, all cut out in dainty scallops and trimmed with green.
+
+"Yummy-um!" she whispered, happily. "I'm so glad you had this party,
+Dadah!"
+
+Dadah seemed to want everything to be all right, for he had added to their
+order some little cakes, done up in frilly papers and unlike anything the
+girls had ever seen. They almost hated to eat them, they were so pretty,
+but cakes one cannot eat are not good for much, Mr. Merrill reminded them,
+and so the cakes were eaten up.
+
+"Now then," said Mary Jane, as she dabbled her fingers in the finger bowl
+and ate up the candy she found at the side of the tiny tray, "what do we
+do next?"
+
+
+
+
+THE BUS RIDE
+
+
+"What do we do next?" asked Mr. Merrill, repeating Mary Jane's question.
+"I'm sure of this much--we must do something _very_ nice because it's such
+a nice day."
+
+"_Nice day_!" exclaimed Alice. "What in the world are you talking about,
+Dadah? This is the worst weather we've had since we came to Chicago--but
+we don't care 'cause we're having such a good time anyway."
+
+Mr. Merrill laughed and replied, "Suppose you look out of the window."
+
+So they left their cozy table, where nothing but empty dishes told the
+story of their delightful lunch party, and wandered over to the window
+where Mary Jane had looked down at the street not much over an hour
+before. But what a difference! With a sudden, unexpected shift of wind
+that only the Chicago weather man knows how to bring about, the stiff,
+cold northeaster that had brought the cold rain of the morning had been
+sent off and in its place a warm breeze from the south blew softly across
+the city, bringing with it sunshine and warmth and pleasantness for all.
+
+"Why--" exclaimed Mary Jane, much puzzled, "where's the rain?"
+
+"Did you want it back?" laughed Mrs. Merrill, and then she explained to
+the girls something about the effect the big lake might have on weather
+and told them that one of the queer things about Chicago was its sudden
+changes to good, or sometimes bad, weather.
+
+"So I was wondering," said Mr. Merrill, "if you folks wouldn't like an
+hour of fresh air and then, if you're not through shopping we can come
+back to the stores."
+
+The girls hadn't an idea what he might want to do, but they were pretty
+sure it would be fun. So they agreed that an hour out of doors was just
+what they most wanted and they went down to get wraps from the check room.
+They left the umbrellas till later, put on their wraps and left the
+store.
+
+"Now then," said Mr. Merrill, "see that big bus down there--we're going
+for a ride on the top."
+
+"What's a bus?" asked Mary Jane, who had never heard the word before. But
+before her father could answer they were pushed into the crowd at the
+crossing, hurried across and the next second Mr. Merrill had hailed a
+great, lumbering, top-heavy automobile and was helping the girls to step
+aboard.
+
+The "bus" proved to be a large-sized passenger automobile, with a deck on
+top for passengers who wished to ride in the open air. Mary Jane and Alice
+were thrilled with the fun of getting on it. It seemed exactly like going
+aboard a house-boat on wheels. They stepped into a little hallway and
+then--and this wasn't so easy because the bus immediately began to
+move--they climbed up a curving flight of stairs and walked down an
+aisle--an awfully wiggly aisle it was too!--to seats on the very front
+row.
+
+Then, before they had had a chance to look around or feel at home, the
+conductor, who stood at the back, shouted, "Low bridge!" and everybody
+ducked their heads while the great bus went under the elevated railroad.
+Mary Jane felt, truly, as though she must be a person in a story
+book--Arabian Nights or something marvelous--because surely the things
+that were happening to her weren't _really_ happening.
+
+But after the elevated was passed, the bus rolled out onto Michigan
+Boulevard and Mary Jane settled herself comfortably in her front seat with
+her mother, smiled across the aisle to Alice and her father and began to
+feel really at home in her high perch. By the time the bus had turned
+northward and crossed the river, she began to feel that riding on the top
+of a bus was the thing she'd been wanting to do all her life. It was such
+fun to sit up high and watch the lake, so blue and beautiful in the
+sunshine, the trees just getting a tinge of green at the tips, the pretty
+houses that lined the parkway, the people--it seemed as everybody in
+Chicago must be out in their 'tother best clothes--and most of all, it was
+fun to watch the automobiles dart in and out of the crowd, around the bus
+and beside it, till Mary Jane was sure their driver must be some wonderful
+being to be able to manage so that everybody stayed alive!
+
+"Here, Mary Jane," said Mr. Merrill, interrupting Mary Jane's
+sight-seeing, "don't you want to pay your fare--Alice is paying ours." He
+slipped two dimes into her hand just as the conductor stepped to the front
+of the bus. Mary Jane wasn't quite sure what she was to do with the dimes
+till she noticed that the conductor had in his hand a queer-looking thing
+like a clock, only it had a hole in the top just the right size for a
+dime. Into that hole Mary Jane dropped a dime. And--"ding_ding_!" went a
+musical little bell somewhere in the "clock." Then she dropped the other
+dime. And again the bell sounded, "ding_ding_!" just as though it tried to
+say "Thank _you_!" that way. Alice then dropped her two dimes and Mary
+Jane had the fun of hearing the bell again. She thought she wouldn't do a
+thing but watch the conductor and listen to his bell all the time he
+collected fares, but just as he stepped back to get the next folks' money
+the bus passed in front of the queer old stone building with great tower
+that Mr. Merrill said was the city water works building, and of course
+that meant the girls wanted to hear about when it was built and hear again
+the story Mr. Merrill had started to tell them several evenings before
+about how the great Chicago fire started and how it burned up to this very
+spot they were now passing. Somehow, being at that place and seeing the
+one building that stood through the fire made the history stories seem
+very plain and there were a lot of questions to be asked and answered.
+
+But buses don't wait for questions--the girls soon discovered that! Long
+before the fire story was told they had raced up Lake Shore Drive, passed
+its beautiful old homes, and were turning into Lincoln Park. Here it
+seemed to the girls that the city ended and fairyland began. The grass
+seemed greener, the lake bluer and the trees greener than any place they
+had seen; and hundreds of tulips peeping up through the ground here, there
+and everywhere, made spots of bright vivid color and beauty.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Mary Jane happily, "I hope the bus goes on and on forever!
+I'd like to keep on riding all the time!"
+
+But when, a minute or two later, they passed near the buildings of the
+Zoo, Mary Jane forgot all about wanting to ride forever and wanted to get
+out, right away quick and see all the animals she had heard lived there.
+
+"Not to-day," said Mr. Merrill, looking at his watch. "You remember we are
+to go back to the stores--we're just out for a bit of fresh air this time.
+Some other day when it's still warmer so we can get our dinner here, then
+we'll come and visit the Zoo. But to-day I want to get back to the stores
+before they close."
+
+"Of course," added Alice, "for our umbrellas."
+
+"Of course for something else too," laughed her father, and though both
+girls were very curious, not another word would he say.
+
+So they stayed on the bus and rode clear through the park, and up Sheridan
+Road a long way till the bus turned around at a corner and the conductor
+shouted, "Far's we go!"
+
+But the Merrills didn't get off. They wanted to keep those good front
+seats so they sat still and in about two minutes the bus started south and
+whirled them through the park and past all the same interesting sights on
+the way cityward. This time, Mary Jane felt very much at home in her
+high-up perch. She dropped in the dimes her father gave her, eyed the
+passing autos without a bit of fear and looked down on all the children
+she saw walking and playing quite as though she had lived in a city and
+ridden in busses all her young life.
+
+It was a very reluctant pair of young ladies that Mr. Merrill assisted to
+the sidewalk when the big stores and "time to get off" were reached.
+
+"But what was it besides umbrellas you wanted to get?" asked Mary Jane,
+suddenly remembering.
+
+"Well," said Mr. Merrill, "I haven't been through the toy department with
+anybody. And I have a calendar."
+
+The girls looked puzzled. What had the toy department to do with a
+calendar? They couldn't guess. Even Mrs. Merrill looked puzzled.
+
+"Of course if you don't intend to have birthdays since we've moved--" said
+Mr. Merrill teasingly. And then everybody knew! To be sure! It was almost
+time for Mary Jane's birthday--almost a year, it was, since the lovely
+birthday party when the little girl was five years old--and in the
+excitement of moving and getting settled and seeing new sights, even the
+little lady herself had forgotten how near the day was at hand.
+
+"It's mine!" exclaimed Mary Jane happily, "and I'll be six! Come on,
+quick, Dadah! and I'll show you perzactly what I want." When Mary Jane got
+excited she sometimes got words a little mixed, but her father knew well
+enough just what she meant. She grabbed hold of his hand, called to her
+mother and Alice to come on with them and away they went toward the
+elevator that quickly took them to the toy section.
+
+Going through that department the second time was even more fun than the
+first trip, because now father was along to see things and to explain
+mechanical toys. And also because there was the fun of picking out the
+thing she wanted to wish for, for her birthday. That last was a very
+serious matter, as every little girl knows.
+
+They looked at dolls--but not a doll was as lovely as Georgiannamore, at
+least that was Mary Jane's opinion--and then they looked at furniture and
+at dishes and toys and games and clothes for dolls and, well, at every
+single thing in that whole big department. After everything had been
+considered and looked at and thought about, and it was about time for the
+big warning bell to ring and tell folks that in ten minutes the store
+would close and everybody'd have to get out, then and not until then, Mary
+Jane decided that the thing she wanted most of all was a doll cart. A
+beautiful little ivory enameled doll cart made just exactly like the one
+that Junior's little brother had back at their old home. A cart with a top
+that moved back and forth just like a real baby cart and that had cushions
+and tires and everything that a really truly mother is particular to want
+for her baby.
+
+"Yes," said Mary Jane, as she looked around the store with a rather tired
+sigh, "I think that's the thing I want the most and I'm going to wish for
+it, Dadah."
+
+"Sounds easily settled," laughed her father, "but do you know what time it
+is?"
+
+Before she could answer, the warning bell rang and clerks began to cover
+up counters and to straighten up the store for its Sunday rest. So the
+Merrills four hurried down to get umbrellas and to go home.
+
+On the train going home Mary Jane was so tired looking at things that she
+didn't care a bit about looking any more. She watched the lake some, but
+mostly she simply settled back in her little corner behind the door and
+just sat. Thoughts of all the wonderful things she had seen that day raced
+through her mind--the lunch, the ride, the lake, the park--but most of
+all, that wonderful doll cart, and she couldn't help wondering (and of
+course hoping) if she really truly would, _possibly_, get that lovely gift
+for her birthday.
+
+
+
+
+THE BIRTHDAY LUNCHEON
+
+
+As soon as they got home that evening, and had dinner and rested up a bit,
+Mary Jane hunted up a calendar so she could find out about her birthday.
+And she discovered that two weeks from that same day was "her" day.
+
+"It's Saturday, so you can do something too!" she said to Alice. "Now,
+Mother, let's plan."
+
+So they talked over all the nice things a person _might_ do for a
+birthday, but long before they could decide which was the very nicest of
+all the plans, bedtime came. Then the next morning there were interesting
+things to do, and nobody thought about plans for a day that was two weeks
+away. That is, nobody but Mary Jane thought about it, and, if the truth
+must be told, she thought more about the doll cart she had wished for than
+she did about what she might do to celebrate.
+
+Monday noon, when Alice came home for her luncheon, she was much excited.
+
+"Who do you s'pose I saw at recess this morning?" she demanded. "Guess!"
+
+But Mrs. Merrill and Mary Jane couldn't guess--they didn't know anybody in
+Chicago to guess! Or at least they thought they didn't.
+
+"I saw--" began Alice slowly, for she wanted the fun of keeping them
+waiting to last as long as possible, "I saw--Frances Westland! And she
+goes to my school!"
+
+"Why in the world didn't we know that?" said Mrs. Merrill. "We should have
+guessed! Of course she goes to your school. I remember of thinking she
+wasn't very far from us."
+
+"Can't we have her come to see us?" asked Mary Jane eagerly.
+
+"I already asked her if she couldn't come," explained Alice, "because I
+knew you'd want me to, and she says she's sure she can. But she can't come
+next Saturday because she and her auntie are going to Milwaukee to spend
+the week-end. But she thought she could come the next Saturday."
+
+"And that's my birthday," Mary Jane reminded her.
+
+"I know it," agreed Alice, "but I didn't tell her. I just said I'd find
+out what we were doing that day and let her know this afternoon--was that
+all right, Mother?"
+
+"You did exactly right, dear," said Mrs. Merrill reassuringly. "Come right
+out to the dining-room now, because your soup is ready and you mustn't
+hurry yourself too much with your lunch. While we eat, we'll plan for the
+birthday."
+
+Of course there were many plans to be talked of, because in a big city
+there are so many kinds of things one may do. And it was awfully hard to
+decide which plan was the very most fun--you know how that is yourself.
+But after every plan that any of the three could think of had been
+discussed carefully, Mary Jane decided that there were two things she
+wanted the most to do. First, she wanted to stay home to celebrate and
+have a party and all that; and, second, she wanted to go down town and go
+to a big grown-up theater where there was music and lights and pretty
+things just like grown folks see up town. And for her part she admitted
+that she didn't see how a person possibly, even on a birthday, could do
+those two conflicting things.
