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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mary Jane: Her Book, by Clara Ingram Judson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world 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.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Mary Jane: Her Book
+
+Author: Clara Ingram Judson
+
+Illustrator: Frances White
+
+Posting Date: August 24, 2014 [EBook #8890]
+Release Date: September, 2005
+First Posted: August 21, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY JANE: HER BOOK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MARY JANE
+
+HER BOOK
+
+
+
+BY Clara Ingram Judson
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY Frances White
+
+
+
+
+
+=CONTENTS=
+
+
+THE BROKEN DOLL
+
+DON'T CRY OVER SPILLED SUGAR
+
+HELPING THE ROBINS
+
+FATHER'S SECRET
+
+MARY JANE PLAYS SCHOOL
+
+AUNT EFFIE COMES TO VISIT
+
+KEWPIE AND THE WASHING
+
+JUNIOR'S SHOWER BATH
+
+PLAYMATE DOROTHY
+
+LEARNING TO SEW
+
+MAKING READY FOR THE PICNIC
+
+THE PICNIC UP CLEARWATER
+
+GOING SHOPPING
+
+THE PAPER DOLL SHOW
+
+THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
+
+A LETTER AND A TRIP
+
+
+
+
+
+=ILLUSTRATIONS=
+
+
+Her little fists were clinched and even her perky plaid hair ribbon seemed
+to show amazement
+
+"Here's one that's me!" exclaimed Mary Jane suddenly
+
+She sat down on the biggest rock close by the edge of the creek
+
+There's no need to tell of all the good times at that party
+
+
+
+
+THE BROKEN DOLL
+
+
+Mary Jane stood on the curbstone and stared into the middle of the street.
+Her face was white with fright and the tears which had not as yet come were
+close to her big blue eyes. Her little fists were clinched and even her
+perky plaid hair ribbon seemed to show amazement.
+
+And wasn't it enough to make any little girl stare? Her big, beautiful
+doll, the one that came at Christmas time, lay crushed and broken in the
+middle of the street! Its glossy brown hair matted in the dust; its dainty
+pink dress torn and dirty and its great brown eyes crushed to powder!
+
+For a full minute Mary Jane stared at the wreck that had been her doll.
+Then she turned and ran screaming toward the house.
+
+Mrs. Merrill heard her and met her at the front steps.
+
+"Mary Jane! Dear child!" she cried, "what _is_ the matter? Tell mother what
+has happened!"
+
+"My doll! My beautifulest doll!" sobbed Mary Jane, "my Marie Georgianna is
+all run over!"
+
+"Surely not, surely not, Mary Jane," said her mother as she picked up the
+little girl and sat down, with her on her lap, on the porch steps, "dolls
+don't get run over."
+
+"My doll did," said Mary Jane positively, "see?"
+
+Mrs. Merrill looked out into the street and there, sure enough, was the
+wreck of the doll.
+
+"Tell me how it happened, dear," said Mrs. Merrill and she gathered her
+little girl tighter in her arms as she spoke for she knew that if a doll
+had been run over, Mary Jane herself had not missed an accident by so very
+much for the doll and the little girl were always close together.
+
+Mary Jane wiped her eyes on her mother's handkerchief, snugged cozily in
+the comfortable arms and told her story.
+
+"I was going over to play with Junior like you said I could," she began
+(Junior was the little neighbor boy who lived across the street in the big
+white house), "and just as I got into the middle of the street I heard a
+big, _big_ noisy 'toot-t-t-t-t' way down by Fifth Street--and you _know_,
+mother" (and here Mary Jane sat up straight) "that you always told me if an
+automobile was as far away as Fifth Street it was all right--so I went on
+across. But this automobile didn't just come; it hurried fast, oh, so very
+fast and by the time I was half way across the road it was so close I just
+turned around and ran back to the curbstone and I was in such a hurry I
+guess I must have dropped my Marie Georgianna!"
+
+"And the automobile ran over her, poor dolly," finished mother, with a
+thrill of fear as she realized Mary Jane's narrow escape. Then she wiped
+off the teary blue eyes and smilingly said, "Listen, Mary Jane, and I'll
+tell you a secret."
+
+"A secret about a doll?" asked Mary Jane eagerly.
+
+"A secret about a doll," replied mother. "Marie Georgianna has a twin."
+
+"Not a really truly twin?" demanded Mary Jane and she sat up straight and
+opened her eyes wide. "A really, truly, for surely enough twin?"
+
+"Yes, she has," said mother nodding her head emphatically, "a really,
+truly, for surely enough twin--I saw her down at the store only yesterday
+and I think we'll have to go down town and bring her home, don't you think
+so?"
+
+"But how'll we go so early?" asked Mary Jane, for she knew that mother
+always liked to do her morning work before they went on errands.
+
+"I think father is still here," replied mother; "you smile up your face and
+run around to the garage. I think you'll find him there working on his car.
+If you do, tell him all about what happened and tell him he's going to mend
+your doll by finding her twin!"
+
+Mary Jane slipped down from her mother's lap and hurried around the house
+toward the garage. As soon as she was out of sight, Mrs. Merrill went out
+to the street and rescued the wreck of the doll from the dusty road. Yes,
+Mary Jane was right when she said that the doll was all gone--it would take
+considerable work to put even the dress in order and the doll itself was
+broken beyond all mending. Hastily Mrs. Merrill pulled off the dirty dress
+and dropped the doll into the covered trash basket where Mary Jane would
+not see it again and be reminded of the accident.
+
+"What are we going to do about that speeding on our road?" demanded father
+as he hurried up to the back porch just as the lid was back on the trash
+basket. "Did you hear about Mary Jane's narrow escape?"
+
+"We're going to do this about it," said mother positively, "Mary Jane isn't
+to go over to Junior's again by herself. If she has to go over, one of us
+will take her. And now the important thing is to find Marie Georgianna's
+twin. And Mary Jane," she added as the little girl came running toward the
+steps, "this twin of Marie Georgianna's is afraid of automobiles, very
+afraid of them, and she doesn't like to cross the street unless some grown
+up person is with her."
+
+"That's a good thing," said Mary Jane with a big sigh, "because I don't
+like to either. Next time I go over to Junior's I'm not going over. And
+what shall I name Marie Georgianna's twin, mother?"
+
+"We'll decide that later," laughed mother; "you must hurry quick and wash
+your hands and face and slip on a clean frock so you can go to the store
+with father."
+
+It doesn't take long to tidy a little girl who wants to help so it wasn't
+five minutes before Mary Jane was sitting, clean and tidy and straight,
+beside her father in the front seat of his automobile. She loved to get in
+while the car was still in the garage and then, when he backed it out, to
+hold the wheel while he locked the doors and climbed back into the driver's
+seat.
+
+The Merrills lived in a charming home on the edge of a small city; a home
+surrounded by trees and garden and plenty of space for playing; and at the
+same time, only about ten minutes' ride from the stores in the center of
+the city. So a very short ride brought Mr. Merrill and Mary Jane to the
+store where Marie Georgianna's twin was to be found. In the meantime, Mrs.
+Merrill had telephoned to the store and had told the saleswoman in the doll
+department just which doll to have ready for Mary Jane.
+
+When Mr. Merrill and his little girl walked into the toy department, there,
+with her arms outstretched in greeting, was a beautiful big doll. For
+a moment Mary Jane said nothing--the doll was so like her dear,
+broken-to-pieces Marie Georgianna that she could hardly believe her eyes!
+She walked up close to the counter; looked hard at the doll and then
+exclaimed, "It is! It is, Daddah! It _is_ a twin just as mother said it
+was! And is it for me to take home?"
+
+Mr. Merrill assured her that the doll was to go home with them and then
+he asked about clothes. "Are you sure you have enough at home? Were the
+clothes spoiled too?"
+
+"While mother was washing me ready to come down town, she told me she could
+fix the dress and Marie Georgianna didn't wear her hat when she was run
+over," said Mary Jane, "so I guess her twin doesn't need anything new." But
+she looked so regretfully at the cases of pretty clothes that father bought
+a pink parasol--"just for fun" he said.
+
+"She doesn't want to wear _just_ hand-me-down clothes of her sister's even
+if she _is_ a twin," he explained, "and I always like to buy doll clothes
+for little girls who don't tease for new things. But there's one thing sure
+about this parasol," he added, "it's not to go over to Junior's!"
+
+"It won't!" laughed Mary Jane happily, "because I won't and parasols can't
+go places by themselves!"
+
+All the way back home Mary Jane sat very still and held the new doll close
+up to her. Mr. Merrill thought perhaps she was thinking about the accident
+and tried to get her to talking--that shows how little even good fathers
+understand! Mary Jane wasn't thinking about any accident, dear me no! She
+was naming her doll.
+
+Just as they got out of the car at their own front walk, she announced
+solemnly, "I've named her Marie Georgiannamore because a twin is more than
+one."
+
+
+
+
+DON'T CRY OVER SPILLED SUGAR
+
+
+All the rest of the day after Marie Georgiannamore came into the family,
+Mary Jane played dolls. Mother helped her fix a play house out on the front
+porch in the warm sunshine and there Mary Jane and her family had a very
+happy time. Evidently Marie Georgiannamore liked her new home for she
+seemed very content with the other members of Mary Jane's numerous family.
+There was the sailor doll and the rag doll, Mary Jane, Jr., and small bears
+and dolls and kewpies too many to count. And of course each doll had its
+own chair and bed so there was quite a household out on that sunny front
+porch.
+
+When father came home in the evening he helped carry in all the furniture
+and in the morning he helped move it back again.