+
+"Pooh!" laughed Mrs. Merrill, "that's easy! I was telling Dad the other
+night that inasmuch as this was the first birthday in the city and on
+Saturday and everything--so convenient for us all--we'd better do those
+very two things."
+
+"But how'll we do it, Mother?" asked Alice. "We can't stay home for a
+party while we're down town at the theater!"
+
+"To be sure, we can't," agreed Mrs. Merrill. "But we can stay home for a
+party _before_ we go down town for a show. And that's just what we're
+going to do. You hurry off to school now, dear, because it's ten of one.
+And next time you see Frances Westland, you invite her to come here for
+twelve o'clock luncheon a week from next Saturday. Be sure to tell her
+it's an all-afternoon party, so she can stay long enough to go down town
+with us."
+
+"And who else'll we have?" asked Mary Jane, when Alice had gone. "It
+wouldn't be a party with one person."
+
+"Of course not," said her mother. "There are going to be three folks.
+After school this very day you are going to invite Frances and Betty
+Holden--that'll make it almost a 'Frances' party, won't it? We'll ask them
+right away, even though a week from Saturday is a long time off, because
+Dadah will want to get the tickets and we will all want to make our
+plans."
+
+A week and five days seem a very long time, when you have to wait for
+them. But Mary Jane found that, after all, they went quicker than she had
+thought they could, because there was so much to do. First she had to
+decide what she wanted to have to eat at the luncheon. After much thought
+and consultation the menu was made out and tacked up on the kitchen
+cabinet for future reference. Mary Jane printed it out all by herself and
+the letters were big and plain and could be easily read by any
+cook--especially Mother. It said:
+
+                     CHICKEN BALLS
+                     HOT ROLLS
+                     FRUIT SALAD WITH WHIPPED CREAM
+                     ICE CREAM        CAKE
+                     HASHED BROWN POTATOES
+                     JELLY
+
+Chicken balls really meant chicken croquettes, but croquettes proved to be
+such a big and puzzling word that Mary Jane decided she would say balls
+and Mrs. Merrill agreed to take a verbal order for the croquette part of
+the luncheon.
+
+When the food was planned for, Mary Jane began to talk about the
+decorations. It was soon found that to be really pretty, the table
+trimmings would have to be made by the hostess herself, so Mary Jane set
+to work. From the advertising sections of magazines she cut letters about
+an inch high. Letters enough to spell everybody's first name and last
+initial. She had to have the last initial because two of her guests had
+the same first name. These she sorted very carefully and put in envelopes;
+one envelope for each person and just the right letters in that envelope
+for the person's name. Then, she planned, when the luncheon was all ready,
+she would put the letters in little piles in front of each person's place
+and let them puzzle out the names before they sat down.
+
+Mrs. Merrill promised to have a basket of flowers, spring flowers that
+Mary Jane loved so very much, in the center of the table. And Mary Jane
+planned to make a procession of girls and boys all around the basket.
+These she cut out of magazines too and she chose girls and boys who were
+doing all the things that she herself liked to do.
+
+With all these things, besides regular duties and fun, to keep her busy,
+Mary Jane didn't really have a chance to think her birthday was a long
+time coming. First thing _she_ knew it was Friday night and the birthday
+was the very next morning!
+
+On Saturday morning, she waked up knowing something nice was going to
+happen. Then, before her eyes were really open, she felt herself getting
+mother's birthday kisses and, before those were all delivered, Alice's
+birthday spats--six good big lively ones!
+
+"Never you mind, Alice," she promised, "just wait till it's _your_
+birthday and you'll get some of the hardest--"
+
+"Don't stop for promises," said Mr. Merrill, coming in to deliver his
+spats too, "what I want is breakfast and for the life of me, _I_ can't get
+into that dining-room."
+
+"_Oh!_" cried Mary Jane rapturously, "I'll be right out!"
+
+"Not till you get dressed, you know," Alice reminded her, "so do hurry!"
+For it was one of the rules of the Merrill household that birthdays and
+Christmases didn't really begin till folks were dressed. So Mary Jane
+scrabbled into her clothes and gave her face and hands about the most
+hurry-up washing they had ever had and then rushed out to the
+dining-room.
+
+And there, standing right by her chair, was the--yes, really--the very
+doll cart she had picked out! She was so happy that for a minute she
+couldn't speak, she just stared. The next minute she was down on her knees
+with her arms around the whole cart--or at least as much of the cart as
+two six-year-old arms could get around--and she was counting over all the
+wonderful virtues of her gift. It surely was a cart to make any little
+girl proud and when Mary Jane saw her own Georgiannamore, wearing a lovely
+new coat (Mrs. Merrill's gift), and a pair of really truly gloves (from
+Alice), and sitting up as big as life in the cart, she thought the
+happiest day of her life had come.
+
+After breakfast the morning raced by on wings. Of course Mary Jane had to
+show the cart and doll's clothes to Betty and they had to walk around the
+block to give the doll an airing. Then, just as they got back to Mary
+Jane's apartment, the postman came with a box from grandpa and grandma.
+Betty was invited up for the fun of opening it and she was glad to come
+both for the fun and for the big pieces of grandmother's candy that she
+got when the box was opened. Then there was the table to set and the
+puzzle letters to put around and everybody to dress in their best--that's
+a good deal for one morning. No wonder it seemed to be an unusually short
+one.
+
+At the very last minute, Mary Jane with her new white dress and pink
+ribbons all just as they should be, went in to the kitchen to see if she
+could help. And at that very minute a neighbor came in to get Mrs.
+Merrill's advice about an important matter.
+
+"Everything's ready now," said Mrs. Merrill, as she left the kitchen.
+"Only, I believe, Mary Jane, it would be a good idea for you to put that
+whipped cream into the ice box. We won't make the salad till they get here
+and I want to keep it stiff and cold."
+
+Now, Mary Jane had put things in the ice box many a time. Big things and
+little things and spilly things and all, and there was no reason in the
+world why she couldn't do it all right. No reason, except-- Just as she
+picked up the bowl of cream, the door bell rang a long, loud peal that she
+was sure must be her three guests coming all at once, so she hurried and
+the cream jiggled in the bowl, and slid over the edge--and all down the
+front of her best new dress!
+
+Fortunately Alice came into the kitchen just then, in time to see the
+accident, and to notice two big tears which popped into Mary Jane's eyes
+and threatened to spill down her cheeks.
+
+"Pooh!" she exclaimed comfortably, "don't you worry about a little thing
+like that, Mary Jane," and she made a grab for the bowl, rescued some of
+the cream and set it in the ice box. "I'll have you fixed up so soon that
+you won't know anything happened."
+
+"But it's all down my dress," said Mary Jane, trying her very best not to
+cry.
+
+[Illustration: "But it's all down my dress," said Mary Jane, trying her
+very best not to cry _Page 111_]
+
+"Oh, well," replied Alice, nothing daunted, "it's not going to stay there
+long." She took a clean cloth, dampened it with cold water and, with quick
+little dabs, scrubbed the cream all off the front of the birthday dress.
+Then she took a fresh cloth, and more cold water and, putting a big, clean
+towel under the front of the dress, scrubbed again till every trace of the
+cream was gone. Then she opened the oven door so the heat would help dry
+the wetness and with a fresh cloth rubbed and rubbed the wet place till it
+was entirely dry.
+
+"There now," she said, as she shook the dress into place, "I think the
+girls are here; let's go see." And immediately the accident that
+threatened to spoil Mary Jane's fun was forgotten.
+
+Sure enough, the girls had come and the party began at once.
+
+The letter puzzles for place cards proved to be lots of fun and filled in
+the time while Mrs. Merrill brought in the plates of good things to eat.
+Judging by the appetites Mary Jane's menu must have been a favorite with
+everybody, for the goodies disappeared by magic and Mrs. Merrill filled up
+plates and passed rolls and brought in salad and everything till she
+hardly had time to eat her own luncheon.
+
+The ice cream was a surprise even to Mary Jane. On the plate was, first, a
+big, round piece of cake; then, on top of that, was a slice of ice cream,
+white, and on top of _that_ a ball of pink ice cream with a pink candle,
+lighted, stuck in the top. They looked so pretty and bright that the girls
+hated to blow them out, but Mrs. Merrill said every one was to make a wish
+and then blow and if the candle went out on the first blow the wish would
+come true.
+
+Alice suddenly remembered that they were to take a train at one-thirty and
+that it was nearing one now, so the dessert was finished in a hurry, wraps
+were hastily put on and the whole party started for the train to meet Mr.
+Merrill and have the rest of the fun.
+
+
+
+
+LOST--ONE DOLL CART
+
+
+There was only one thing wrong about the birthday celebration and that was
+that the day was such a very busy, happy one that there was very little
+time for playing with the new doll cart. Of course Mary Jane and Betty
+took their dolls out for one airing in the morning soon after breakfast.
+But what is one little airing when one has a new cart? Nothing at all,
+Mary Jane thought. All through the luncheon and the ride down town and the
+play father took them to, which proved to be just the very most
+interesting kind of a play for little girls to see, Mary Jane kept
+thinking of her new cart and of the fun she would have on Monday when
+there was a whole day for Georgiannamore and the doll cart.
+
+So when Monday morning actually came Mary Jane lost no time getting up and
+doing her share of the morning work. Mary Jane was very particular about
+her morning work. She didn't want her mother to have to do the things a
+six-year-old girl was plenty big enough to do; and then, anyway, she knew
+it was lots more fun to work when two did the job than for one person to
+work alone. She picked up all the papers, and emptied the waste baskets,
+and cleaned the bathroom washstand and the kitchen sink--she liked those
+jobs the best because they were so scrubby and grown-up and
+interesting--and put out clean towels and dusted the living-room. Of
+course this was after the dishes were washed and put away; that was a job
+with which Alice helped too, before she started for school. So by the time
+Mary Jane was ready to play Mrs. Merrill was about through too, ready for
+sewing or baking or whatever she had to do that day.
+
+"I think I'd better help you take down your cart," suggested Mrs. Merrill,
+when the last job was finished. "It's not so easy for one person to take
+that cart down from the second floor. But it will be no trouble at all for
+you to take one end and me to take the other and carry it down together.
+Then you can put Georgiannamore in it before you start down and there'll
+be no danger of bouncing her out."
+
+"But how'll I get back up, Mother?" asked Mary Jane.
+
+"Ring the bell three short taps and I'll come down to meet you," answered
+Mrs. Merrill. "Don't try to bring it up alone; it's far too heavy."
+
+Mary Jane dressed Georgiannamore in her very best dress, put on the new
+coat and gloves, tucked her carefully into the cart so she wouldn't catch
+cold by being out for a long walk, and then she and Mrs. Merrill carried
+the cart, oh, so very carefully, down stairs and out to the sidewalk.
+
+Fortunately, that May morning was bright and sunny; the breeze blew warm
+from the southland instead of cold and blustery from the lake, and it was
+the very best kind of a morning possible for being out of doors. Mary Jane
+walked around the block, starting toward the lake, then she went around
+the block the other way, and of course she went rather slowly because
+there was so much to see and to show Georgiannamore. Bright colored
+crocuses were blooming in all the yards where there were houses--and in
+that particular neighborhood there were many houses as well as
+apartments--tulips were bursting up through the ground and the lilac buds
+were swelling their plump green sides nearly to the bursting point.
+
+On the third time around, Mary Jane thought of school--to be sure, it
+couldn't be anywhere near time for school to be out, because the morning
+hadn't much more than begun, but then it would be fun to go around to the
+corner where the children crossed the street to go to school. There were
+so many automobiles whizzing around the streets that a little girl even as
+old as six couldn't be allowed to cross streets without a grown person or
+an older sister along.
+
+She went around the block to the corner where the children would come,
+after a while, and there, just as she turned to start back home, thinking
+she'd come here again nearer noon, she heard a commotion. Looking down the
+half block to the yard around the school house she heard a bell peal out
+and saw, yes, truly, crowds of children coming out of school! And just as
+she was about to look around to see if there was a fire or a parade or
+anything special to cause school to be dismissed early, she heard the
+whistles blow for noon--the morning was gone! That's how time flies when a
+person has a new doll cart!
+
+Mary Jane waited at the corner till Alice and Frances and Betty came along
+together and they all four walked home.
+
+"You shouldn't bother to carry your cart clear upstairs every time,"
+suggested Frances, "when our front porch is so handy. Just run the cart up
+on the porch, lock the brake and it will be safe as can be till you eat
+your lunch."
+
+Alice thought that was a good idea too, so the cart was left there, locked
+with the brake, and with the understanding that if Mrs. Merrill didn't
+approve, the girls would come down and get it at once.
+
+Lunch was ready and waiting, so the cart stayed on the porch while the
+girls ate and then Mary Jane walked back toward school as far as she was
+allowed to go.
+
+By the time Mary Jane got back in front of her own apartment, Mrs. Merrill
+was ready to go and do her marketing and errands and of course Mary Jane
+and Georgiannamore went along and had a beautiful time--especially when
+they looked in the windows and saw all the good things to eat. Mary Jane
+had thought that she knew every sort of good thing a person could possibly
+want to eat, but she soon found out that she didn't. For in one of the
+windows they passed she saw a tray of apples, covered with something slick
+and brown and carrying in their stem ends a small smooth stick like a
+butcher's skewer.
+
+"What are they, Mother?" she exclaimed. "Don't they look _good_! And may
+we buy some?"
+
+Mrs. Merrill went inside the store and Mary Jane, anxiously watching her
+mother through the window, waited outside with the doll and cart. She saw
+her mother speak to the salesman, look at the apples and then, oh, joy!
+saw him pick out four fine ones under Mrs. Merrill's direction and put
+them in a paper bag.
+
+"He says they are called Taffy Apples," explained Mrs. Merrill when she
+came out, "and that all the girls and boys like them very much. So I
+didn't bother to consult you," she added with a twinkle in her eye. "I
+bought some for you four girls to eat after school--just on a chance that
+you might like them."
+
+The bag was carefully tucked in under the folds of Georgiannamore's robe
+and the walking and shopping were resumed, but all the time, Mary Jane
+kept her eye on the hump made by the bag of apples and kept wishing that
+time for school to be out would hurry up and come. Some good fairy must
+have heard the wishes too, for the afternoon hurried by almost as fast as
+the morning and first thing Mary Jane knew they were all through the
+errands and were going down the street toward the school, ready to meet
+Alice.
+
+"Do you like 'Taffy Apples'?" Mary Jane asked Betty as soon as she came
+out of the school yard.
+
+"Like 'em--u-um!" replied Betty expressively.
+
+"Well," continued Mary Jane slowly, so the surprise wouldn't be over too
+soon, "I've got one in there," pointing to the cart.
+
+Betty eyed the hump Mary Jane pointed out and smiled knowingly.
+
+"It looks like more than one," she suggested hopefully.
+
+"It is more than one," answered Mary Jane delightedly; "it's four--all for
+us."
+
+"Can we eat 'em now?" demanded Betty.
+
+"Better wait till we get home," suggested Mrs. Merrill; "that won't be
+more than five minutes and then there won't be any danger of stumbling and
+running a stick into your throats."
+
+The two little girls didn't loiter much after that. They skipped along
+briskly and soon were ahead of Mrs. Merrill and Alice and Frances.
+
+"I'll tell you what," said Betty, as they turned into her own yard, "let's
+put the cart up on the porch while I get my doll and then when we get
+through eating our apples we'll be all ready to go walking."
+
+She picked up the front end and Mary Jane took the handle end and they set
+the cart up at the end of the porch and went into the house. Fortunately
+Mary Jane took Georgiannamore along with her into the house; if she
+hadn't--but then, that's getting ahead of the story.
+
+The little girls had no more than gone inside before Mrs. Merrill, Alice
+and Frances turned the corner and strolled along toward the Holden house.
+
+"Funny where those girls have gone," said Frances, looking at the empty
+porch.
+
+"They've hid our Taffy Apples somewhere, I just know they have!" said
+Alice. "Frances, we ought to be smart enough to find them so quickly they
+won't try teasing again."
+
+"I don't believe they've hidden the apples," said Frances thoughtfully,
+"because Betty would be so hungry she wouldn't bother with teasing till
+after she was through eating. Maybe they've gone into the house to get
+Betty's doll and cart."
+
+"But why would they bother to take Mary Jane's cart indoors if Betty was
+just going in for her doll?" asked Alice.
+
+Before Frances or Mrs. Merrill could suggest an answer, the two little
+girls themselves came out of the front door, turned to look at the porch
+and then stood there, as though fastened to the floor--they were that
+surprised.
+
+"Why--why--" said Mary Jane, "I left it right here!"
+
+"Well, nobody ever stole anything before," said Betty. "Maybe the boys
+just hid it!"
+
+"No, they didn't," replied Frances, "because they haven't come home from
+school yet. They stopped to see Jimmie's new chicken house and they won't
+be home for an hour."
+
+"What's the trouble?" asked Mrs. Holden, who, hearing voices, came to the
+front door to invite folks in for a visit.
+
+"Trouble enough, Mother," said Frances, worriedly. "Mary Jane left her
+brand new doll cart on our porch and it's gone!"
+
+"And we just went in to get my doll," explained Betty, getting very
+excited. "We just went in a little minute and then we were going to eat
+the taffy apples and now they're gone too--oh, dear!"
+
+At that minute, yes, things really do happen this way sometimes, who
+should go by the house but the big friendly policeman who always stood at
+the street corner nearest the school to guard the children from swiftly
+moving autos. Betty spied him and ran down the walk to speak to him.
+
+"So the cart's gone, is it?" he said as he and Betty came up toward the
+house. "Well, if you'll let me use your 'phone, I'll tell them down at the
+station just what kind of a cart it is and maybe we can get a trace of
+it--anyway, we can try."
+
+Mrs. Holden went indoors with him and the others stood around on the porch
+hardly knowing what to do. Losing her cart was a real calamity to poor
+Mary Jane--she very well knew that her father couldn't afford to get her
+another one and she had hard work, awfully hard work, to keep back the
+tears that came to her eyes and to swallow the lump that filled her
+throat. She didn't want to be a crybaby, but--and the lump got bigger and
+bigger--
+
+Mrs. Merrill noticed that Mary Jane was trying so very hard to be brave so
+she did her best to help.
+
+"Wasn't it lucky that officer came by just then!" she said cheerfully. "I
+can't for the life of me see why anybody would be mean enough to steal a
+little girl's doll cart and I keep thinking we'll find it somewhere. Come
+on, Mary Jane, let's sit down on this settee here till Mrs. Holden comes
+out. Then perhaps some of you girls will be good enough to go up to the
+candy shop with me and get some more taffy apples--I suppose those went
+with the cart!"
+
+Mary Jane stepped over toward her mother, who had already seated herself
+on the settee at the end of the porch. But before she sat down she just
+happened to look down toward the ground. The Holden porch had no railing
+around the side and as Mary Jane was always a little timid about falling
+she kept a close watch on the end of the porch every time she went near
+it. She glanced down at the ground and then--her face changed! The
+sorrowful look vanished and smiles spread like sunshine over her face.
+
+"Look!" she exclaimed, as she pointed to the ground. "Look there!"
+
+
+
+
+A TRIP TO THE ZOO
+
+
+It wasn't hard to guess what Mary Jane had found; nothing but her precious
+doll cart could have made her feel and look so happy. They all ran to the
+end of the porch, looked over the edge, and there, sure enough, was the
+birthday cart all tumbled down in a heap. Alice and Frances jumped down,
+set it up straight and then, with Mrs. Merrill's help from above, lifted
+it up to the porch just as the policeman and Mrs. Holden came out of the
+house.
+
+"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the officer. "Another cart?"
+
+"No, it's mine!" cried Mary Jane happily. She ran her hands over the hood,
+the body part and then the wheels to make sure nothing was broken.
+Everything seemed all right, even the bag of taffy apples was still tucked
+under the carriage robe that had come loose but had not fallen clear out.
+
+"Yours?" asked the officer. "But I thought yours was lost!"
+
+"It was," admitted Mary Jane, "but it isn't any more."
+
+Mrs. Merrill hastened to explain that the cart had just then been
+discovered on the ground at the end of the porch.
+
+"I know what was the trouble," said Frances, "she didn't fasten the
+brake--did you, Mary Jane?"
+
+Mary Jane and the policeman bent down to inspect the brake. No, it wasn't
+fastened.
+
+"It wouldn't take much of a breeze to blow that cart off the porch, young
+lady," said the officer, laughingly, "and so I suggest that if you ever
+want to leave your doll in the cart, you'd better be sure the brake is
+locked. You might have a smashed doll instead of a lost cart to report and
+then things wouldn't be so easy to straighten out!" And with a pleasant
+good-by he went on about his business.
+
+Left alone the two mothers looked at each other and laughed--such an easy
+ending to disappointment didn't often come! The four girls made a dive for
+the bag of apples and settled themselves on the broad front steps for a
+few minutes of real enjoyment. Mary Jane found that taffy apples were a
+lot of fun to eat. The hard, slick surface was delicious to "lick" and
+then, when a small part was licked thin, it was fun to bite right straight
+through to the apple.
+
+"If you think they're good now," said Frances, "you should taste them in
+the fall when the fresh apples are in--yummy-um!"
+
+"These are good enough for me," said Betty contentedly and she bit off a
+big chunk of apple.
+
+"Betty Holden!" exclaimed Frances with big sisterly chagrin, "you look
+like a monkey with that apple all over your face!"
+
+"Oh, fiddle!" replied Betty indifferently, "I like monkeys."
+
+"Did you ever see one?" asked Mary Jane, "a really truly live one?"
+
+Betty stared. "Why of course!" she answered, "haven't you?"
+
+Mary Jane shook her head.
+
+"Well then you ought to go up to the Zoo," she said positively, "let's all
+go." She jumped up and ran over to her mother. "Mother!" she announced,
+"Mary Jane's never seen a monkey--never! Can't we take her up to the Zoo
+and show 'em to her?"
+
+"Never seen a monkey!" exclaimed Mrs. Holden and she was as surprised as
+Betty had been, "are you sure?"
+
+"Yes, Betty's right," said Mrs. Merrill. "Mary Jane has seen a great many
+things for a little girl who has just had her sixth birthday. But she
+hasn't seen a monkey. Her father and I were saying only last night that we
+must take the girls up to the Zoo as soon as possible."
+
+"Let's all go next Saturday," suggested Mrs. Holden, "no, we can't go next
+Saturday because the girls and I have some shopping to do. Let's go a week
+from Saturday. By that time the restaurant in Lincoln Park will be open.
+The way we do," she explained to the Merrills, "is to take our lunch, a
+picnic lunch, with us. We start up about eleven, eat over by the lake and
+then have the whole afternoon for watching the animals; we eat dinner in
+that nice restaurant, before dark, and then come home in the early
+evening. Can you all go on that day?"
+
+Mrs. Merrill said she was sure they could, so plans were made right then
+and there.
+
+Mary Jane and Alice thought those two weeks, or nearly two weeks, never
+would pass. Of course there was the doll cart to play with and Mary Jane
+loved it exactly as much as ever. But she did want to see the monkeys, and
+the foxes (Betty told her she would love the foxes!) and all the creatures
+that Betty seemed to know so much about and which she had never even
+seen.
+
+But at last the morning came, warm and sunny and clear and the lunch boxes
+were packed, the apartment locked up and everybody started toward Lincoln
+Park feeling happy and ready for fun. The fathers couldn't come for lunch,
+but really when all the Holden girls and boys were added to the three
+Merrills, there was such a crowd that, for the time at least, fathers
+weren't so very much missed.
+
+When they reached the park Mary Jane realized, for the first time, how
+close it was getting to really truly summer. The sun shone with real
+summer warmth, the lake was blue and beautiful and flowers bloomed on
+every corner.
+
+"Oh, I'd just like to live in a park all the time," she exclaimed as she
+looked around her, "it seems just like home!"
+
+"Yes, it does," said Mrs. Merrill, with a wee bit of a sigh, "I'm afraid I
+know some folks who are going to miss their gardens and flower bed this
+summer."
+
+"How stupid of me not to have thought of that!" exclaimed Mrs. Holden.
+"You know it will be just two weeks now till we go up to the lake for all
+the summer. Why didn't I think to have you plant stuff in our back garden?
+Then you could have all the garden you liked right there handy--we always
+do hate to leave the ground idle."
+
+"Perhaps we might plant something even yet," suggested Mrs. Merrill, much
+delighted with the idea, "we'd love to try."
+
+But there was no time for further planning just then--John Holden demanded
+his lunch; Betty made a lively second and in a minute or two a clean
+grassy place was picked out, the individual lunch boxes were passed out
+and then, for a few minutes, everybody was quiet.
+
+"I'm going to feed the black bear," announced Betty, as she paused to pick
+out another sandwich, "I'm going to feed him peanuts--I saved up enough
+money for two bagsful."
+
+"But aren't you afraid of him?" asked Mary Jane breathlessly.
+
+"Afraid? Pooh!" grunted Betty.
+
+"Never you mind, Mary Jane," said Linn comfortingly, "she was afraid the
+first time she saw him and I remember all about it. But now she's learned
+that he can't get out the cage."
+
+"Now, Linn, I never--" began Betty.
+
+But John interrupted. "There!" he said, "I'm through. Come on, let's
+gather up the boxes and papers and stick 'em in the trash box on the way
+to get the peanuts." So the children all helped and in a jiffy the pretty,
+grassy spot where they had eaten lunch was as clean and tidy as when they
+came. And then away they scampered after the peanuts.
+
+Such an afternoon as it was! Mary Jane tried to remember each thing they
+did so she could tell her father when he met them after three o'clock. But
+she couldn't remember half what they had done. She knew they saw the
+little foxes--such pretty, dainty white and tan colored foxes that played
+together like little pet kittens and made her want to hold them in her lap
+and pet them. She knew they saw the bears--great big bears and middle
+sized bears and little bit o' bears just like in the story book, and she
+fed them peanuts which they caught very deftly in their soft cushioned
+paws. But all the rest, she really couldn't remember in the right
+order--there were kangaroos and buffaloes and a giraffe who stuck his long
+neck over the top of a great high fence and made Mary Jane think of
+nothing so much as a funny paper picture. And then of course the
+monkeys--dozens of them and queer birds with curious colored feathers and
+funny bills and feet. Really, she had seen in that one afternoon, more
+animals than she had guessed lived in the whole world, oh, many more!
+
+"But have you seen the seals?" asked Mr. Merrill who met them at the bird
+house.