+
+"I tell you, Mary Jane, these moving days keep us husky and strong, don't
+they?" he said as he picked up three chairs and two beds at one time.
+
+Mary Jane laughed and, just to show that she was strong too, carried
+out _three_ doll beds (to be sure they were for the very littlest,
+two-for-a-nickel dolls but then they were three beds just the same) and a
+washing machine at one time! Then she thanked her father for his good help
+and he went to work and she settled down for a morning's house keeping.
+
+About ten o'clock Mrs. Merrill came to the front door.
+
+"Do you know any little girl who is big enough to run down to the grocery
+and get me some sugar?" she asked.
+
+"'Deed, yes, mother!" answered Mary Jane promptly, "I can bring you
+ten-fifty pounds! See how strong I am?" And she doubled up her arm as she
+had seen her big, basketball-playing sister do to show her muscle. "See?
+And I could move more beds at one time than Daddah could this morning."
+
+"Well, you are strong!" exclaimed mother admiringly; "you have more muscle
+than you need for sugar getting because I want only three pounds this time.
+I'm making cake and pies and cookies and I've run out of sugar and don't
+want to leave my work to get more. Can you leave your family now?" she
+added, for she was always particular to treat Mary Jane's duties or play as
+politely as she expected Mary Jane to treat hers.
+
+"Yes," replied Mary Jane, "I can go this very minute, mother, because all
+my children are taking their morning nap. Do I have to dress up?"
+
+"Not a bit!" laughed mother; "just go down to Shaffer's at the corner then
+you won't have to cross any street. Here is the money and here is the paper
+that tells what you want--three pounds of granulated sugar. Thank you for
+going, dear."
+
+Mary Jane tucked the slip of paper and the money into her pocket under her
+handkerchief, kissed her mother good-by and ran down the walk.
+
+It didn't take long to do the errand because she ran right by her friend
+Doris's house without even stopping to call "Hu-uu-oo!" as she usually did;
+and because Mr. Shaffer seemed to have been expecting a call for three
+pounds of sugar--he had the parcel all ready.
+
+On the way back Mary Jane looked longingly into Doris's house and there,
+sure enough, her little playmate was standing on the front porch.
+
+"Come on in!" called Doris.
+
+"Can't now," answered Mary Jane; "I'm doing an errand for mother, a real
+important errand," and she held the package of sugar tightly in her arms
+and walked straight along.
+
+Now whether the paper in the bag was not very good to begin with; or
+whether Mary Jane held the parcel too tightly or what--it would be hard to
+say--but--Mary Jane had not gone five steps past Doris's house before she
+felt a funny little movement in the bag under her arm. She looked and what
+do you suppose she found had happened? That sugar bag had sprung a leak.
+Yes, a really for sure leak and the sugar was dribbling, dribbling down to
+the sidewalk! Quick as a flash Mary Jane turned the bag other side up and
+stopped the leak but, even so, there was a little white mound of sugar
+there on the sidewalk.
+
+"I wonder what I ought to do now?" she said thoughtfully. "Should I pick up
+the sugar and put it back into the bag?" She tried that, but she soon found
+that sugar is very slippery. She could pick only a few grains at a time and
+even some of those few slid out of her hand before she could tuck them into
+the leak in the bag. It was very puzzling. She bent low over the pile of
+sugar and in that way she was hidden from the houses by the high hedge that
+grew along the walk.
+
+"I wonder, I wonder--" she said, and then she noticed that she had company.
+Two busy ants had found that pile of sugar and were moving it away as fast
+as ever they could. "This must be moving day for them too," said Mary Jane
+laughingly. "I wonder where they are going? I guess I'd better see."
+
+She sat down beside the pile, being very careful to hold her bag of sugar
+leaky-side up, and watched and watched. If you have ever seen ants moving
+grains of sugar you know how very interesting it is and you won't wonder
+that she forgot all about taking the parcel home to her mother. And there
+is no telling when she _would_ have remembered if she hadn't, just then,
+heard her mother's voice.
+
+"Mary Jane! Mary Jane! Mary Jane!" called Mrs. Merrill.
+
+"Coming, mother," answered Mary Jane and she scrambled to her feet and
+hurried home. "'Cuse me, mother, for being so long," she said breathlessly,
+"but it leaks and please may I go back by Doris's and see the ants?"
+
+Mrs. Merrill took the bursting bag and thanked Mary Jane for the errand.
+Her mind was on her delayed baking and she thought Mary Jane meant to go to
+see Doris's aunt. So, without a question, she replied, "Yes, you may, dear,
+but don't stay too long." And so Mary Jane ran back to her ants.
+
+By careful watching she found where they were going. They had a whole
+colony of tiny holes out in the grass plot between the sidewalk and the
+curbing and they seemed to be moving the sugar into these holes.
+
+"I think I ought to help them, they're such little things," said Mary Jane
+to herself, "and I think Doris would want to help them too." She went to
+Doris's gate and called and her little friend came out to watch ants too.
+
+"See what they are doing?" explained Mary Jane. "They're moving the sugar
+into their pantry and we ought to help them like my father helps me when I
+move my doll house things."
+
+But somehow the plan which sounded so well, didn't work. Maybe the ants
+didn't understand that help was being given them; for really, the more the
+little girls "helped" the more scurrying and confusion there was in that
+company of ants. And even when Mary Jane picked up a grain of sugar and
+actually dropped it into a hole ready for them to put away, that didn't
+seem to be the right thing either!
+
+Just then, when the little girls were getting tired of bending over so long
+and trying to do something that didn't work, the noon whistles began to
+blow, and, a minute later, Mr. Merrill came riding by in his car.
+
+"Do you know where I could find two little girls to ride around to the
+garage with me?" he asked as he pulled up by the curbing.
+
+"Right here they are," cried Mary Jane and she and Doris climbed into the
+car in a jiffy.
+
+"What were you people doing there on the sidewalk?" asked father as they
+drove around the corner.
+
+"Helping ants store sugar in their holes but they didn't like it," said
+Mary Jane disgustedly.
+
+"I don't blame them," laughed Mr. Merrill. "When we get into the house I'll
+show you how those holes are made and then you'll understand why the ants
+didn't want help." So Doris came into the house too and Mr. Merrill got
+down a big book and showed the two girls pictures of ant houses and told
+them all about how ants make their homes and store their food.
+
+"My, but I'm glad that sugar bag leaked!" sighed Mary Jane when the big
+book was finally shut up and put away, "because I had fun watching the
+ants; and I was out front ready for a ride; and now I've had a story--all
+because sugar spilled! Mother, is lunch ready? May Doris stay? We're
+hungry!"
+
+
+
+
+HELPING THE ROBINS
+
+
+All the afternoon after she learned about ants and their ways, Mary Jane
+was very quiet. Mrs. Merrill thought perhaps she was disappointed because
+Doris had had to go home right after lunch so she tried to be very sociable
+and kind to make up for the absent playmate.
+
+"How would you like to make a new dress for Marie Georgiannamore?" she
+asked.
+
+"Make it now, instead of taking my nap?" asked Mary Jane who sometimes
+disliked the hour of quiet that her mother had her take every afternoon. Of
+course she didn't really nap, that is, sleep; girls as big as she didn't
+need to Mrs. Merrill thought. But she did have to stay quietly in her own
+room and look at pictures or rest which ever she wished to do. Usually Mary
+Jane enjoyed the hour but sometimes she wished she could play straight
+through the day.
+
+"Oh, no," replied Mrs. Merrill smiling, "you will want to take your rest
+the same as you always do. But when you get up, then we'll make Marie
+Georgiannamore a new dress."
+
+"And while we're making it," asked Mary Jane, "will I have to stay in the
+house?"
+
+"Why, of course, Mary Jane," replied Mrs. Merrill, "how funny you are! You
+wouldn't enjoy my making a doll dress while you were out doors, would you?"
+
+"No-o-o," said Mary Jane doubtfully, "maybe I wouldn't. Only I 'pect I'd
+like it after it was done."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Merrill laughingly, "if you don't want a doll dress any
+more than _that_, you don't want one very badly--that's certain! You run
+along up to your room now and then, after you're dressed, I'll take my
+bag of darning out on the front porch--I think it's plenty warm enough
+to-day--and you may play in the yard. Would you like that, dear?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Mary Jane, "that's just what I want to do. And may I
+take the ant book upstairs?"
+
+Mrs. Merrill said she could and helped her pull the big book out from the
+shelves.
+
+"If this is what you are going to look at," she said as she handed the book
+to Mary Jane at the foot of the stairs, "better fix some pillows real comfy
+fashion in the window seat where the light is good." And Mary Jane promised
+she would.
+
+The book proved more than usually interesting and Mrs. Merrill had to call
+the third time before Mary Jane heard her and realized that her hour was
+up.
+
+"Wash your face and put on your pink smock, dear," called Mrs. Merrill,
+"and then come out to the porch. There's a robin in the front yard and
+you'll like to watch him."
+
+Mary Jane scrambled her very fastest, which was pretty fast as you can
+guess, and in about three minutes was out on the porch inquiring for the
+robin.
+
+There he was, big as life and busy as could be hunting his afternoon tea.
+
+"Doesn't he know it isn't time for dinner till Daddah comes home?" asked
+Mary Jane.
+
+"He doesn't pay much attention to time," laughed Mrs. Merrill, "he likes to
+eat all the day long. It makes no difference to him whether he eats in the
+morning or afternoon."
+
+Mary Jane watched him curiously as he pecked and dug and then she suddenly
+exclaimed, "But he didn't eat it, mother! I know he didn't eat it! I saw
+him fly away with it!"
+
+"Then I expect he's carrying it to his babies," said Mrs. Merrill.
+
+"Where are his babies?" demanded Mary Jane as she sat down on the porch
+step to hear more.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, dear," said her mother. "I didn't notice which
+direction he went, did you?"
+
+"Yes, he flew around toward the back yard," answered Mary Jane quickly, "I
+saw him. Does his whole family live in a nest like you've told me about or
+does he have a hole and a city and everything like the ants in the book?'
+
+"His whole family live in one nest," replied Mrs. Merrill, "the father
+robin and the another robin and all the little robins--sometimes several of
+them. It's pretty crowded perhaps, while the robin babies are growing, but
+they like it. I expect if you go around to the back yard and watch, you may
+see what tree Mr. Robin goes to with his worms. That will tell you what
+tree his nest is in."
+
+Mary Jane ran around to the back yard and that was the last Mrs. Merrill
+saw of her till she called her to get ready for dinner some time later.
+
+Mr. Merrill was late to dinner, but when he came Mary Jane asked him all
+the questions that her mother had been unable to answer.
+
+"Wait a minute!" exclaimed he. "Where did you see this robin that you're
+talking about?"
+
+"In the front yard and in the back yard," said Mary Jane, "both of them."
+
+"Then I'll venture to guess that it's the very same robin whose nest I
+discovered this morning," said Mr. Merrill. "I meant to tell you about it
+but was in such a hurry to get away I forgot."
+
+"Oh, did you see his nest?" exclaimed Mary Jane excitedly; "his really
+truly for sure nest, Daddah?"
+
+"That I did," replied her father, "and I'll show it to you."
+
+"Let's go now," cried Mary Jane. "Won't you please excuse us, mother?" And
+she slipped down from her chair.
+
+"Too late now," said her father, "might as well climb back and finish your
+dinner. You can't find a bird's nest after dark--and you can see that it's
+almost dark now. You wait till morning and I'll show you that nest first
+thing."
+
+"As soon as I'm dressed, Daddah?" asked Mary Jane.
+
+"Before you're dressed," promised her father, with a twinkle in his eye,
+"you just see!"
+
+Mary Jane was so excited she could hardly go to sleep that night and Mrs.
+Merrill laughingly said that her dreams would likely be a circus of ants
+and robins. But she must have been mistaken, because little girls who wake
+up as bright and early as Mary Jane did that next day, don't waste their
+nights a-dreaming.
+
+"Daddah!" she called to her father in a loud whisper, "are you waked up?
+Daddah!"
+
+"Um-m," said her father sleepily, "what is it?"
+
+"Did you forget the nest," asked the little girl, "it's light now."
+
+"To be sure," replied her father, who by now was wide awake; "put on your
+slippers and come over by my bed and look."
+
+Mary Jane reached down from her bed, picked up her dainty slippers and put
+them on; then she threw back the covers and hurried over to her father's
+bed.
+
+At the back of the Merrill home, upstairs, was a broad sleeping porch,
+sheltered by wide eaves and completely screened. There, each in his or
+her own little bed, father and mother and Alice and Mary Jane slept every
+night. Of course each had their own room in the house, with a comfortable
+bed for daytime rests, and stormy nights and the like; but almost every
+night in the year all four of them slept out of doors. Just behind the
+sleeping porch was an old apple tree and it was to this tree that Mr.
+Merrill now pointed.
+
+Mary Jane looked and looked and then, suddenly, she saw the nest! Set way
+back among the leaves it was and on it was sitting the mother bird.
+
+"I expect the father bird is getting breakfast for the family," said
+Mr. Merrill, "and the mother is keeping the babies warm till they have
+something to eat. You better get dressed now, little girl," he added,
+"but you may come up here after breakfast and I guess that, if you watch
+quietly, you can get a glimpse of the babies."
+
+As quickly as breakfast was over, Mary Jane hurried back up the stairs to
+the sleeping porch and, sure enough, the mother bird and the father bird
+were both gone and those cunning baby robins--four of them--were stretching
+way out of the nest! Mary Jane almost gasped at first she was that
+surprised; but she didn't call out, no, indeed! She kept very still and
+watched--and watched. And the longer she looked the more certain she became
+that something was wrong.
+
+"They do open their mouths so funny," she thought to herself. "I know, I
+just _know_ they wouldn't open their mouths so wide if something wasn't
+wrong."
+
+She thought a few minutes and then an idea occurred to her. The robin
+babies were thirsty--of course!
+
+"I know how I felt that time we took too long a ride and I got thirsty,"
+she thought, "and their mother don't know and their father isn't here
+either. I'll just _have_ to get them a drink!"
+
+But how to get a drink to four baby robins in the old apple tree--that was
+a problem that Mary Jane couldn't figure out all at once. But she didn't
+give up, no, sir! She thought and thought, and then she spied the hose
+lying in the back yard.
+
+The very thing!
+
+Quick as a minute, she ran down the stairs, out the kitchen door and over
+to the hose. Yes, just as she had hoped, it was attached and ready for
+use. She ran up to the house wall, turned on the water (it took all her
+strength, but she didn't mind that), took one good look up at the apple
+tree to see just where the nest was, and then turned the hose that way.
+
+But something didn't seem just right. Instead of liking it, and being very
+still because they were getting a good cold drink, those stupid robin
+babies chirped and cried and acted far from pleased.
+
+"I know," thought Mary Jane, "they want it like rain," and she turned the
+hose nozzle high and straight so that the water would come down on the top
+of the nest.
+
+But that wasn't any better or even as good as the first try; for the water,
+instead of coming down on the apple tree, came straight and wet onto Mary
+Jane herself! She was so startled that she screamed and dropped the hose
+without a thought of the robins she had meant to help.
+
+And then there _was_ a commotion! Mr. Merrill, who had come home for some
+papers he had forgotten, came running around the house; Father Robin darted
+out from the hedge and made straight for his nest; Mother Robin hurried up
+from the pine tree in Doris's yard and Mrs. Merrill, tea towel still in
+hand, ran out from the back porch.
+
+"What ever is the matter?" she cried.
+
+"I was just giving the baby robins a drink," sputtered Mary Jane, "and they
+didn't seem to like it!"
+
+Mrs. Merrill gathered her into her arms, wetness and all, and held her
+close. "I thought something had happened to my little girl," she said. "You
+must come in and get dry clothes on, dear; then I'll tell you more about
+the babies and you'll understand why they don't like too much water."
+
+"And _I'll_ tell you something," said father. "If you like to learn about
+creatures and everything that grows, you meet me here at the back door step
+at five o'clock this afternoon and I'll tell you a secret."
+
+"Oh, goody!" cried Mary Jane, as she clapped her wet hands. "Can't you tell
+it to me now?"
+
+"I should say not!" said father importantly, "it's a secret! You'll have to
+wait till five o'clock!" And he hurried off to his work leaving Mary Jane
+to a day of wondering what might be coming--a pleasant sort of wondering,
+for father's secrets were always jolly ones.
+
+
+
+
+FATHER'S SECRET
+
+
+Mary Jane thought that five o'clock would never come--never! She looked at
+the clock and _looked_ at the clock and she asked mother and Alice to tell
+her the time so as to be sure she herself wasn't mistaken in what the clock
+said. But finally lunch time was passed, and rest time, and then Mary Jane
+knew it wouldn't be very long till five o'clock.
+
+"Now, I'm going to dress for my secret," she said when her rest was
+finished.
+
+"That's just what I came to see you about," said Mrs. Merrill, who came
+into Mary Jane's room at that minute, "you'd better put on this little
+dress." And she held up a little, old, dark blue morning dress--not at all
+the sort of dress that a little girl would wear to an afternoon secret,
+Mary Jane was sure of that.
+
+"Why, mother!" exclaimed the little girl, "you don't mean me to wear
+_that_!"
+
+"I surely do," said Mrs. Merrill, pleasantly; "it's just the right kind of
+a dress for this secret."
+
+"But Daddah's secret is a _nice_ secret," said Mary Jane positively.
+
+"His secrets always are," agreed her mother.
+
+"And nice secrets ought to have nice dresses," said Mary Jane.
+
+"Nice secrets ought to have dresses that belong to them," corrected Mrs.
+Merrill. "We don't talk about things that are decided," reminded Mrs.
+Merrill. "Put on the blue dress and come downstairs, Mary Jane. I'm sure
+you will be glad--when father comes home."
+
+So Mary Jane put on the blue dress, but she wasn't very happy about it; she
+felt sure, certain all the time that she was dressing, that Daddah would be
+disappointed when he saw her. And she began to wonder if the secret _was_
+so very wonderful after all; it didn't sound so wonderful if an old dress
+went with it--in the afternoon!
+
+But even though she was disappointed and a bit doubtful, she went down to
+the front porch and sat on the step where she could see father the minute
+he turned the corner of Fifth Street.
+
+"Isn't this a fine day to be out of doors!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill,
+contentedly. "See Mr. Robin out there, digging away for his family? He has
+a hard time hunting worms in the grass. I expect he wishes we had a newly
+dug garden around this place." Mary Jane looked up indifferently, just in
+time to see a twinkle in her mother's eye. Did the twinkle have anything to
+do with the secret? Mary Jane wondered.
+
+"What would he do with a garden?" she asked.
+
+"Get worms out of it," answered Mrs. Merrill.