+
+No, they hadn't.
+
+"It's almost four o'clock," said Mr. Merrill, looking at his watch, "and
+Mr. Holden said they ate at four and we should meet him there, so let's
+hurry."
+
+It was a good thing they did hurry for other folks seemed to know, too,
+that the seals were fed at four. From all directions, folks could be seen
+walking toward the big enclosed pond where the seals were kept. But, by
+hurrying, they got there in time to stand close to the iron fence where
+they could see the antics of those queerest of animals, the seals.
+
+One would suppose that even the seals knew it was nearly four o'clock,
+dinner time, for they were so excited and eager. They barked and swam and
+flung themselves around vigorously as though they could hardly stand
+waiting for anything. Then, just at four, a man came out of a near-by
+building. In his hand he carried a basket of fish--a great, well-filled
+basket. He came over to a little platform close by where the Merrill and
+Holden children were standing; so they could see everything.
+
+He picked up a big fish, tossed it over into the rocky island in the
+middle of the seals' pond and then! such a scrambling as there was till
+the middle-sized seal with a few ungainly flops, grabbed the fish and
+gulped it down in one bite.
+
+Then he threw another fish and another and another--one after the other so
+fast that Mary Jane felt sure the seals must get all mixed up about
+catching them. But they didn't. Those seals must have been smarter than
+folks had thought for they seemed to know, every time, just about where
+the fish was to hit on the rocks and to know, too, just how to get to that
+particular spot the quickest. Mary Jane thought it very wonderful.
+
+But one thing worried her. There was one small seal, who for some reason
+or other, seemed to be always just a second too late to get a fish. Mary
+Jane was sure he had had but one and all the others had had, oh, a lot.
+And she couldn't help wishing all the others wouldn't be quite so grabby.
+
+When the man who was feeding the seals got almost to the bottom of his big
+basket, he stopped and looked at the crowd of children assembled for the
+feeding. And as he looked, he spied Mary Jane's sober little face.
+
+"Don't you like to watch them?" he asked her in surprise.
+
+"Yes, I like to only they're so grabby," she replied promptly, "and he
+hasn't had but one." She pointed out the little seal who was a bit too
+slow.
+
+"We'll fix that," said the keeper, kindly, "you just watch."
+
+He tossed a great big fish close to the crowd of waiting seals, then,
+quick as a flash and before they had had time to get that one, he tossed
+another, straight at the little seal who was on the edge of the crowd.
+
+"He got it! He got it!" cried Mary Jane happily, "he got it before they
+had a chance!"
+
+"And he's going to get another," said the keeper as he threw another and
+still another, straight at the hungry little seal. "There!" he added as he
+looked at the now empty basket, "that ought to do him till to-morrow."
+Mary Jane thought he looked so comfortable now that surely he had had as
+much as he needed for the day.
+
+"Better hurry if we're to see the lions eat," said Mr. Holden, who during
+the seals' dining hour had come up behind his little party.
+
+"Lions!" exclaimed Mary Jane.
+
+"Yes, hurry up!" called Betty and she and her brother who were quite
+familiar with the park because of many previous visits, ran on toward a
+big brick house near by.
+
+Mary Jane wasn't afraid, but all the same she thought it would be more fun
+to hold her father's hand and even though they were a bit behind, they got
+into the lions' house in time.
+
+Here the dinner was of meat, great big chunks of raw, red meat that the
+keepers tossed into the cages. And it was so funny to watch! Just before
+the keeper appeared, the lions and tigers and jackals and leopards were
+pacing up and down their cages with such weird roars and grunts and growls
+that Mary Jane held tightly to her father's hand and didn't go very close
+to the iron bars. But when the keepers appeared with the meat there was a
+wild scramble, and then silence except for the crunching and smacking of
+eating. It certainly was different, oh, very, very different from anything
+Mary Jane had ever seen before!
+
+"Let's not wait here any more," suggested Alice, "let's show Dadah the
+monkeys."
+
+"Yes, and the foxes--the white ones," said Mary Jane, "they're my
+favorites of all."
+
+But before they had had time to show Mr. Merrill every single creature
+they had seen, the Holden boys announced that they were hungry and that it
+was long past dinner time. And sure enough! Even though it wasn't really
+long _past_ dinner time, it _was_ half past five--the time they had agreed
+upon for dinner. So a very jolly party seated themselves at a big round
+table on a second story porch of the Park restaurant. That was the nicest
+place to eat Mary Jane had ever seen--unless perhaps a diner on a train.
+For after they gave their order, she discovered that they could look right
+down on a small lake where ducks and geese and swans lived. The children
+got so interested watching the pretty creatures that for once they didn't
+have time to think the waiter was slow!
+
+They stayed there eating and watching the birds, till the sun set back of
+the trees. Then, when there wasn't another scrap of cake or teaspoonful of
+ice cream left, they gathered up wraps and hats and started for home.
+
+"I know one thing," said sleepy Mary Jane as they waited for the bus that
+was to take them to their train. "I know there're a lot more animal folks
+in the world than I thought for--oh, a lot more! And I think I'd better
+come again to see them all."
+
+
+
+
+A DAY IN THE PARKS
+
+
+A whole long vacation begun! Alice home all day and plenty of time for
+walks and playing together! It seemed almost too good to be true. For
+although Alice was several years older than her sister Mary Jane, the two
+girls had always had very happy times playing together and they had missed
+each other very much during school days. Now that the Holden family was
+away, for they went off, bag and baggage, to their country home up in
+Wisconsin the very day school closed, the two girls had no one near by to
+play with, so more than ever before they needed and enjoyed each other's
+company. Frances Westland had gone back to the country and the Merrill
+girls had not made friends with anyone who lived near enough to make a
+convenient playmate.
+
+They didn't do as some girls and boys do in vacation, get up late in the
+morning. No, they thought it was more fun to get up promptly and have
+breakfast with Dadah and then, when the afternoon got hot, as often
+happened, they took a nice long rest and dressed fresh and clean for
+dinner. On many a day Mrs. Merrill packed a basket of dinner and they met
+Mr. Merrill over by the park, had their dinner near one of the small
+lagoons or close to the big lake. After dinner they played ball or
+tennis--Alice was learning to be very good at tennis.
+
+"I wish there were swans in our park," said Mary Jane as she sat on the
+edge of the lagoon and watched the row boats and the electric launches
+gliding about on the water. "I liked those swans at Lincoln Park."
+
+"I was just thinking to-day," said Mr. Merrill, "we haven't seen all the
+parks and I promised you, that you should see them--all the big ones
+anyway. I wonder when we could go, mother?"
+
+"I wonder _how_ we could go," said Mrs. Merrill, "the parks are so far
+apart that a journey through them all would be a hopeless task, seems to
+me."
+
+"Depends on how you do it," laughed Mr. Merrill. "I'll tell you what I
+thought. I'll take the whole day away from the office so as to go along.
+We'll start fairly early and take the elevated out to Garfield Park--you
+know we promised the girls a trip on the elevated and we've always taken
+the train! We'll see that park well, you know it has gardens and
+greenhouses and lakes, and then we'll get a taxi and go to two or three
+other parks and ride home."
+
+The girls thought that was a wonderful plan and they wanted to set the day
+for that very same week. So Thursday was decided upon.
+
+"Now there's one thing besides getting a good lunch ready that I want you
+folks to do," said Mr. Merrill as they picked up their baskets and balls
+ready to go home, "I want you to get out that map of Chicago we had on the
+train the day we came up here and find just where Garfield Park is and how
+we get there and how many interesting sights like rivers and parks and
+boulevards we pass on the way." And of course the girls promised that they
+would find the map and get all that information first thing in the
+morning.
+
+Riding on the elevated proved to be great fun. Mary Jane was afraid for a
+few minutes she wasn't going to like it--the stairs were so very high up
+with holes in each step to see down to the ground; and the train dashed to
+the platform with such a roar and bustle and people crowded on and jerk!
+the train rushed off. But when she settled down in the seat, comfortingly
+near her mother, and looked out over the roofs of houses and stores, and
+down long streets, one after another, she found she wasn't a bit afraid
+and that she liked it very much. She liked watching for children on folks'
+back porches. Some played on the porch and some played in the dining-room
+windows--it was easy to tell which were the dining-room windows because
+always there were three big windows and always she could look right
+through the curtains and see the big table in the middle of the room. The
+only trouble with watching folks from an elevated was that the train
+dashed by so quickly she couldn't any more than see, till--flash, flash,
+and they were gone and there was another street and another set of back
+stairs and some different children playing. It really was awfully queer.
+
+Pretty soon they reached the big down town and there they got off their
+train, climbed over a big bridge to another elevated train and away they
+went whizzing again. It certainly was a queer way to travel, Mary Jane
+thought.
+
+But finally father announced that they had come to Garfield Park, so they
+got off, walked down the stairs to a park that looked so much like their
+own park that Mary Jane had to rub her eyes and look twice to make sure
+she wasn't dreaming. Here were the same winding driveways, beautiful trees
+and small lakes.
+
+"Did we come back to our Park?" she asked in surprise.
+
+"Oh, no," answered Alice who had run on a little ahead, "look at the big
+greenhouse and look back there! Now don't you see the swans?"
+
+No, it wasn't their own neighborhood park, Mary Jane soon realized that,
+because there were many new things to be seen. The wonderful tropical
+greenhouse where palms and bananas and wonderful ferns such as the girls
+had seen in Florida were growing. And then there were beautiful out of
+door gardens--Mary Jane liked those even better than the greenhouse
+gardens, wonderful as those were. She seemed to feel, someway, as though
+the flowers must like the out of doors better.
+
+Right in the middle of the many lovely flower beds in the out of doors
+gardens, there was a lily pool in which grew water lilies of all colors
+and sorts. Mary Jane had never seen water lilies before and she thought
+them very lovely--and rather queer too, if the truth must be told. She
+decided she would stay right there a while and let Alice and her father
+explore the rest of the gardens--they wanted to know names of flowers and
+names didn't seem a bit interesting to the little girl.
+
+Just after she had decided to stay there and play, she spied a boy of
+about her age who was watching the lilies too.
+
+"Can you walk all the way around the edge?" he asked her.
+
+"Edge of what?" asked Mary Jane.
+
+"The edge of the pool," he replied, "see," and he put his foot up on the
+stone rim of the pool, "all the way around on this."
+
+"Can you?" asked Mary Jane. She wanted to see what he would say before she
+answered his question.
+
+"Sure!" he replied, "it's just as easy! Only girls are 'fraidies."
+
+"I guess I'm not," declared Mary Jane firmly, "watch!" She stepped up on
+the stone rim--it was about eight inches wide--and walked boldly along
+toward the middle of the long side of the pool.
+
+"You can, can't you," said the boy admiringly.
+
+"Just as easy," replied Mary Jane, for when she found she could do what he
+had asked she was anxious to have it appear to be as easy for her as for
+him.
+
+"Come on," the boy suggested, "let's race!"
+
+"Race?" asked Mary Jane, "how?"
+
+"'Round the pool. You start this way, and I'll start that way and the one
+that gets around home first beats."
+
+"All right," agreed Mary Jane, "let's."
+
+Now before Mary Jane saw the boy by the pool, Mrs. Merrill spied some very
+beautiful grasses over at one side of the gardens; the very sort of
+grasses, she decided, that Mary Jane's grandmother would like to use in
+her flower beds by the driveways. And of course she wanted to find out the
+names of the grasses so she could write to grandmother about them. Seeing
+that Mary Jane was so absorbed in the pool and the lilies, she slipped
+over to look at the name sign which she knew would be stuck right by the
+roots. She jotted the name down in her note book, looked along at a few
+others and--turned back to the pool just in time to see her small daughter
+and a strange boy run racingly along the rim of the pool straight at each
+other.
+
+"Mary Jane! Mary Jane!" she called, "jump down onto the ground! Jump
+down!"
+
+Whether Mary Jane heard her and became confused, or whether the boy's
+bumping into her made her lose her balance, nobody ever quite found out.
+But anyway, right before Mrs. Merrill's astonished eyes, Mary Jane Merrill
+tumbled 'kplump--into the lily pool!
+
+Fortunately the lily pool wasn't very deep so Mary Jane didn't fall far.
+But she did hit the bottom pretty hard; so hard that when she bobbed up,
+her head out of water and her feet on the bottom, she hardly knew what had
+happened to her.
+
+Mrs. Merrill screamed and Mr. Merrill, Alice, three policemen and about
+twenty other people came running to see what had happened. It wasn't
+necessary for anybody to jump in and make a triumphant rescue for Mary
+Jane was so close to shore that Mrs. Merrill had taken firm hold of her
+hand and pulled her out just as all the folks got there. So there was
+nothing for them to do but to stare and to ask questions.
+
+"How did she do it?" asked the first policeman.
+
+"Hurt you any?" asked the second.
+
+"You and your mother come with me," said the third (and Mary Jane guessed
+right away from his voice that he must have some little girls of his own),
+"and I'll show you where you can dry your clothes."
+
+The procession of policemen and onlookers, led by a very wet and greatly
+embarrassed little girl, crossed the gardens, crossed the street and went
+into a comfortable big building. There a kindly matron produced a big
+bathrobe in which Mary Jane sat while her dress was wrung out and dried.
+And wasn't she glad there was a good hot sun so things could dry quickly!