+
+"But isn't he getting worms out of the yard?" asked Mary Jane, looking out
+to where the robin was industriously pecking at the ground.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Merrill, "of course he is; but see how he has to work!
+Now if that yard was all dug up nicely for a garden, the worms would be
+plain to see and all he would have to do would be to pick them out. Think
+how much easier that would be."
+
+Mary Jane didn't answer. She looked out at the robin, but someway, she
+couldn't quite take an interest in his affairs; she was too busy thinking
+about her own secret and how disappointed Daddah would be when he saw that
+old dress.
+
+And then, just as she was going to ask the time, she spied him coming
+around the corner. And she forgot all about dresses and remembered only
+the secret. Down the steps, along the walk and out to the street she ran,
+reaching the curbstone just as he pulled the car alongside.
+
+"Hop in and ride around," he said, gayly. And then, as she climbed in he
+added, "Lucky you put that dress on. I forgot to tell you to be ready with
+something old. Now that you are we won't have to waste time changing."
+
+Mary Jane stared. But seeing he seemed pleased, she said nothing about all
+her worries over the old dress.
+
+"Do we have the secret in the car?" she asked.
+
+"Dear me, no!" laughed father, "it's plain to see that you haven't guessed
+what it is. We'll put the car in the garage and then, while I slip on some
+old clothes to match yours, you may open that bundle in the back, there.
+It's part of the secret."
+
+Mary Jane peered over the back of her seat at the queer looking bundle in
+the car. It was about as tall as she was, she decided, and bigger around
+than her two hands could reach and wrapped in brown paper and tied three
+times with very heavy twine. Now what could that be?
+
+Father set her down in the garage and handed her the package and then
+hurried off into the house.
+
+She tried to pull the strings off but they wouldn't pull; there seemed to
+be a bunch of the wrapping paper at one end and a hump inside the parcel at
+the other. So she decided to run in for mother's scissors.
+
+But just as she got to the back steps, she met father coming out--it hadn't
+taken him long to get into old clothes, that was certain.
+
+"Never mind about the scissors, Blunderbuss," said he laughingly, using a
+name he sometimes called her, "I'll take my knife."
+
+Just three slashes of the sharp knife and the strings were off. Mary Jane
+opened the paper with shaking fingers, she was that excited. And what do
+you suppose she found?
+
+A garden set--a spade and a hoe and a rake all just the right size for a
+little girl to work with and so pretty and clean and new that Mary Jane
+knew that they had been purchased on purpose for her.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands and dancing around, "it's a garden!
+I know the secret now! It's a garden! That's what mother was trying to make
+me guess and I never thought! May I have one all my very ownest own?"
+
+"That's the secret," admitted Mr. Merrill, "and the garden is for you
+only--just as long as you take care of it. Now you take your tools and I'll
+take mine and we'll see where this garden is to be."
+
+They paraded out of the garage and over to where the last summer's garden
+had been. "I've been meaning to get at this for a week," said Mr. Merrill,
+"but I hate to work alone. If you'll help me, we can have the finest garden
+ever. Now where do you want yours to be?"
+
+Mary Jane looked around thoughtfully. There was the rose bed--she surely
+couldn't have that, it belonged to mother. And the asparagus bed, it was
+already showing shoots of green. "I guess I'll take next door to the
+rose bed," she decided promptly, "because I like roses. Can I dig it all
+myself?"
+
+"Pretty soon," said father. "I dig first with the big spade. Then you dig
+with yours. Then I hoe it--I'll show you how when we're ready; and you hoe
+with your hoe." And he set to work.
+
+"Then do the things just grow?" asked Mary Jane as she watched him.
+
+"Not till we plant them," answered her father. "What are you going to
+have?"
+
+"Worms for the robin so he won't have to work so hard," said Mary Jane
+promptly, "and a lot of flowers."
+
+"I guess you won't have to worry about the worms," laughed Mr. Merrill as
+he turned over a big spadeful of earth, "Mr. Robin will find plenty--see?
+I'll make a guess that he's watching us from the apple tree this very
+minute! Suppose you run into the garage and look on the table there. You'll
+find packages of seeds. Bring them out here and we'll see which you want in
+your bed."
+
+While Mr. Merrill gave the earth its heavy spading, Mary Jane got the
+bright colored seed packages and spread them out on the sidewalk. Then
+as she spelled out the letters, her father told her what each package
+contained. Lettuce and radishes and nasturtiums and carrots and candy-tuft
+and--
+
+"Here's one that's me!" exclaimed Mary Jane suddenly. She knew a very few
+words and her own name was one of them.
+
+"I thought you would find that," said Mr. Merrill, "so I bought that on
+purpose for you. It's Marygold and you may have it in your bed, if you
+like."
+
+By that time the earth in her garden was turned and Mary Jane set to work
+spading and hoeing just as hard as ever she could. She worked on one side
+and her father worked on the other and very soon the earth was ready for
+planting.
+
+"Now," said Mr. Merrill, "while I loosen the earth around mother's rose
+bushes, you make your trenches for the seeds." And he showed her just how
+it was to be done.
+
+[Illustration: "Here's one that's me!" exclaimed Mary Jane suddenly.]
+
+Mary Jane never felt so big, and grown-up and important in her life as when
+she made those trenches with her bright new hoe. She worked and worked till
+they were neat and even and exactly right. Then her father stopped his
+digging and together they opened three packages and planted the seeds. The
+nasturtiums went in front, because they were the smallest plants, father
+said; then the Marygolds that grow so straight and tall; and then, because
+father said every garden should have something useful as well as something
+beautiful, back of the Marygolds, a row of early lettuce.
+
+Just as the last bit of earth was patted down over the last row of seeds,
+Mrs. Merrill called from the back door that dinner was about ready.
+
+"And we're hungry enough to eat it, aren't we, Mary Jane?" asked Mr.
+Merrill. "You put away your tools and run in and wash while I tend to my
+big ones and get myself ready. Let's see who's the quickest!"
+
+How Mary Jane did hustle! She set her new tools in the far corner of the
+garage and then ran skipping into the house.
+
+"Scrub your hands good, dear," said her mother as she hurried through the
+kitchen. "Wash your face and then run upstairs and get your blue smock and
+plaid ribbon. Dark blue dresses are the thing for gardening, but we like
+gay frocks for dinner, don't we, sweetheart?"
+
+And yet, with all that washing and dressing, Mary Jane reached the table
+first--that just shows how fast she could hurry when she was racing with
+father. Or maybe it was because she was so hungry. For she had three big
+helpings of her favorite mashed potatoes--think of that!
+
+"First thing in the morning, know what I'm going to do?" she announced as
+she ate the last bite, "I'm going to get Doris to see my garden, she'll
+like my flowers, I know."
+
+"You can get Doris," laughed her father, "but don't expect flowers in the
+morning. It will take them ten days to peep out of the ground. But don't
+you worry, you'll like to show Doris the garden before it grows."
+
+"I will," replied Mary Jane, "I'll do it tomorrow."
+
+
+
+
+MARY JANE PLAYS SCHOOL
+
+
+"Mother, may I go over and get Doris this morning?" asked Mary Jane as she
+finished her breakfast. "I want her to come see my garden right away!"
+
+"Not to-day," answered Mrs. Merrill. "Doris has the chicken pox so you will
+have to stay home for a while," And then she was called to the telephone so
+she didn't notice that Mary Jane ran straight for the window that looked
+out over Doris's yard.
+
+"I think that's funny that I can't go over and see Doris's chickens," she
+said to herself rebelliously as she peered through the window. "I'm going
+to look, and look and _look_ till I see them anyway, so there! And then
+I'll telephone to Doris." She curled up on the window seat and watched and
+watched her neighbor's yard but not a sign of a chicken did she see. "I
+should think she would have to feed them now," she said to her big sister
+who was hurrying off to school.
+
+Sister Alice didn't quite understand what Mary Jane said and was in too big
+a hurry to stop and inquire so she merely replied hastily, "Maybe you're
+too late for breakfast," and ran on to school. So Mary Jane still sat at
+that window and still watched for chickens. Finally when her legs were
+beginning to get pricky and she was about ready to give up, her mother came
+into the room.
+
+"Where does she keep it?" asked Mary Jane.
+
+"Where does who keep what?" replied Mrs. Merrill, "and what is my little
+girl doing all this time?"
+
+"I'm watching to see Doris's box of chickens," said Mary Jane, "do you know
+where it is?"
+
+"Box of chickens!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill in amazement, and then she
+suddenly realized how Mary Jane had misunderstood her. "Doris has no box of
+chickens, dear, she has chicken POX--it's a sickness and Doris will have to
+stay in the house for a few days."
+
+"Oh-h-h," said Mary Jane slowly, "so that's why I can't play with her."
+
+"That's why," agreed Mrs. Merrill, "and now what are you going to do?"
+
+"I guess I'll play on the porch."
+
+"I guess _not_" laughed mother, "because it's beginning to rain. I'm afraid
+you'll have to play in the nursery. Why not play school?"
+
+"I'm going to," replied Mary Jane, who always made up her mind very
+quickly. "I'm going to right now because Alice showed me how." And she
+skipped off gayly to the nursery.
+
+There she pulled out every doll she had and set them in a long row on the
+floor.
+
+"Marie Georgiannamore, you shall be lady-come-to-visit because you're the
+biggest and you are clean and new. I'll be teacher because I know the most.
+My sailor boy and Mary Jane, Jr., shall be the graduating class like Alice
+is and all the rest shall be the baby room."