+
+Finally, when Mary Jane was beginning to get awfully hungry, mother
+announced that the clothes were dry and that she had pulled and stretched
+them the best she could in the place of ironing. So Mary Jane dressed and
+they went in search of Alice and her father.
+
+"Well, you certainly do mix up baths with your picnics," laughed Mr.
+Merrill when he saw them coming. "Remember the time you fell into
+Clearwater, Pussy?"
+
+"But it isn't so bad, really, Dadah," said Mary Jane, "and I'm not wet
+now."
+
+"So you're not," said Mr. Merrill, "but _I_ am hungry--anybody agree with
+me?"
+
+They all admitted to being nearly starved, so they found a pretty, grassy
+spot close by the lake on which several beautiful swans were sunning
+themselves, and there they spread out the luncheon they had brought. At
+first the girls were so hungry they didn't want to do anything but eat.
+But by the time they had eaten a plateful of potato salad and three or
+four sandwiches, the swans discovered their lunching place and came to
+call. Evidently swans were used to being treated very nicely by folks who
+came to the park for they didn't seem to have a trace of fear of
+strangers.
+
+The girls tossed the crusts of the sandwiches to the edge of the water and
+the swans bent their long necks and picked them up and ate them, every
+crust, so daintily just as though crusts were a diet fit for kings--and
+swans. The swans didn't actually come out of the water, but they came so
+close to the shore that the girls could almost touch them and they soon
+got to feeling very well acquainted.
+
+So it was with some regret that they heard Mr. Merrill say, "Well, girls,
+weren't we to see some of the other parks too?" And here it was four
+o'clock!
+
+The basket was packed--and there wasn't a scrap of anything a swan could
+eat, you may be sure of that--and they strolled down to the roadway. In a
+minute or two Mr. Merrill hailed a passing taxi and they settled
+themselves for a nice long ride.
+
+They didn't stop at any other park; Mary Jane was sure no other could be
+as interesting as the one where she had had such exciting experiences and
+Alice was quite as content as her father and mother to sit back, cool and
+comfortable, and see the beautiful flowers and shrubbery slip past them.
+So they rode and rode through one park after another, it seemed, till
+suddenly Mary Jane spied something that looked familiar.
+
+"That's my Midway!" she announced, as the car turned into the long, broad
+stretch of parkway near their own home.
+
+"Sure enough it is!" exclaimed Mr. Merrill in pretended amazement, "we'll
+have to turn around and go back!"
+
+"No we won't," said Mary Jane, "we'll go home."
+
+So they went on home, just in time to cook a good warm dinner and to talk
+over and over again the many things they had seen in the parks.
+
+
+
+
+VISITORS--AND A BOAT RIDE
+
+
+One day, not so very long after the trip through the parks, the bell at
+the Merrills' front door pealed long and hard. Mary Jane, whose job was
+answering the door, ran to the little house 'phone, and heard a loud voice
+shout, "Special for Merrill!"
+
+"What's he mean, mother?" she asked, in a puzzled voice.
+
+"Better press the buzzer and let him in, dear," replied Mrs. Merrill, "if
+he has the name right he must have something for us."
+
+So Mary Jane pressed the downstairs buzzer and then opened the front door.
+Yes, it was for them--a special delivery letter for Mrs. Merrill. Mary
+Jane and Alice were much excited and could hardly wait till the
+messenger's book was signed and the letter was opened.
+
+"It's from grandma," said Mrs. Merrill as she glanced at the writing, "and
+listen! This is what she says:
+
+"'Grandpa finds quite unexpectedly that he must come to Chicago on
+business and he says that if it's convenient to you folks I can come along
+and we'll stay two or three days for a visit. Please wire reply because we
+must start Wednesday evening.'"
+
+"And it's ten o'clock Wednesday morning now!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill. She
+hurried to the telephone, called Mr. Merrill so he could send a telegram
+at once, then she and the two girls went right to work making ready for
+the guests.
+
+It was decided that Alice and Mary Jane should sleep on couches and give
+up their room to the visitors. "Now's when I wish we had our nice guest
+room," said Mrs. Merrill, "but then, grandma knows that folks who live in
+Chicago flats don't keep guest rooms for infrequent visitors." For her
+part, Mary Jane thought sleeping on a couch would be great fun--so grown
+up and different from every day. She was to have the dining-room couch and
+Alice was to sleep in the living-room. When all plans were made, bedding
+sorted out and laid ready for making up the beds fresh first thing in the
+morning, Mrs. Merrill began planning the meals. If the visitors were to
+stay only a short time she wanted to have as much baking and marketing as
+possible done beforehand, so every minute could be spent in fun and
+visiting. Alice and Mary Jane, who had been marketing so much with their
+mother of late that they really could be trusted, took a long list up to
+the grocery and Mrs. Merrill set to work baking coffeecake and bread and
+cookies. Um-m! It wasn't an hour till that tiny kitchen began to smell so
+good that the girls could hardly be coaxed away. Mrs. Merrill let them
+help in a good many ways. Mary Jane put the sugar and nuts on the tops of
+the cookies after her mother put them in the pan and Alice, who was
+getting to be a really good cook, tended to the baking. She put the big
+pans in, and watched the baking, and took them out when every cookie was
+evenly browned. Then, after she took a pan out of the oven, she gently
+lifted the hot cookies out from the baking pan onto a wire rack where they
+could cool without losing their pretty shapes. When the cookies were cool,
+it was Mary Jane's turn again. She put them all in the tin cookie box,
+counting them and laying them neatly between layers of paraffin paper so
+they would keep fresh even in the hot weather.
+
+It was a rule that only perfect cookies should be packed away--scraps
+never went into the tin box. But for some reason or other, the girls never
+seemed to mind the job of eating the broken ones! In fact Mary Jane often
+asked Alice _not_ to be so careful--to please break a few so there would
+be plenty to eat right then and there.
+
+The day went by so quickly that it was bed time before the girls realized
+it and then, after about forty winks, it was morning--the morning when
+grandma and grandpa were coming.
+
+Everybody was up early, Alice and Mary Jane made up the beds fresh and
+neat, mother cooked a good breakfast and Dadah went to the train, at a
+near-by suburban station, to meet the travelers. It was a jolly party that
+sat around the breakfast table--you may be sure of that!
+
+"Now then," said Mr. Merrill, when the breakfast was eaten up and news of
+the farm had been told, "I'll have to go to work and I suppose grandpa has
+to do his business to-day, so we'll leave you folks to yourselves. Then
+to-morrow, if grandpa is through his business, we can plan some fun."
+
+So the two business folks went down town and grandma was left to enjoy
+life at home. The girls were glad she could stay.
+
+"Let's take grandma over to the lake," suggested Alice, "I know you'd love
+riding in one of those little electric launches, grandmother."
+
+"Let's take some lunch and not come home till she's seen everything in
+Chicago," said Mary Jane in a rush of hospitality.
+
+"Dear me! Child!" exclaimed grandma in dismay, "don't you know there's
+another day coming!"
+
+Mary Jane agreed to leave a few sights for the next day, but she didn't
+want to lose any time getting off. Fortunately the morning work didn't
+take but a tiny bit of time, and as grandma, who didn't care much for
+"stuffy sleepers," was very glad to get out into the fresh air, they very
+soon were on their way to the park.
+
+The girls felt quite at home in the neighborhood and in the park by this
+time, and they thought it was great fun to show the sights to somebody
+else--somebody who didn't know all about Chicago. Grandma loved the
+beautiful Midway, the charming lagoons and she enjoyed her ride on the
+little launch fully as much as the girls had thought she would.
+
+"But don't you have any _big_ boats?" she asked, "great big ones with two
+decks and lots of passengers and all that? I'd like to ride on a big boat
+too."
+
+"Then that's exactly what we'll do to-morrow, mother," said Mrs. Merrill.
+"There is a big boat that runs from Jackson Park up to the municipal pier.
+We'll go on it to-morrow and we'll get our lunch up town and then we'll
+come back home on the boat."
+
+And that's exactly what they did.
+
+When Mr. Merrill heard that grandma wanted a ride on a big boat, the plans
+for the next day were as good as made. He thought the idea of going to
+town on the boat and then getting lunch and coming home was a fine one and
+he only made one change in the plan.
+
+"Instead of going to a store, in the loop, let's take one of the little
+launches that run from the Municipal pier to Lincoln Park and go up there
+for our lunch so grandma can see your favorite swans and perhaps, if we
+want to stay that long, see the seals get their four o'clock tea." But
+dear me, he little guessed what would happen as his nice-sounding plan
+worked out!
+
+So the next morning, the Merrills all had a nice, leisurely, visity
+breakfast, then a walk through the park, and never did the park look
+lovelier than on the sunny summer morning, and then, boarding the boat
+that rocked at the pier on the big lake, they found comfortable seats on
+the shady side and prepared for a pleasant ride.
+
+Mary Jane chose to sit on the side nearest the pier because she loved to
+look down from the upper deck and watch the people boarding the boat. She
+had never ridden on boats very much, only when she went to Florida, and
+this boat they were now aboard seemed very different from the big,
+awkward, flat bottomed boat they took their river trip on through Florida
+jungles.
+
+"You don't need to sit by me if you want to talk to mother," she said to
+her father.
+
+"Humph!" said her father teasingly, "how do I know you're not going to
+tumble overboard! You know you have a way of mixing up picnics and water,
+Mary Jane, so I don't think I'll take any chances." But when Mary Jane
+promised that she would sit very still and not walk around a step and not
+lean over the edge, he went to speak to grandpa a few minutes. And while
+he was gone, Mary Jane leaned up against the side of the boat and watched
+the folks down on the pier.
+
+She thought it must surely be about time for the boat to start because
+there was hurrying on the pier, and men were busy taking ropes off of the
+big wooden posts along the side nearest the water. While she was watching,
+a woman came along the dock toward the boat and with her were two little
+children, a girl about Mary Jane's own age and a little boy some two years
+younger. Just as they reached the gang plank, ready to step onto the boat,
+the little boy began to cry.
+
+"I left my boat! I left my boat! I left my boat!" he cried. Mary Jane
+could hear him very plainly even though she sat so far up above him.
+
+She couldn't hear what the mother said, but evidently she promised to get
+the missing boat for him, because she left both children by the side of
+the gang plank, and hurrying as fast as possible she ran back toward the
+shore. And right at that minute, the big bell overhead rang three times
+and the engine aboard the boat began to throb--it was time to go.
+
+The men on the dock noticed the two children and one said to the little
+girl, "Were you going?" and she nodded yes. So he picked up the boy and
+hurried the two children aboard just as the gang plank was hauled in and
+the boat made away from the pier.
+
+Mary Jane was so thrilled and excited she could hardly sit still. She
+tried to call her father but he was on the other side of the boat and she
+had promised to sit still--perfectly still--till he came back. What in the
+world was a little girl to do? And back on the shore that was so rapidly
+getting farther and farther way, Mary Jane could see the mother of the
+children, running frantically toward the dock which the boat had left.
+Surely the captain would see her, Mary Jane thought. But if he did, he
+likely thought she was merely somebody who had missed the boat and that he
+had no time for turning back. And so the boat continued out into the
+lake.
+
+Finally after what seemed the _longest_ time (though it really was hardly
+more than five minutes), Mr. Merrill came back and then, such a story as
+he heard!
+
+"Are you sure, Mary Jane?" he asked, "certain sure? The men wouldn't put
+children on a boat without grown folks along!"
+
+"But they did, Dadah!" insisted Mary Jane, "I saw 'em!"
+
+"Then you come with me," said Mr. Merrill, "and we'll see if we can find
+them."
+
+So Mr. Merrill and Mary Jane went down the stairs, and that took some time
+because folks were coming and going and getting settled for the trip, and
+there, huddled close together and crying as hard as they could cry, were
+the two little waifs!
+
+Mary Jane with real motherliness began talking to the little girl; Mr.
+Merrill picked up the boy and together the whole party went in search of
+the captain. By the time he was found though, the boat was still farther
+on its journey toward the city and the dock they started from was farther
+and farther behind.
+
+"Well, that is a time we were wrong," admitted the captain when he had
+listened to all Mary Jane had to say and talked with the man who had put
+the children aboard. "But even though we were wrong, we can't go back now.
+We'll have to make the children comfortable and take them back to their
+mother on the return trip."
+
+So Mr. Merrill and Mary Jane went back to the deck, only this time they
+took with them the two little strangers. Mrs. Merrill was told the story
+and she and Alice and Mary Jane, with help from grandma, grandpa and Mr.
+Merrill, set themselves to the task of making the little children happy.
+At first it was hard work, because they cried all the time for their
+mother. But erelong they understood the friendliness around them and they
+stopped crying and began to have a good time. Grandpa discovered some
+crackerjack and everybody knows what a help _that_ is; Mrs. Merrill told
+some funny stories and Mr. Merrill took them all over the boat--to see the
+great engine and everything. Then there were the sights to watch from the
+deck and the big buildings to count and the boats they passed to
+watch--oh, there surely was a lot to do that made that trip interesting
+and so very short.
+
+As the boat pulled up near the down town pier, the Merrills saw a taxi
+dash up near where the boat was to land: saw a woman get out and, followed
+by a policeman, hurry up to the side where the boat would pull in.