+
+Such a bustle and a hurry as there was after that! Mary Jane got out
+all her doll chairs, every one, and set them in two rows--one for the
+graduating class (a very short row of two chairs) and one for the baby room
+(a very long row of many chairs). She dragged out her little piano to play
+the songs on and got out fresh chalk for the blackboard.
+
+"There, now, I guess we're ready to begin!" she said and she sat down in
+the teacher's chair up front.
+
+For a while everything went splendidly. The sailor boy must have known his
+lessons well for he received very good marks--right up on the blackboard
+where everybody could see they were, too--and the teddy bears sat up
+straight and minded the rule about no whispering. But the straighter the
+teddy bears sat, the more particular their teacher became about the others.
+
+"Tommy!" she announced suddenly (Tommy was the sailor doll), "I should
+think you would be ashamed to sit so slouchy when this good little bear
+sits so straight--sit up nice now!" She picked up Tommy and sat him
+straight in his chair, oh, so very straight--that he couldn't sit still
+that way, he just tumbled off onto the floor!
+
+"Tommy! I'm ashamed of you!" she said firmly. "Sit up!" And again Tommy was
+pulled up straight. But evidently Tommy didn't have as much back bone as a
+sailor boy should have, for he tumbled right down again.
+
+"Tommy Merrill!" cried Mary Jane, now all out of patience, "I should think
+you'd be ashamed to have a teddy bear sit straighter than you do! I think
+I'll sit you up on" (Mary Jane looked around the room to see where he had
+better be put) "on this radiator till you learn to behave." So, without
+giving Tommy a chance to explain that his back was made differently from
+the teddy bear's back and that he was sitting just as straight as ever he
+could, Mary Jane put him up on the radiator.
+
+"There, now, you sit there for a while, Tommy, and if you're good I'll let
+you come down at recess time."
+
+But as it turned out, there wasn't any recess in school that morning. Tommy
+had no more than been set up on the radiator before Mrs. Merrill called up
+the stairs to Mary Jane, who quickly dropped her piece of chalk and ran to
+the top of the stairs.
+
+"Did you call, mother dear?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, Mary Jane," replied Mrs. Merrill, "come downstairs at once. Somebody
+is here to see you."
+
+Mary Jane dropped the book and chalk at the top of the stairs and ran down
+as fast as ever she could--somebody to see her often meant a very good time
+and she didn't want to miss a minute.
+
+"Dr. Smith," said Mrs. Merrill as Mary Jane stepped into the room, "this is
+my little girl, Mary Jane."
+
+"I'm glad to know you, Mary Jane," said Dr. Smith.
+
+Mary Jane made her very best courtesy; held out her hand and then looked up
+into the stranger's face and asked, "Why does she call you a doctor?"
+
+"Why shouldn't she?" asked the visitor curiously.
+
+"Because you're not a doctor," answered Mary Jane positively. "Doctors wear
+funny white coats and rub their hands together and say, 'Well, little girl,
+what can I do for you to-day?' doctors do."
+
+Dr. Smith and Mrs. Merrill laughed and the doctor sat down in the big
+Morris chair and took Mary Jane in his lap.
+
+"I'm sorry to disappoint any little girl," he said pleasantly, "but,
+you see, I'm on a vacation so I don't have to wear a white coat and ask
+questions. I can sit down in this comfortable chair and have a good time."
+
+"Can you make Tommy behave while you are having a good time?" asked Mary
+Jane.
+
+"Who is Tommy?" inquired the doctor.
+
+Mary Jane told him all about the school and Tommy who had trouble sitting
+up as straight as the teddy bears did.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't do much for Tommy this morning," said the doctor when
+she had finished, "for I'm only here between trains. But I'll tell you what
+you might do. You might pack Tommy and all the bears into a trunk and visit
+your great-grandmother. Then I could help you."
+
+"My great-grandmother!" exclaimed Mary Jane; "she lives way off in the
+country!"
+
+"To be sure!" nodded Dr. Smith, "and so do I--I live next door to her.
+That's the reason I came to see you. Now ask your mother to let you go home
+with me and then we'll have plenty of time to attend to Tommy."
+
+"Oh, no, we couldn't think of that!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill, before Mary
+Jane had a chance to say a word. "Mary Jane is much too young to go so far
+from home without me and I can not possibly leave home just now."
+
+Mary Jane looked from one to the other. A new idea, a brand new idea, was
+growing in her mind; the idea of making a visit--it had never occurred to
+her before.
+
+"Does my grandmother live in a big house?" she asked.
+
+"In a great, big, white farm house," replied Dr. Smith, "and she has lots
+of chickens and pigs and cows and strawberry patches and milk and--well,
+about everything a little girl could possibly want. And now she wishes a
+little girl named Mary Jane Merrill to come and visit her."
+
+"And could I have really truly chickens of my own--not Doris's kind of
+chickens?" asked Mary Jane.
+
+Mrs. Merrill laughed. "I guess you could, dear, but you mustn't think about
+it because you are not going. I'm afraid you have made trouble," she added
+laughingly to Dr. Smith, "because when Mary Jane starts thinking about
+something, she doesn't easily forget."
+
+"Never you mind, Mary Jane," said Dr. Smith confidently, as he set her down
+and prepared to go, "you talk about visiting your great-grandmother all you
+want to, and some day you'll get there--you just see!"
+
+"Will I really?" asked Mary Jane after the guest had gone.
+
+"Really what?" said Mrs. Merrill.
+
+"Really go to my great-grandmother's where the chickens and strawberries
+are?"
+
+"Dear me, I don't know," replied Mrs. Merrill. "I know you'll not go till
+you are way, ever so much bigger girl than you are now--that's settled. Now
+run along with your school. I think Tommy needs you."
+
+So Mary Jane went back to the nursery and played school. And being the kind
+of a little girl who knew it was not polite to tease, she didn't talk about
+the country--much. But she didn't forget--indeed, no! Not even when she was
+having a good time with the surprise that came a few days later.
+
+
+
+
+AUNT EFFIE COMES TO VISIT
+
+
+Great Aunt Effie lived way off in New York City, so far away that she had
+never before come to visit at Mary Jane's house. So, when one fine morning
+the postman brought a letter saying that in five days Aunt Effie would be
+at the Merrills, Mary Jane was quite excited.
+
+"What does she look like and how long is she going to stay?" asked Mary
+Jane and then, before Mrs. Merrill could answer she added, "Will she like
+to play with me?"
+
+"Don't ask me!" laughed Mrs. Merrill, "I have never seen her either. She's
+your Daddah's auntie, you know, ask him."
+
+"That's funny," said Mary Jane, "How can she be just my Daddah's auntie?
+Isn't she yours and mine too?"
+
+"To be sure she is," replied Mrs. Merrill; "she's our auntie now but she
+was his auntie first and we haven't had a chance to see her since she
+belonged to you and me. When father comes home this noon you must get him
+to tell you all about the good times he and his brother used to have at her
+house when they were little boys. Then you will know that you will surely
+love her very much and that you'll want her to stay at our house a good
+long time."
+
+When Mr. Merrill came home for lunch he gladly told her about many of the
+good times this same auntie had given him when he was about as old as Mary
+Jane.
+
+So no wonder Mary Jane was interested in the coming of their guest. She
+helped clean the guest room and all by herself fixed the vase of violets
+for the dresser. And then she put on her second best dress and drove with
+her father to the station to meet the unknown auntie.
+
+Mr. Merrill locked the car and then he and Mary Jane went through the
+station and clear out to the tracks so they might see Aunt Effie the minute
+she got off the train. Pretty soon the great engine with its long trail
+of big Pullmans came snorting and puffing into the station; the porters
+stepped off the cars but not a single passenger appeared--except one small,
+lonely-looking little woman in black who climbed out of the last car.
+
+"She didn't come!" exclaimed Mary Jane in dismay.
+
+"Yes, she did, and here she is!" laughed father as he stepped up to greet
+the little lady. "Welcome, Aunt Effie! This is Mary Jane come to meet you!"
+
+Now Mary Jane had never seen her grandmother or any older auntie, at least
+she hadn't seen them recently enough to remember them because the Merrills
+lived many miles from all their kith and kin. So she was much puzzled at
+the little old lady and far too shy to do more than to drop a nice little
+courtesy as her mother had taught her to do. Then they all climbed into the
+car and drove home.
+
+Aunt Effie was tired from her long journey so she didn't talk much that
+evening and Mary Jane went off to bed feeling not one bit acquainted with
+the auntie she had thought and talked so much about.
+
+"I don't believe she likes little girls," she thought sadly. "I don't
+believe she even _saw_ me because when grown folks see little girls they
+always say, 'How old are you, little girl?' and then they say, 'My! my!
+you're almost big enough to go to school!' and she didn't say a thing to
+me!" And she went to sleep thinking about how fine it would be to have a
+really truly "play-with" auntie come to visit.
+
+Aunt Effie hadn't come down to breakfast yet when Mary Jane had finished
+hers so she started playing all by herself. "I think I'll play dress up
+to-day," she said to her mother as she slipped down from the table.
+
+"That will be fine," said Mrs. Merrill; "the attic is plenty warm and you
+can play up there all you like to, only you must remember to put everything
+away neatly when you have finished playing."
+
+"I will, mother dear," answered Mary Jane and she kissed her mother and
+started up the stairs.
+
+Now up in the Merrill attic, off in a nice comfortable corner where it
+wouldn't be in any one's way, was the girls' "dress-up box." In it were
+kept all the clothes that Alice and Mary Jane were allowed to play with.
+There were old coats and wonderful old hats that were so queer one would
+never guess real ladies had worn them! And slippers and hair ribbons and
+petticoats and shawls and silk dresses and morning dresses and parasols
+and--oh, the most things you ever saw! Whenever Mrs. Merrill had something
+that she couldn't use any more and that wasn't worth giving away to some
+needy person, she put it in the girls' box. And whenever the girls, either
+Alice with her big girl friends or Mary Jane with her little playmates
+wanted to dress up or have a show they helped themselves out of the box--it
+was great fun as you can see. Many a morning when Mary Jane was tired of
+being Mary Jane, she slipped off to the attic and dressed up to be somebody
+else.
+
+This particular morning she hardly knew what she was going to be. She
+pulled out a couple of gay hair ribbons, a pair of dark gloves and a
+shopping bag. And the bag decided the play for her.
+
+"I'm going to be Aunt Effie-like-I-thought-she-was," she said gayly, "and
+I'm going to come and visit!" And then she set to work pulling stuff out of
+the box and hunting just the right thing to dress in. She finally put on a
+gay plaid skirt, a big black hat trimmed with a great pink rose, a yellow
+waist and a red scarf. Then she pulled on the pair of gloves, picked up the
+shopping bag and started for the stairs.
+
+And who do you suppose she met coming up? Aunt Effie! The real Aunt Effie!
+
+"Well, good morning!" said the real Aunt Effie smilingly, "who have we
+here?"
+
+Mary Jane looked long and carefully. She hated to take other people into
+her games and then find out that they laughed at her. And she had learned
+by experience that some grown folks never learn the game of "dress-up."
+But Aunt Effie, the this-morning Aunt Effie, whose eyes looked rested and
+smiling, seemed very much as though she might understand dress-up, very
+much. Mary Jane decided to try her.
+
+"I'm Aunt Effie come to visit," she said solemnly.
+
+"Now, isn't that nice," answered Aunt Effie and she didn't seem one bit
+surprised or amused or anything that grown folks sometimes are, "and who am
+I?"
+
+"Oh, will you play too?" cried Mary Jane clapping her hands happily.
+
+"To be sure I will," laughed the real Aunt Effie, "that's what I came
+upstairs for."
+
+"Then you come over here by the box and I'll dress you up in some little
+girl things and you can be Mary Jane," said the happy little girl. "Do you
+like pink or blue sashes?"
+
+Aunt Effie decided for blue and fortunately they found a nice, long blue
+ribbon and a white dress of Alice's that was just the thing. Such fitting
+and pinning and dressing and tying you never saw. And when it was all done,
+Aunt Effie looked so much like a little girl that she couldn't help but act
+like one and she and the "dress-up" auntie played together all the morning
+long.
+
+So much fun did they have that mother had to call twice to make them
+understand that lunch was ready!
+
+"Here, you show me how you want things put away, Mary Jane," said Aunt
+Effie hastily when they finally heard. "Let's scramble them away so as not
+to keep mother waiting."
+
+"We'll put them right on the top in the box," said Mary Jane, "'cause we'll
+want to play some more--lots!"
+
+And they did, many times.
+
+
+
+
+KEWPIE AND THE WASHING
+
+
+One morning a few days after the dress-up fun Aunt Effie had to go down
+town on some errands and Mary Jane was left to play by herself. She and
+her auntie had grown to be such good play fellows that it was hard to find
+something interesting to do without Aunt Effie to join in the fun.
+
+"Why _don't_ you find something to do and then do it?" said Mrs. Merrill
+after Mary Jane had made pictures on the window pane and rummaged through
+the mending basket and poked her finger into the canary's cage and fingered
+the forbidden little green balls on the ends of the fern leaves. "Little
+girls can't expect to have a good time when they do all the things they
+are not allowed to do. Go and play with Marie Georgiannamore, you haven't
+played with her since Aunt Effie came."
+
+"Will you play too?" asked Mary Jane.
+
+"Not for a while yet, dear," replied mother, "because this is wash morning
+and I have a new laundress to look after. Didn't you see her come around
+the house when we were at breakfast? I have to go downstairs and show her
+how we like our clothes washed and starched. Don't you want to go along?"
+
+"Oh, yes, mother, I do!" cried Mary Jane happily. "I want to learn to wash,
+too." Then she thought a minute. "But I believe I'd better take Marie
+Georgiannamore along too--she's lonesome."
+
+"I'm sure she is," answered Mrs. Merrill. "You run along and get her and
+then we'll go to the laundry."
+
+Mary Jane hurried upstairs for her big doll, but, though she searched every
+place that a big doll ought to be, not a sign of Marie Georgiannamore could
+she see.
+
+"Mother!" called Mary Jane over the front stair railing, "Marie
+Georgiannamore's lost!"
+
+"Lost--no, surely not," said Mrs. Merrill and she started up the stairs to
+hunt for the misplaced dolly. "Oh, I remember now, dear," she added when
+she was half way up, "Aunt Effie took her clothes off to wash them and I
+expect the dolly is some place in her room. Get your biggest kewpie and
+come on, I can't wait too long."
+
+Now Kewpie, the biggest kewpie, was the doll with the broad smile who slept
+with Mary Jane every night. Other dolls got their hair mussed or their
+clothes untidied or something; but Kewpie could always be depended on to be
+neat and smiling no matter where he slept or what happened to him--a most
+satisfactory doll to take to bed as you can see. Mary Jane ran into her
+room to get him but her bed was all neatly made and Kewpie was nowhere to
+be seen.
+
+"Kewpie's lost too," called Mary Jane.
+
+"No, he isn't," laughed mother, who by that time was at the bottom of the
+stairs, "he must be right there, you had him in bed last night, you know."
+
+Mary Jane ran back and poked her hand under the pillow; looked under the
+bed; on the dresser and on the window seat. No Kewpie was to be found.
+
+"You'll find him in a minute," Mrs. Merrill called up the stairs, "and then
+you come down and meet me--I'll be looking for you, dear." And then she
+hurried on to her waiting duties.
+
+Mary Jane hunted and hunted but she didn't find Kewpie. She did find her
+rag doll tucked back in the far corner of the closet and she began playing
+with her and forgot all about Kewpie and the new laundress and even about
+her own lonesomeness with Aunt Effie away. She had such a good time
+dressing the rag doll in new clothes and going visiting with her and all
+that, that she didn't notice mother when she twice peeped into the door to
+see if her little girl was safe and happy. First thing Mary Jane knew, it
+was lunch time--you know how quickly the clock does run round and round
+when you are having a good time.
+
+Now on wash day the Merrills didn't have their lunch on the dining table as
+they did on other days; no, because they liked to do different things and
+wash day is a very good day to be different. On that day Mrs. Merrill
+fixed a tempting little tray for each person and left all the trays on the
+kitchen table. Then each person as he or she came home, father and Alice
+and Aunt Effie (and of course mother and Mary Jane who were already
+at home, had trays too), went into the kitchen and got his or her own
+tray--the trays could be told apart by the napkin rings marked with
+initials--and carried it into the living room and sat down in a comfortable
+chair and ate lunch. And afterwards, each person carried his or her own
+tray back to the kitchen table. They thought that way of eating lunch was
+lots of fun and Mary Jane well remembered how big and important she felt
+the first day mother allowed her to carry her own tray (with the glass of
+milk on mother's tray for safe keeping, of course) and to hold it on her
+own lap like big folks instead of sitting up to the piano bench like a
+baby! Mary Jane felt bigger that day than she ever had in all her life.
+
+Just as she had picked up her tray and was going out of the kitchen on this
+particular noon, the new laundress came up from the laundry. Of course that
+wasn't so very unusual for Mary Jane often met the laundress in the kitchen
+at noon time, but it was unusual to have the laundress step up and lay
+something on her tray. Mary Jane had to hold tight to keep from spilling
+something she was so surprised!
+
+"I guess this must be yours, little girl," the laundress said, "I found it
+in one of the sheets." And Mary Jane looked and saw her Kewpie that she had
+hunted so hard to find.
+
+"Oh, that must be my fault!" exclaimed mother. "I gathered the sheets up
+in such a hurry this morning that I quite forgot to look for Kewpie--I'm
+sorry!"
+
+Mary Jane looked up at the kindly face of the new laundress, "Thank you
+so much," she said, "and I'm coming down to see you after I have eaten my
+lunch."
+
+So as soon as she had lunched and had carried her tray back to the kitchen
+table, she hurried downstairs to the laundry. That new laundress seemed to
+know a great deal about little girls and to like them for she answered all
+Mary Jane's questions and told stories and didn't seem to be bothered a bit
+by having a little guest.
+
+"There!" she said finally, "I'm ready to hang out. Do you want to come
+along to the yard and hold the clothes pins?"
+
+"I'll come pretty soon," said Mary Jane, and then she added importantly, "I
+have something I want to do first."
+
+"Come along then, when you're through," answered the laundress
+unsuspiciously, and she picked up the heavy basket and went out of doors.
+
+Left alone, Mary Jane slipped over to the wringer--that was the one thing
+above all others in the laundry that interested her and she did want to see
+how it worked. She turned the handle slowly three or four times, watching
+the cogs as she did so to see how they fit into each other so neatly and
+then so quickly slipped out again.
+
+"I do think that's funny," she said thoughtfully; "there must be something
+in there that makes them act so, I guess I'd better see what it is." And
+slowly turning the handle with one hand, she stuck an inquiring finger in
+between the cogs.
+
+Of the few minutes that followed, Mary Jane never had a very good idea.