+
+"Look!" exclaimed Mary Jane excitedly. "Look!"
+
+The little girl, whose name was Ann, looked along with the others, and
+then she gave a happy cry.
+
+"Mother!" she shouted, so loudly that her mother, waiting on the pier
+could hear and was so very relieved!
+
+When the boat pulled into the dock, the captain was the first one to step
+off; he met the mother and the officer and brought them aboard at once.
+Mary Jane was called upon to explain all that she had seen and the
+officer, as well as the mother, was satisfied that the whole thing was an
+accident and not an attempt to steal the children.
+
+"But how did you get up here so quickly?" asked Mary Jane, when the first
+excitement was over.
+
+"My dear child!" laughed Ann's mother, "a person can do a lot when she
+thinks something is happening to her children! I took a passing taxi,
+dashed to a police station and then on up here. And nothing has happened
+at all--except you nice people have given my little folks a very pleasant
+trip. Next time, Bobby," she added, "we'll leave your toy boat or we'll
+all go together to find it. We won't take any chances of losing each
+other!"
+
+"Well," laughed Mr. Merrill when the mother and children and officer and
+captain had all gone on about their own business, "what was it we were
+going to do to-day?"
+
+Everybody laughed at that! They had been so excited that they had
+forgotten, yes, actually forgotten, that this was a sight-seeing trip for
+grandma and grandpa. But once they remembered, they knew just what to do.
+They climbed aboard a waiting launch, rode up to Lincoln Park, had a
+wonderful dinner and fun all the rest of the day.
+
+"I don't see," remarked grandma, as they neared home, late that evening,
+"how you girls are ever going to settle down to school again! Did you know
+that school was only a few weeks away? Vacation will be over before you
+know it!"
+
+
+
+
+SCHOOL BEGINS
+
+
+When grandma suggested that it was nearly time for school to begin, on
+that day of the boat ride, she guessed better than the girls suspected. At
+the time they laughed and thought she was joking, but, after she and
+grandpa had gone home, they got out a calendar and counted up and there,
+to be sure, only one and one-half weeks of vacation were left.
+
+"I didn't realize school began so early," exclaimed Mrs. Merrill in
+dismay.
+
+"I thought summer was a long time!" cried Alice, "but it isn't any time at
+all!"
+
+"Goody! Goody! Goody!" Mary Jane said happily, "then I get to start to
+school like a big girl."
+
+It was no wonder Mary Jane was happy, for she remembered that the plan was
+for her to start in the really truly school, not the kindergarten where
+she had gone in her other home, and any little girl likes to start to
+school like her big sister.
+
+When the day finally came, Alice was as much excited as Mary Jane herself.
+For although the summer had been so pleasant she almost hated to see it
+end--the free days with plenty of time for visits with mother and picnics
+and marketing and all--still, school was pleasant too and any little girl
+who does nice work and tries to learn, will make good friends and have
+happy days, just as Alice always had had.
+
+Mary Jane had a hard time deciding which dress to wear. She wanted to look
+very grown up, so that teacher would realize she was a big girl, so she
+finally decided upon a dark blue sailor suit. The one that had the red
+insignia on the sleeve and that looked just like a big girl's dress. With
+a clean 'kerchief peeking out of her pocket and a smashing big red bow on
+the top of her brown head, she looked very nice.
+
+Alice and Mary Jane waked up that morning the very minute they were called
+for they wanted to help mother so she could go over to school with them.
+And with all that good help of course they were off on time. Alice was
+glad to have company going to school for Frances wasn't home yet and
+wouldn't be there for a couple of weeks.
+
+Mary Jane's heart went thump, thump as she and her mother went in at the
+teachers' gate, and up the stairs and into the principal's office. And
+thump, thump some more when she saw the whole roomful of strange boys and
+girls and thump, thump some more when her turn came and she was sent
+(fortunately with her mother along) to the first grade room--number 104.
+The room was full of children, hundreds, Mary Jane thought there must be,
+though the teacher told Mrs. Merrill there were about forty-five. And if
+her heart went thump, thump before, it certainly went thump, thump,
+_thump_ when the teacher, smiling at her so kindly, gave her a seat in
+the--front-row--such a nice seat for her very own! and she sat down and
+tried to look as though she had been used to going to school all her whole
+life.
+
+For a minute she couldn't look around or anything, she felt so queer. Then
+she glanced at the next seat and there, sitting right beside her,
+was--whom do you suppose? Ann! The same pretty little Ann who had been
+lost on the boat. Immediately Mary Jane forgot all about being afraid and
+thumping hearts and strangeness and everything and began to like school.
+The two little girls had much to say about what they would do at recess
+and where did they live and everything, so the time before school began
+passed very quickly.
+
+Suddenly, in the midst of their talk, a bell rang, "GONG-GONG!" Two loud
+tones close together that way, and school began. Mary Jane Merrill was in
+a really truly school like the big girl she was getting to be.
+
+Ann came home with Mary Jane that first afternoon and Mrs. Merrill
+discovered that her name was Ann Ellis and that she lived two blocks from
+their own home and that the two little girls would no doubt find it very
+easy to be friends. They began having a good time that very afternoon and
+they planned still better times when Betty would be back and they could
+all play together. Now wasn't that fine!
+
+Mary Jane found that she liked school every bit as much as she had thought
+she would. She liked her teacher, a charming Miss Treavor, and she liked
+her studies. But most of all she liked the fun she had on the playground.
+In the big cities, like Chicago, where lots of girls and boys have no
+yards, the school yards are the only places were children can play. So, to
+make everything safe and orderly, the school folks have a playground
+teacher stay at school all the day, to help in the games and to see that
+every one has a happy time. The playground teacher at Mary Jane's school
+liked little girls very much and she knew many good games for them to
+play. So in addition to "London Bridge" and "Drop the Handkerchief" and
+"Tag" that all children play, Mary Jane learned "Roman Soldiers" and
+"Ghost Walk" and "Three times Three."
+
+Of the new ones, Mary Jane liked "Ghost Walk" the best. To play it, the
+girls and boys made a big circle, then they selected some one to be
+"Ghost." This person stood in the middle of the circle and everybody shut
+eyes tight, very tight. Then the Ghost, while every one kept very quiet,
+tried to tip-toe to the edge of the circle, slip out between two folks and
+get away without being caught. That may sound easy, but played in a yard
+full of romping boys and girls, it is not really as easy as it might seem
+and it was lots of fun, because often folks would think the "Ghost" was
+near them and would try to grab--and the joke was on them because all the
+while, maybe, the "ghost" was in another part of the ring. And whenever
+folks thought they caught the "Ghost" and _didn't_, then every one opened
+their eyes, the person who had made the mistake had to get out of the
+circle and the game began again. But if the "Ghost" really did get out of
+the circle without being caught, then the "Ghost" could hide anywhere in
+the yard and the game became an old-fashioned hide-and-seek with everybody
+hunting one lucky person.
+
+One day, when Mary Jane was "Ghost," she was determined she would get out
+of that circle without getting caught. She had tried it many a time before
+and failed; this time she was going to do it. She tiptoed, oh, so softly
+over the loose gravel to the edge of the circle. Then noiselessly she
+dropped down on hands and knees and, without a thought for her dress,
+crawled slowly between Ann and the girl next to her. She could hardly keep
+from giggling, it was so funny to be so close she almost bumped them and
+yet not to be discovered. Now she was right between them, now she was
+almost outside--now she was free and away she dashed to the spot she had
+long ago picked out as a hiding place for just such a time as this.
+
+The folks in the circle waited--but nobody was caught, so they shouted,
+"Ghost Walk?" and when the "ghost" didn't answer they opened their eyes
+and--no Mary Jane was there!
+
+"I'll get her," shouted Ann, "I'll find her! I'll bet she got out on your
+side of the circle, Janny, she never could have passed _me_!"
+
+"I'll find her myself," answered Janny, "but she never passed by me, she
+didn't!"
+
+So they hunted, up and down the yard, around the bushes, by the doorway,
+everywhere they could think of. But no sign of Mary Jane did they
+discover. They hunted and they hunted till the gong sounded and they had
+to go into school again. But not a sign of any Mary Jane did they find.
+Was Mary Jane lost? Miss Treavor must be told so everybody could hunt, for
+something surely must have happened to a little girl who didn't answer the
+recess bell when it rang for school to begin.
+
+Now it happened that some days before, when Mary Jane had first learned to
+play "Ghost walk" she hunted around the yard for a good place to hide--in
+case she ever succeeded in getting out of the circle so she _could_ hide.
+She didn't want to hide among the bushes because that was the first place
+the children looked; she didn't want to hide in the doorway because that
+was against rules and if a child was discovered there by a teacher, the
+child had to go straight upstairs and stay the rest of recess. And there
+didn't seem to be any other place. But there was another hiding place--and
+Mary Jane found it. Around the corner of the building, on the side nearest
+the furnace entrance, there was a jog in the brick wall. And in front of
+the little niche made by this jog, boards left by some carpenters had been
+carelessly tossed.
+
+"I could climb over the boards," Mary Jane had thought, "and hide down
+behind and nobody'd ever find me--ever."
+
+So when her time came, and she really did get out of the circle without
+being caught, she didn't have to stop and hunt a hiding place; she knew
+exactly where she wanted to go.
+
+But there was one thing Mary Jane hadn't figured on; one thing she didn't
+even think of as she crouched down behind her boards while the children
+hunted for her, hither and yon over the school yard. She hadn't thought
+that way off, 'round the corner and behind boards that way, she
+couldn't--_hear_. The sounds of playing and romping seemed so quiet, so
+quiet that they were hardly noticeable. She didn't hear the bell and she
+didn't even notice the sudden quiet when the children fell in line to
+march upstairs. She sat there, huddled in a snug little heap, and she
+laughed to herself about the joke she was playing on her mates.
+
+To be sure the time _did_ seem pretty long and she thought they were very
+stupid--but then--she never suspected that recess was over and--
+
+Till suddenly there descended upon her a cloud of chalk dust! It powdered
+her face and dress and shoes and made her forget all about being quiet and
+jump up with a lively scream of fright.
+
+Overhead she heard Miss Treavor's voice, exclaiming, "Whatever in the
+world!" And then, before she could quite get the dust out of her eyes and
+understand what had happened, Miss Treavor and two other teachers who had
+heard the scream, stood before her and the whole story came out. Miss
+Treavor tried not to laugh when Mary Jane told her she was hiding but she
+couldn't help it. Mary Jane looked so be-powdered and forlorn. But Mary
+Jane didn't mind the laughing because at the same time, Miss Treavor
+lifted her out from behind the boards and set her down in the cheerful
+sunlight.
+
+"That _was_ a good place to hide," the teacher admitted, "and you were a
+clever little girl to think of it. But I believe, dear," she added kindly,
+"that next time you'd better hide some place where you can hear the bell,
+even though you _are_ more likely to get caught."
+
+And Mary Jane promised that she would never, never hide in such a very
+good place again.
+
+Mary Jane hated to go back into the school room all mussed and tumbled as
+she was, so Miss Treavor sent for Alice and the two little girls skipped
+home for a fresh dress and clean ribbons so Mary Jane could enjoy the
+classes.
+
+When, a half an hour later, she came back, with the dark blue dress
+changed to a plaid gingham and the red bow changed to green, the children
+wanted to know where she had been and what had happened. But Miss Treavor
+wouldn't tell. And she had made Mary Jane promise not to tell, because
+that place was _such_ a good hiding place that the teachers didn't want
+other folks finding it and hiding there to make trouble too.
+
+But all of Mary Jane's school fun wasn't from trouble. That was just one
+day. Most of the time, she played without anything happening just as the
+other folks did. And all the time she made more friends and had a better
+time, till, when Betty came back from the country, she knew most everybody
+in her room.
+
+She liked school so very much that the days slipped by one after another
+so fast a person could hardly count them--one day and another day and
+another day--just that way. Till one Monday morning when they went to
+school, Miss Treavor announced, "Do you boys and girls know what we are
+going to do to-day? We're going to start making Christmas presents.
+Because Christmas is only _three weeks away_!"
+
+"Christmas!" thought Mary Jane, with a thrill of joy, "Christmas! Why,
+they _do_ have Christmas in Chicago! I wonder what I'll get and what I'll
+do!"
+
+
+
+
+CHRISTMAS IN CHICAGO
+
+
+Christmas in Chicago! When Mary Jane heard those words she had her first
+real pang of homesickness for the home she had left when they moved to
+Chicago. Would any Christmas anywhere ever be so beautiful as the
+Christmas in that dear home? She remembered the pine trees in the yard,
+loaded down with their wealth of snow: the glowing fire on the hearth with
+its Christmas-y smell from the pine cones that were saved through the year
+for the Christmas Day fire; the tree in the angle near the fireplace where
+the afternoon sun touched it into a blaze of glory; the party for the poor
+children that had been such fun to plan for--would anything in Chicago
+ever be half the fun of Christmas in the old home? But Mary Jane was soon
+to discover that Christmas doesn't need certain houses or fires or trees
+to make it perfect; that Christmas is made in folks' hearts and that
+wherever there is a Christmas heart, there will be a happy day--in village
+or city, the place makes no difference.
+
+When she went home from school that afternoon and announced that Miss
+Treavor said Christmas was so very near, she found that mother wasn't even
+a little surprised.