+She knew she must have screamed with the pain of a hurt finger because the
+laundress rushed in from the yard, mother came from upstairs and in a few
+minutes Aunt Effie hurried breathlessly down the stairs. Then, before long,
+the doctor was there too, and her finger was all tied up with sticks on
+each side and father hurried in the front door and asked her how she'd like
+a nice, long, Christmasy stick of candy. It all happened just that quick.
+
+"I think things is so funny," said Mary Jane later as she luxuriously
+licked her candy. "If Marie Georgiannamore hadn't hid and if Kewpie hadn't
+gone to the washing and if I hadn't wondered about that wringer thing, I
+wouldn't have had this candy that I've wanted for--for ninety-seven days."
+
+"Yes," agreed the doctor as he went out of the door, "things is funny. And
+my advice to you, young lady, is this; next time you want to see how a
+wringer works, ask before you investigate. Another time you might lose,
+instead of bruise, your finger."
+
+"I will," nodded Mary Jane, "only I don't want to know how it works any
+more--I know enough now, I do."
+
+
+
+
+JUNIOR'S SHOWER BATH
+
+
+It's very funny to go around the house with your finger tied up in a
+bandage and two strips of wood--that is, it's funny the first day. By the
+second day it's queer and after that it's no fun at all; it's a bother.
+
+Long before Mary Jane was allowed to use her hand again she had decided
+that never, _never_, NEVER would she poke her finger into anything. It
+takes only a second to poke a finger in but it takes a good long time to
+get a badly hurt finger well, she had learned that.
+
+For the first three days Aunt Effie played with her all the day long and
+that wasn't so bad. They played dress up and school and Aunt Effie showed
+her how she had school when she was a little girl. And they made new
+dresses for all the dolls; and straightened the drawers of all the doll
+dressers and--well, they did every single thing that Mary Jane could
+think of or Aunt Effie could plan. And then, without a minute's warning a
+telegram came; a telegram which said that Aunt Effie must come home at once
+because her sister was sick.
+
+And after that Mary Jane was lonesome, oh, so very lonesome and she
+couldn't think of half enough things to do to fill the days. For, you see,
+Mrs. Merrill had her duties and father had to go to his work and Alice had
+her school and Doris had the chicken pox so no one, much as they might have
+wished to, could spend every minute of the day with a little girl who was
+perfectly well except for a hurt finger. That little girl had to play by
+herself a part of the time.
+
+Mary Jane was standing by her mother's dresser, a couple of mornings after
+Aunt Effie left, when the cleaning woman came into the room to give it its
+weekly cleaning.
+
+"Why don't you help here, Mary Jane?" suggested Mrs. Merrill; "you could
+dust my dresser things with your well hand and lay each thing, as you dust
+it, on the bed. Then I'll shake the dresser cover and Amanda will put
+the dust sheet on the bed and everything will be ready for cleaning in a
+jiffy."
+
+If there was one thing above another that Mary Jane loved to do, it was to
+handle the pretty things on her mother's dresser. Ordinarily she wasn't
+allowed to touch a thing there, so she quickly replied, "Yes, mother, I'd
+love to help," and then took the dusting cloth Mrs. Merrill handed her and
+set to work.
+
+She dusted off the pin tray and the toilet water bottle and brushed the
+fringe of the lamp shade--she knew exactly what to do because she had
+watched her mother many times.
+
+"There, now!" she said in a satisfied voice, "it's all ready for the cover
+cloth. Can you put it on, 'Manda?" Amanda Rice was the good cleaning woman
+who came every week to set the Merrill house in apple pie order; she and
+Mary Jane were fast friends.
+
+"Jest a little minite, honey," replied Amanda, "soon as ever I gets this
+rain room clean."
+
+Just off Mrs. Merrill's room was a tiny room which opened also into the
+bathroom and in this tiny room was a shower bath. Amanda insisted on
+calling it the rain room because the water came down from the ceiling like
+rain; and she always seemed to have a fear that something about that room
+would hurt her. She was most particular to clean that room before she did
+either the bathroom or Mrs. Merrill's room--she seemed to want the bad job
+out of the way.
+
+Perhaps when Mary Jane asked her to hurry with the cover cloth, Amanda
+hurried a little too fast with her scouring of faucets or perhaps she was
+just careless. However it happened, she turned on the cold water and it
+poured over her from the ceiling in an ice cold shower.
+
+"Heavens! Honey! Lor' a mercy! De water hit me!" she shouted and she ran,
+dripping and screaming out of the shower room, out of the bedroom and down
+the hall.
+
+Mrs. Merrill came hurrying to see what the matter might be and Mary Jane
+jumped to turn off the water before it should splatter out on the bedroom
+floor. And then, while Mrs. Merrill was busy comforting Amanda and hunting
+some dry clothes for her, Mary Jane sat down on the bed room floor to
+think. How funny Amanda had looked with the water running all over her
+clothes! Mary Jane, who had been used to a shower bath from the time she
+was a tiny little girl, had never before realized how funny it seemed to
+other folks. "I expect Doris would think it was funny," she thought. "I
+wonder if she knows about it. And wouldn't Junior look--" but Mrs. Merrill
+bustled into the room just then and Mary Jane had no more time for
+thoughts.
+
+Mrs. Merrill worked rapidly to make up for lost time. She shook the dresser
+scarf out of the window, brushed off the window-seat pillows and finished
+making the room ready for Amanda. "Now, dear," she said to Mary Jane when
+everything was finished, "Amanda is coming in here to sweep, why don't you
+go out and play a while with Junior? See? He's out in the yard. If you play
+nicely, you won't hurt your finger, I'm sure."
+
+Mary Jane didn't care much about playing with Junior just then; she would
+far rather have stayed and help Amanda sweep. So she walked very slowly
+down the stairs and out of doors and was none too cordial in her greeting
+to Junior. But he didn't seem to mind and as it's very hard to keep on
+snubbing a person who doesn't notice he is being snubbed, Mary Jane soon
+gave it up and they began making mud pies. Nice goo-y mud pies out of the
+black mud in the to-be-geranium bed near the house.
+
+But hardly had they finished their pies and arranged them on the edge of
+the porch to bake, before Junior's mother called him to come home.
+
+"She's always calling you home," protested Mary Jane, "but I 'pose you'll
+have to go or you can't ever come over here again!"
+
+"Yes," agreed Junior, "I'd better go home. But I'll come back again." And
+he started to wipe his muddy hands on his trousers.
+
+"Oh, don't, Junior!" cried Mary Jane. "You know what your mother'll say!
+She don't like mud pies anyway. Come into the house and wash 'em before you
+go."
+
+The two children skipped into the house and upstairs to the bathroom where
+Mary Jane filled the bowl with warm water--then she thought of something.
+
+"Do you like to walk out of doors in the rain?" she asked craftily.
+
+"Yes," replied Junior in surprise, "only my mother won't let me."
+
+"Don't you think she'd let you if it rained indoors?"
+
+"I don't know, 'cause it don't," replied Junior decidedly.
+
+"Yes, it does, it does at our house," said Mary Jane. "You stand inside
+this door, and I'll show you."
+
+Junior seemed to have some objection to closets so it took coaxing to get
+him where Mary Jane wanted him. But when, on careful inspection, he
+found that this closet had two doors, quite unlike other closets he was
+acquainted with, and also that it looked very harmless, he stepped over the
+high sill and onto the tile floor. Quick as a flash Mary Jane reached up
+and turned on the water--and down came the deluge!
+
+Water so cold that it took his breath away so he couldn't scream and then,
+in a minute, so hot that it burned him, descended from the spray in the
+ceiling and soaked him to the skin. Mary Jane sat on the door sill, in all
+the splatter, and laughed and laughed. Junior grabbed for the door and
+shook it trying to get out--just as Mrs. Merrill opened the door from her
+bedroom onto the sight. Junior darted passed her and ran down the stairs,
+dripping water and mud from his dirty hands on every step and screaming at
+the top of his voice all the way.
+
+"What in the world--" began Mrs. Merrill.
+
+"We was just talking about water from the sky in the house," explained
+Mary Jane innocently, "and Junior was surprised to see it come. I guess he
+thought water from the sky in the house would be dry," she added.
+
+"And I," said Mrs. Merrill as she took off her dusting cap and reaching
+into the clothes closet for her coat, "will have to leave my work and go
+over and explain and apologize. Mary Jane, you sit right there on that
+chair till I come back and you can't have another little playmate over this
+week--not one!"
+
+Mary Jane sat down on the big chair and started counting the boards in
+the floor. "One, two, three, six nine seven, ten," she said to herself
+patiently. "Then if nobody can come to see me, I guess I'll have to find
+somebody right in this house. I wonder--"
+
+What did she wonder?--wait and see.
+
+
+
+
+PLAYMATE DOROTHY
+
+
+"You sit right there, Dorothy, and make yourself at home," said Mary Jane,
+"and I'll get Marie Georgiannamore for you to play with."
+
+"What in the world!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill to herself as she passed Mary
+Jane's door on the morning after Junior had had his shower bath. "Who can
+be there now? I particularly told Mary Jane not to invite any children in,
+this week." She opened the door and was already to say, "Whose little girl
+are you?" as she usually did to new friends that Mary Jane brought home.
+But this time there wasn't any little girl there! Only Mary Jane and her
+dolls and her teddy bears playing as contentedly as you please.
+
+"Oh!" laughed Mrs. Merrill, much relieved, "that's a joke on me, Mary Jane;
+I thought you were talking to some new little girl. I didn't know that you
+had named one of your dolls Dorothy."