+
+"Why to be sure Christmas is coming," laughed Mrs. Merrill, "and here I've
+been waiting and waiting and _waiting_ for you to talk about it till,
+actually, I thought I'd had to begin myself, if you didn't wake up pretty
+soon." And then everybody began to talk at once.
+
+"Do they have trees in Chicago?" asked Alice.
+
+"Are there any poor folks who would like parties?" asked Mary Jane.
+
+"Is anybody coming to see us?" demanded Mary Jane.
+
+"Here! Here! Here!" exclaimed Mr. Merrill, "one at a time, ladies, one at
+a time! If you doubt that there will be trees in Chicago, you should see
+what I saw this morning as I went down to work. A train load of Christmas
+trees--yes, sir!" (for he noticed the girls could hardly believe him) "a
+whole train load of trees. And I see by the paper this evening that a boat
+load has arrived, too, so there will be no shortage of trees."
+
+"Then we can have one," said Mary Jane, with a satisfied sigh.
+
+"And let's put it in front of this foolish little gas log," suggested
+Alice, "then we won't think about a real fireplace."
+
+"And there are plenty of poor folks," said Mrs. Merrill, going back to
+Mary Jane's question, "only they will not be so easy to get together, as
+back at home. How would you like to take a Christmas party to some family
+instead of having a party at home as we did last year?"
+
+The girls hardly knew what to say about that new idea so Mrs. Merrill
+explained further. "I telephoned to the Associated Charities this very
+day," she said, "and they gave me the names of a fatherless family in
+which there are two girls about your ages, and one boy. I thought we could
+plan a fine Christmas for them and then, on Christmas morning, take it
+over and surprise them."
+
+"Oh, let's do that, mother," said Mary Jane happily, "then we'd be like a
+real Santa Claus only we'd be a morning Santa. May we do it, surely?"
+
+"I thought you'd like the idea," said Mrs. Merrill, "so I got lists from
+the association as to just what was most needed. Alice, if you'll get a
+pencil and paper, we'll figure it all out."
+
+Making plans was the girls' favorite way of spending an evening so they
+whisked the cover off the dining table, pulled up chairs for four and went
+to work list-making.
+
+"Tom," began Mrs. Merrill, consulting her list, "hasn't a bit of warm
+clothing."
+
+"Why couldn't I knit him a muffler and some mittens?" asked Mary Jane. "I
+remember how and I haven't knitted anything since the war stopped."
+
+"Fine!" approved Mrs. Merrill, "I think I have enough yarn for the mittens
+and if you'll get it out of the drawer there we can wind it while we talk
+and it will be all ready for you to set up at once. You'll have to work
+hard and fast if you want to make a muffler and a pair of mittens before
+Christmas."
+
+"Now then," she continued, looking at the list, "they have very few bed
+covers and the children get so cold at night."
+
+"Why couldn't you make some covers, mother?" suggested Alice, "and let me
+make them each some flannelette pajamas like we wear--you know how
+toasting warm they are. And I have the pattern and I know I could make
+them all myself."
+
+"That's a beautiful idea," approved Mrs. Merrill, "and I hadn't even
+thought of such a thing. When we get through planning, dear, you can get
+out your pattern and see how much material you'll need. Then, when I go up
+town to-morrow, I'll get it for you."
+
+"And they need stockings," she continued, "and shoes--"
+
+"Could any of 'em wear my good shoes that are too little?" asked Mary Jane
+eagerly. She had been greatly distressed about those "best" shoes that
+were so good, and yet were hopelessly outgrown.
+
+"I think they'll be exactly right," said Mrs. Merrill. "In fact I picked
+out this particular family because I was sure we could find nice things
+for them among you girls' outgrown things and that, put with what we buy
+new, would make all the bigger Christmas for them.
+
+"And about toys," she continued with the list, "the girls have never had a
+doll--"
+
+"Never had--" began Mary Jane but she couldn't quite get the words out.
+Never had a doll. Never had a Marie Georgiannamore to love and care for
+and take riding in a beautiful cart. Never had--no, she couldn't quite
+imagine it.
+
+After that there was no more reading off a list. Mary Jane and Alice began
+making a list of their own, of what those children were to have for
+Christmas.
+
+"But," objected Mrs. Merrill, "you girls forget that things cost money--a
+lot of money these days. And you can't possibly buy all those things and
+get any Christmas of your own too."
+
+"Humph!" grunted Mary Jane as she squeezed her face up tight in an
+effort to write, "then we won't have one of our own! Haven't we got Marie
+Georgiannamore and a cart and a nice house and warm
+clothes--and--everything?"
+
+That settled it. There would be a tree and dinner and a lot of fun in the
+Merrill house on Christmas Day, but the presents were to go to their
+adopted family to make _their_ Christmas one never to be forgotten.
+
+If you have ever planned a Christmas for somebody who never, in all their
+lives had one, you will know something about the fun that Mary Jane and
+Alice had in the time that was left before Christmas. They were about the
+busiest girls in all Chicago! They hurried home from school and they
+worked Saturdays but, actually, as soon as they got one thing done they
+thought of something else they wanted to make or buy and they had to begin
+all over again. They made cookies and candies and dressed dolls, one for
+each girl, and made a complete set of covers and pillows and "fixings" for
+an adorable doll bed that Mr. Merrill made in the evenings. Alice had to
+work pretty hard to get the pajamas all finished in time for there was
+considerable work on each pair; but she got them finished and she could
+hardly wait till Christmas to take them over to their family.
+
+Mary Jane finished the muffler and mittens though she _almost_ had to knit
+while she ate--towards the last--it takes a good many stitches to make a
+muffler big enough for an eight year old boy. The muffler was a deep
+crimson and the mittens a warm shade of gray with three rows of crimson in
+the wrist end; Mary Jane had picked colors she was sure Tom would like.
+
+At last the twenty-fourth of December came around--cold and snowy and just
+the kind of a day for making a Christmas. The trees were bought and set on
+the balcony, the turkeys, two of them, were in the pantry ready to dress
+and three big baskets were set on the dining-room table ready for
+packing.
+
+"Now, then," said Mrs. Merrill, "if you have everything ready, I think
+we'd better pack all the things we can now, because when Dadah comes home
+there'll be plenty to do."
+
+Mary Jane thought the packing was the most fun of anything she had ever
+done. They packed all the doll things in one basket, doll things and toys
+and three nice books. Of course the doll bed wouldn't go in the basket; it
+had to have a package all by itself. A second basket was for clothing, the
+pajamas--and no one would ever guess that a girl as young as Alice had
+made those charming garments--the muffler, the mittens, one pair for each
+child, warm underwear and a dress for each girl (one of the nicest of
+Alice and Mary Jane's outgrown frocks). Mr. Merrill had added a nice
+flannel shirt for Tom and Mrs. Merrill put in a warm sweater for the good
+mother.
+
+"That's a basket they'll like to open," said Alice, proudly, as she tucked
+the brand new comforter Mrs. Merrill had made, around the top, "they'll be
+so happy they won't hardly be able to wait till they can put 'em on!"
+
+The third basket was fully as interesting as the others. It was a big, big
+one and in it the girls packed groceries, cans of vegetables and soup and
+sugar--a very little bit to be sure for there wasn't much to be had, but
+the Merrills had decided to send exactly half of what they had--and
+oranges for breakfast and cereals and bread. Then on top, they were to put
+cookies and candy and the turkey. But of course those last things would go
+in in the morning, just before the baskets were taken away.
+
+By the time Mr. Merrill came home, the three baskets were packed, covered
+up and set in the corner of the dining-room ready for morning.
+
+"Now for the tree!" said Mr. Merrill as he took off his coat ready for
+work. He set their tree in the dining-room and with Alice's good help
+fixed a solid bottom standard and set it up in the living-room right in
+front of the foolish little fireplace. They wired it firmly and then Mrs.
+Merrill brought in the boxes of Christmas trimmings and everybody set to
+work.
+
+Such fun as it was! Mary Jane kept saying, "Remember this!" And Alice
+added, "Remember that!" till it seemed as though it _couldn't_ be more
+than a week since last Christmas when they had put the same things on a
+tree that looked exactly like the one they were now trimming. This year,
+seeing Mary Jane was such a _very_ old person, she was allowed to put the
+gold star on the top of the tree; she climbed the ladder, with father
+holding one hand and wired it on all by herself; and Alice, as a special
+privilege, was allowed to hang the crystal icicles on every tip.
+
+Nobody put any tinsel on the tree--that was left for the middle of the
+night like the story of the old time legend. Whether the spiders and the
+Christmas fairies, working together, really covered the tree with silver,
+Mary Jane never stopped to figure out. But at any rate the tree was
+covered with strings of gold the next morning and Mary Jane thought it the
+prettiest Christmas tree she had ever seen!
+
+[Illustration: This year, seeing Mary Jane was such a _very_ old person,
+she was allowed to put the gold star on the top of the tree
+_Page 195_]
+
+The very last thing before she went to bed, Mary Jane hung up her
+stocking. And Alice, looking a bit foolish, hung hers close by.
+
+"I thought you two folks weren't going to have any Christmas," said Mr.
+Merrill teasingly.
+
+"Of course we're not," said Mary Jane bravely, "but we want to hang our
+stockings just the same as if--you know." And Dadah must have understood
+for he nodded his head and didn't tease any more.
+
+Nobody would say how it ever happened. Certainly it was well understood
+that there were to be no presents. But, anyway, when Mary Jane and Alice
+looked at those stockings Christmas morning they were fat, as fat could
+be! Just bulging over with queer shaped parcels!
+
+Mary Jane couldn't even wait to put her slippers on! She bundled a kimono
+around her, grabbed up her stocking and ran into her mother's room to open
+it. Alice wasn't far behind and certainly for girls who were to have _no_
+presents, they fared very well indeed! Santa Claus must have got his
+signals mixed some way! There were doll things for Marie Georgiannamore,
+and a ring for Mary Jane; hair ribbons, handkerchiefs, skates for Alice
+(think of that in a stocking!) and slippers for the little girl who forgot
+to put on her old pair and, oh, many lovely little things that could be
+tucked into a stocking.
+
+The girls spread the things out on mother's bed and had a happy time till
+suddenly Mr. Merrill exclaimed, "Girls! It's eight o'clock and I ordered
+that taxi for nine!"
+
+Then there _was_ a scramble! Gifts were hustled away, clothes were put on,
+breakfast was eaten and a few last things packed in the baskets, just as
+the taxi arrived.
+
+It was fortunate Mr. Merrill had ordered a big car for with three baskets,
+a bundle containing the doll bed and another the turkey, to say nothing of
+the tree roped on the side of the car and the box of trimmings on Mrs.
+Merrill's lap even a big car was pretty full.
+
+Mary Jane felt like a real Santa Claus for sure!
+
+The family they were going to see didn't know they were coming, so when
+the car stopped in front of a shabby little house, three puzzled and very
+sober faces pressed against the window and looked out. But the sober faces
+soon changed. In a few minutes the mother was helping Mrs. Merrill put the
+turkey in to roast, the older girl was helping Mr. Merrill set the
+Christmas tree in place and Tom and Ellen, the little girl, were helping
+the Merrill girls trim the tree.
+
+When the Merrills left the house some two hours later the turkey was
+almost cooked, the tree was trimmed, presents unpacked and happiness and
+good cheer had settled down in the little house for many a day.
+
+It was a good thing they came away when they did, though, for exactly as
+they drove up to their own home, they met an express wagon. And in their
+own vestibule they found the driver. "Family of Merrill here?" he asked
+them.
+
+"They're us," said Mary Jane eagerly. And whereupon the driver carried
+upstairs the biggest, fattest Christmas box Mary Jane had ever seen.
+
+Of course it was from grandma and in it were so many lovely things from
+uncles and grandparents and cousins that Mary Jane thought she never would
+get everything unpacked!
+
+"Well," said the little girl as some time later the family sat down to
+their own belated dinner, "I think for not having any presents, we got a
+lot! And I think I like Christmas in Chicago just as much as anywhere, I
+do."
+
+
+
+
+A SUMMER HOME--AND A TELEGRAM
+
+
+"Let's go skating!" called Frances one cold morning as she saw Alice shake
+the bath room rug from the balcony.
+
+"Skating?" answered Alice, "where?"
+
+"Down on the Midway," said Frances. "As soon as you get your work done,
+you and Mary Jane come around to our front door and Betty and I will be
+ready."
+
+"But Mary Jane doesn't know how to skate," said Alice.
+
+"Betty doesn't either," answered Frances, "but they can take their sleds
+and coast down the sides of the bank while you and I skate."
+
+Alice promised and then she hurried inside to finish her work. She had
+heard about the fine skating on the Midway where the park board flooded
+the sunken greens for the benefit of neighborhood children, but thus far
+the weather had been too mild for any skating, so she hadn't had a chance
+to try it. But a sudden cold snap, with snow enough to cover the sloping
+banks, had provided both skating and coasting.
+
+Well protected with warm mittens and leggings the girls set out and had
+the jolliest kind of a morning. At one end of the ice, the younger folks
+did their coasting, the sloping sides giving a flying start and the smooth
+ice a glorious finish. At the other end the older boys and girls did their
+skating, so there was no mix up or interference.
+
+That morning was the first of many happy Saturday mornings spent on the
+ice. Even Mary Jane got some skates and, with the help of Dadah when he
+could get away from the office, she learned to be a fine skater.
+
+But winter fun never lasts very long. Just about the time Mary Jane
+learned to skate well enough to challenge Alice to a race, the spring sun
+sent the ice to nowhere land and the while-ago ice pond turned to green
+grass! Spring had come.
+
+With the coming of spring, Mary Jane grew very restless. She wasn't sick,
+but something was wrong. Something was making her very solemn and
+sober--quite unlike her usual lively self.
+
+"I know what's the matter with me," she announced one warm sunny morning,
+"I want to dig."
+
+"You want to dig?" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill in amazement, "well, why don't
+you go down and dig in the Holdens' yard? You know Mrs. Holden said you
+might."
+
+"But I don't want to dig in somebody's yard," answered Mary Jane, without
+a spark of interest, "I want to dig in my _own_ yard and have flowers and
+a sand pile and everything right in my own yard, I do."
+
+Mrs. Merrill didn't reply but she did do a lot of thinking and that
+evening she and Mr. Merrill had a long conference.
+
+As a result, at breakfast table the next morning Mr. Merrill said, "How
+would you girls like to have a summer home of your own? A place in the
+woods where we could go as soon as school closes and where you could wear
+bloomers and play in the sand and gather flowers and make garden and all
+the things you love to do but can't do in the city. How would you like
+that?"
+
+Mary Jane and Alice stared at him. Would they _like_ it? anybody could see
+by their faces that they would _love_ it!
+
+"But we wouldn't want to leave you here in Chicago, all summer," objected
+Alice.
+
+"And I wouldn't want to be left," Mr. Merrill assured them. "But I am
+sure, somewhere in the suburbs around Chicago there must be _some place_
+we could get a summer home. And we'll make it our business to find that
+place."
+
+"I thought," began Mrs. Merrill, and then she hesitated.
+
+"Something nice?" asked Alice, encouragingly.
+
+"It would have been nice," admitted Mrs. Merrill, "but likely we couldn't
+do it. I'd been thinking how pleasant it would be to take another trip
+this summer. You know how you girls enjoyed going to Florida. And you
+remember Uncle Hal graduates from Harvard this June. I had been wondering
+if we could go east in time to be there when the festivities are going
+on."
+
+"Oh, mother!" cried Mary Jane, "what fun! I do want to ride on a train, a
+big train with a sleeper and a diner! But then I want to dig, too," she
+added, insistently.
+
+"Then we'll take one thing at a time," suggested Mr. Merrill. "We'll look
+into the question of a summer home--we know we'd all like that. And you
+folks don't know that a very popular uncle would _want_ a grown up sister
+and two small nieces hanging around at commencement time," he added
+teasingly.
+
+"How do you find a summer home?" asked Alice thoughtfully.
+
+"That's what we'll have to discover," laughed Mr. Merrill. "And we'll
+begin this very Saturday afternoon if the weather is fine. We'll take a
+suburban train and ride till we see a place that looks homey and there
+we'll get off and hunt."
+
+The next Saturday was warm and sunny, the kind of a day for bringing
+flowers into bloom and for making little girls want to play out of doors.
+Mrs. Merrill and the girls met Mr. Merrill at his office so as not to lose
+a minute's time, and they hurried right over to the station, and got
+aboard the first suburban train they could find.
+
+"I think this is lots of fun," said Mary Jane as they found their seats,
+"we don't know where we're going--we're just going!" And the train was
+off.
+
+For some time the girls were really discouraged. They passed factories,
+and tenements, and more factories till Mary Jane was sure they were never
+coming to country--real country. But suddenly, when she was about to give
+up, the factories were gone and from the window the girls could see wide
+fields and strips of woods and an occasional brook. Two or three little
+stations were passed and then the train ran through a beautiful stretch of
+woods--rolling woods all leafy and budding and flower decked. The ground
+was fairly covered with early blossoms and trees of wild crab were just
+bursting into pink bloom.
+
+Mary Jane grabbed her coat and started down the aisle.
+
+"Make 'em stop the train, Dadah," she said, "this is where we want to
+live!"
+
+Fortunately at that minute the train really did stop at a small station
+and the Merrills got off and looked around. It didn't take long to explore
+into the woods far enough to find that they had come to the very place
+they were looking for--a spot not too far from the city for Mr. Merrill's
+daily trip and yet wild enough to give the girls some real woods. The
+girls picked flowers as they explored and had such a happy time that it
+was hard work to persuade them to go back to the city when the twilight
+came. But they had found the very place!
+
+Three weeks later Mr. Merrill bought a lot in the heart of the woods, and
+the summer home was no longer a mere dream--it was to be really truly.
+
+"Now," announced Alice, "we'll draw the kind of a house we want. I love to
+draw plans of a house!" She cleared off the dining table, sharpened
+pencils, brought two tablets and insisted that everybody come out and
+help.
+
+And just then the door bell rang.
+
+"Telegram for Merrill!" shouted a voice through the tube and Mary Jane
+pressed the buzzer in a hurry--a telegram usually meant something
+exciting.
+
+It was addressed to Mrs. Merrill and said, "Have all tickets and hotel
+reservations. You and the girls must come." And it was signed by Mrs.
+Merrill's brother.
+
+"If that isn't just like a college boy!" laughed Mrs. Merrill. "For weeks
+he doesn't answer a letter and then he telegraphs! Girls," she added,
+"let's go! Wouldn't you like to go to Boston and see the college and the
+ocean and the White Mountains--and--everything?"
+
+"Oh, mother, _really_?" exclaimed Mary Jane. (She felt as though she must
+be dreaming, things were happening so fast!)
+
+"But what about the summer home?" asked Alice.
+
+"Don't you worry about the summer home," Mr. Merrill assured her, "we'll
+have that summer home just the same. You girls take your trip east. You
+won't be gone more than a couple of weeks--and what are two weeks out of a
+whole summer? And before you go, we'll get the shack all planned and when
+you come back we'll move out."
+
+"Goody! Goody! Goody!" cried Mary Jane happily, "then I can see Uncle Hal
+and ride on the train and dig a garden and _everything_!"
+
+And if you want to hear all about Mary Jane's beautiful trip to Boston and
+the White Mountains, the fun she had sight-seeing and the jolly party on
+"Class Day," you must read--
+
+                       "MARY JANE IN NEW ENGLAND"
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+THE MARY JANE SERIES
+BY CLARA INGRAM JUDSON
+Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated.
+With picture inlay and wrapper.
+
+[Illustration]
+Mary Jane is the typical American little girl who bubbles over with fun
+and the good things in life. We meet her here on a visit to her
+grandfather's farm where she becomes acquainted with farm life and farm
+animals and thoroughly enjoys the experience. We next see her going to
+kindergarten and then on a visit to Florida, and then--but read the
+stories for yourselves.
+
+Exquisitely and charmingly written are these books which every little girl
+from five to nine years old will want from the first book to the last.
+
+                       1 MARY JANE--HER BOOK
+                       2 MARY JANE--HER VISIT
+                       3 MARY JANE'S KINDERGARTEN
+                       4 MARY JANE DOWN SOUTH
+                       5 MARY JANE'S CITY HOME
+                       6 MARY JANE IN NEW ENGLAND
+                       7 MARY JANE'S COUNTY HOME
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+PUBLISHERS
+NEWARK, N. J.               NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+CHICKEN LITTLE JANE SERIES
+_By_ LILY MUNSELL RITCHIE
+
+[Illustration]
+Chicken Little Jane is a Western prairie girl who lives a happy, outdoor
+life in a country where there is plenty of room to turn around. She is a
+wide-awake, resourceful girl who will instantly win her way into the
+hearts of other girls. And what good times she has!--with her pets, her
+friends, and her many interests. "Chicken Little" is the affectionate
+nickname given to her when she is very, very good, but when she misbehaves
+it is "Jane"--just Jane!
+
+                 Adventures of Chicken Little Jane
+                 Chicken Little Jane on the "Big John"
+                 Chicken Little Jane Comes to Town
+
+With numerous illustrations in pen and ink
+By CHARLES D. HUBBARD
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+NEWARK         NEW YORK
+ N. J.          N. Y.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Dorothy Whitehill Series
+For Girls
+
+[Illustration]
+Here is a sparkling new series of stories for girls--just what they will
+like, and ask for more of the same kind. It is all about twin sisters, who
+for the first few years in their lives grow up in ignorance of each
+other's existence. Then they are at last brought together and things begin
+to happen. Janet is an independent go-ahead sort of girl; while her sister
+Phyllis is--but meet the twins for yourself and be entertained.
+
+5 Titles, Cloth, large 12mo.,
+Covers in color.
+
+                     1. JANET, A TWIN
+                     2. PHYLLIS, A TWIN
+                     3. THE TWINS IN THE WEST
+                     4. THE TWINS IN THE SOUTH
+                     5. THE TWINS' SUMMER VACATION
+                     6. THE TWINS AND TOMMY JR.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+PUBLISHERS
+NEWARK, N. J. NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+THE POLLY PENDLETON SERIES
+BY DOROTHY WHITEHILL
+
+[Illustration]
+Polly Pendleton is a resourceful, wide-awake American girl who goes to a
+boarding school on the Hudson River some miles above New York. By her
+pluck and resourcefulness, she soon makes a place for herself and this she
+holds right through the course. The account of boarding school life is
+faithful and pleasing and will attract every girl in her teens.
+
+                1 POLLY'S FIRST YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL
+                2 POLLY'S SUMMER VACATION
+                3 POLLY'S SENIOR YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL
+                4 POLLY SEES THE WORLD AT WAR
+                5 POLLY AND LOIS
+                6 POLLY AND BOB
+
+Cloth, Large 12mo., Illustrated.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+PUBLISHERS
+Newark, N. J. New York, N. Y.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The Sunny Boy Series
+By RAMY ALLISON WHITE
+
+[Illustration]
+Children, meet Sunny Boy, a little fellow with big eyes and an inquiring
+disposition, who finds the world a large and wonderful thing indeed. And
+somehow there is lots going on, when Sunny Boy is around. Perhaps he helps
+push! In the first book of this new series he has the finest time ever,
+with his Grandpa out in the country. He learns a lot and he helps a lot,
+in his small way. Then he has a glorious visit to the seashore, but this
+is in the next story. And there are still more adventures in the third
+book and fourth book. You will like Sunny Boy.
+
+4 Titles, Cloth, illustrated, 12mo.,
+with colored covers.
+
+                     1. SUNNY BOY IN THE COUNTRY
+                     2. SUNNY BOY AT THE SEASHORE
+                     3. SUNNY BOY IN THE BIG CITY
+                     4. SUNNY BOY IN SCHOOL AND OUT
+                     5. SUNNY BOY AND HIS PLAYMATES
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+PUBLISHERS
+NEWARK, N. J. NEW YORK, N. Y.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+GOOD STORIES FOR CHILDREN
+(From four to nine years old)
+THE KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES
+By RICHARD BARNUM
+
+[Illustration]
+In all nursery literature animals have played a conspicuous part; and the
+reason is obvious, for nothing entertains a child more than the antics of
+an animal. These stories abound in amusing incidents such as children
+adore, and the characters are so full of life, so appealing to a child's
+imagination, that none will be satisfied until they have met all of their
+favorites--Squinty, Slicko, Mappo, and the rest.
+
+                    1 Squinty, the Comical Pig.
+                    2 Slicko, the Jumping Squirrel.
+                    3 Mappo, the Merry Monkey.
+                    4 Tum Tum, the Jolly Elephant.
+                    5 Don, a Runaway Dog.
+                    6 Dido, the Dancing Bear.
+                    7 Blackie, a Lost Cat.
+                    8 Flop Ear, the Funny Rabbit.
+                    9 Tinkle, the Trick Pony.
+                    10 Lightfoot, the Leaping Goat.
+                    11 Chunky, the Happy Hippo.
+                    12 Sharp Eyes, the Silver Fox.
+                    13 Nero, the Circus Lion.
+                    14 Tamba, the Tame Tiger.
+                    15 Toto, the Rustling Beaver.
+                    16 Shaggo, the Mighty Buffalo.
+                    17 Winky, the Wily Woodchuck.
+
+Cloth, Large 12mo., Illustrated.
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+Publishers
+Newark, N. J.            New York, N. Y.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The Yank Brown Series
+By DAVID STONE
+Cloth, large 12 mo. Illustrated.
+
+[Illustration]
+When Yank Brown comes to Belmont College as a callow Freshman, there is a
+whole lot that he doesn't know about college life, such as class rushes,
+rivalries, fraternities, and what a lowly Freshman must not do. But he
+does know something about how to play football, and he is a big, likeable
+chap who speedily makes friends.
+
+In the first story of this series we watch Yank buck the line as a
+Halfback. In the second story he goes in for basketball, among many other
+activities of a busy college year. Then there are other stories to
+follow--each brimful of action and interest. This is one of the best
+college series we have seen in a long while.
+
+                    YANK BROWN, HALFBACK
+                    YANK BROWN, FORWARD
+                    YANK BROWN, CROSS-COUNTRY RUNNER
+
+BARSE & HOPKINS
+NEWARK         NEW YORK
+N. J.          N. Y.
+
+(Other volumes in preparation.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Mary Jane's City Home, by Clara Ingram Judson
+
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