+
+"I was talking to a little girl," answered Mary Jane solemnly, "and I
+haven't changed the name of one of my dolls--not one."
+
+"Well, that's nice," said Mrs. Merrill, but she didn't pay more than half
+attention to what Mary Jane said because she just happened to think of
+something that she surely must order from the grocery as soon as she could
+get downstairs. "I'm glad you are having such a good time." And she kissed
+her little daughter lightly and went away.
+
+"You'll have to excuse her, Dorothy," apologized Mary Jane, "grown folks
+don't know much sometimes and I'm sure she didn't see you or she'd have
+asked you to stay for lunch." She pulled two chairs over to the window
+seat, got out paper and colored pencils and then sat down in one chair.
+"Now you make snow on your paper and I'll make a picture."
+
+For some minutes there was quiet in the nursery except for the sound of
+Mary Jane's pencil rubbing, rubbing on the paper.
+
+"There!" she said at last, "there's a cow and two chickens and a strawberry
+like they have at my great-grandmother's that Dr. Smith told me about.
+Let's see your snow," she added politely. She picked up the blank piece
+of white paper that lay in front of the other chair and looked at it
+thoughtfully. "You do make nice snow, Dorothy," she said, "it's so clean
+and white. Now let's go down and see if lunch is ready."
+
+When she reached the door of the nursery, she stepped back to let some one
+pass out in front of her and as she went downstairs she was careful to keep
+well to one side so that there was plenty of room for some one to walk
+beside her. She went through the empty living room, through the dining room
+and out into the kitchen where her mother was working.
+
+"May Dorothy and I have our lunch?" she asked.
+
+"Lunch?" asked Mrs. Merrill, and in her hurry she only noticed half what
+Mary Jane said, "yes, in just a minute. It's almost time for father and I'm
+so late. Will you run into the dining room, dear, and see that the chairs
+are all set up to the table as they should be? That's a good little
+helper."
+
+Mary Jane hurried back to the dining room and set five chairs up to the
+table--to be sure they were a bit crowded and so was the extra place
+Mary Jane set with napkin, plate, glass and silver that she got from the
+sideboard, but Mary Jane didn't seem to notice that, she was quite pleased
+and satisfied with her work.
+
+"Now you sit right here, Dorothy," she said, "and I'll sit beside you so
+you won't be lonesome." She pushed her chair beside the vacant one and
+climbed into it.
+
+Father and mother and Alice came into the room one after another and each
+exclaimed over the vacant chair.
+
+"Who's the company?" asked father.
+
+"Why the chair?" demanded Alice.
+
+"I thought you knew how to count, Mary Jane," added mother. "Didn't you
+know there were only four of us? You're a funny little girl!"
+
+"I can count," said Mary Jane with great dignity, "and I know there are
+four of us when five of us isn't here. But I had to have a chair for
+Dorothy."
+
+And then, for the first time, Mrs. Merrill realized that something was
+going on in Mary Jane's mind--something new.
+
+"Dorothy?" she asked kindly; "who is this Dorothy you have been telling me
+about?"
+
+"She's the little girl who comes to see me when you won't let me play with
+anybody come to see me," explained Mary Jane patiently, "and I'm glad she's
+here because I'm lonesome and I want her to stay for lunch because she's a
+nice little girl and I don't like people to laugh."
+
+Mrs. Merrill frowned at Mr. Merrill and Alice who showed signs of laughing
+and then gathered her little girl into her arms. "Have you been as lonesome
+as that?" she asked.
+
+"Just as lonesome as lonesome," answered Mary Jane. "I'm lonesomer than
+when nobody comes to see me because this time I know nobody's coming to see
+me even if they wouldn't anyway."
+
+"Why is she so lonesome?" asked Mr. Merrill who seemed to understand just
+what his little girl meant even though what she said was a little mixed.
+"Can't anybody play with her?"
+
+Mrs. Merrill reminded him of Junior's shower bath and of her command that
+Mary Jane should have no more guests till she had learned how to treat
+them. "I've been too busy this morning to give any lessons in treating
+guests," she added, "but I had planned to have a first rate lesson this
+afternoon. I had planned to take Mary Jane calling with me; then she could
+see just what good times folks can have and still be kind and polite. How
+would you like to go calling with me, Mary Jane?"
+
+"Really?" exclaimed Mary Jane who could hardly believe her good luck;
+"really truly, grown-up-lady calling, mother?"
+
+"Really truly," said mother, "but wait a minute. Do you think you could
+leave Dorothy at home? I wouldn't care to take two little girls at once."
+
+"Oh, yes," replied Mary Jane who was suddenly anxious to oblige, "I could
+leave her home and I think maybe, while I was gone she might go away on the
+train to--to--see her Aunt Effie, don't you think she might?"
+
+"Indeed I do," said Mrs. Merrill. "It wouldn't surprise me a bit to find
+her gone when we came back. Now eat your lunch, Mary Jane, and then we'll
+go upstairs and rest a bit before we dress to make our calls. We'll have a
+beautiful afternoon and you'll see just how nicely folks treat other folks
+when they come to visit. And remember, dear, if you had treated Junior as
+kindly as you treat Dorothy, you could have had all the company that came."
+
+"I am remembering it," said Mary Jane meekly, "and, mother, may I wear my
+pink dress with the smocking and the pink ribbons?"
+
+Mrs. Merrill said that she might, so a very happy Mary Jane finished her
+lunch and hurried upstairs to lie down for fifteen minutes in a dark room.
+
+When the time was up Mrs. Merrill came to her door and asked, "Did you see
+anything of my butterfly pin when you cleared off my dresser yesterday
+morning, Mary Jane?"
+
+"No-o-o, I didn't," said Mary Jane thoughtfully.
+
+"That's funny," replied Mrs. Merrill, "I was sure it was there! Of course
+I should have put it where it belongs but I can't see where it could get
+to--I know Amanda wouldn't take it and you would have remembered, wouldn't
+you, if you had put it anywhere?"
+
+"Yes, mother, I'm sure I would," said Mary Jane positively. "I know I
+didn't touch it, I didn't even see it once!"
+
+"Well, I've hunted everywhere I can think of so I guess it's gone and I
+would rather lose anything I have than lose that pin! Just see how big
+ladies get punished when they are careless! I didn't put my pin away where
+it belonged and now it is gone. But don't you feel too badly, dear," she
+added when she saw how sorry Mary Jane felt for her; "it's time for us to
+dress for our calls."
+
+So Mary Jane quickly forgot about her mother's loss. She scrubbed her hands
+and put on her own shoes and made herself all ready for her mother to brush
+her hair and slip on the new pink dress. Then the very last thing, the hat
+with the pink rosebuds was put on and they started out.
+
+Such a good time as they did have! Two ladies they called on, and one must
+surely have expected a little girl would come to visit because she had tea
+served with sandwiches (Mary Jane ate three, two made with marmalade and
+one with lettuce--think of that!) and pink candles which twinkled and
+looked _almost_ as nice as the sandwiches. Such a _very_ good time did they
+have that they barely got home in time to meet Alice as she came in from
+school.
+
+And playmate Dorothy must surely have gone away while they were calling
+because she was never heard of again.
+
+
+
+
+LEARNING TO SEW
+
+
+"I like to do lady things," said Mary Jane the next morning. "Isn't there
+something we can do to-day?"
+
+"Something that's a 'lady' thing?" asked Mrs. Merrill.
+
+"Yes, a really truly lady thing," explained Mary Jane; "something that I
+don't know how to do 'cause I like to learn things."
+
+"Yes, there are lots of things we might do, but I haven't much time I
+fear," replied her mother, "because I promised Alice I would finish her
+dress."
+
+"Then you'll have to sew," said Mary Jane and though she tried not to mind,
+she couldn't help being disappointed.
+
+"Yes," agreed Mrs. Merrill, "I'll have to sew. But I'll tell you, Mary
+Jane, what you might do" (and Mary Jane's disappointment vanished as soon
+as she saw her mother had a plan) "you might sew too."
+
+"Oh, goody, goody, goody!" exclaimed Mary Jane and she clapped her hands
+gayly, "and that's a grown-up lady thing for true!"
+
+"I should say it was," said Mrs. Merrill.
+
+"Shall I make me a dress?" asked Mary Jane.
+
+"Well, not just the first thing," laughed Mrs. Merrill; "folks don't learn
+to sew on dresses--not even big ladies do that. Now what had you better
+begin on?" And she thought a minute while Mary Jane watched her anxiously.
+"Oh, I know! You can make a picture card."
+
+"Sew a card?" asked Mary Jane doubtfully.
+
+"Yes, it's lots of fun," said her mother.
+
+"But Alice don't do that," objected Mary Jane, "she sews goods."
+
+"I know she does now," replied Mrs. Merrill, "but she used to sew cards and
+she loved doing it too. Only that was so long ago you know nothing about
+it. I remember that just the other day I saw some pretty picture sewing
+cards at the store; I'll go right to the phone and order some for you." And
+she hurried off to get the order in before the first delivery started.
+
+As she came back into the room Mary Jane asked, "Do I have to wait all the
+time till the picture card comes before I begin my lady work?"
+
+"It won't be long till that gets here," said Mrs. Merrill; "maybe it will
+be here before we are ready because we haven't done our breakfast dishes
+yet--that's a joke on us, isn't it?"
+
+Mary Jane agreed that it was and in gay spirits they set to work.
+
+Some folks might have said that a little girl Mary Jane's age was far too
+young to dry dishes--that she might break them. But Mary Jane's mother was
+not one of those "some folks." She believed that little girls not only
+could help well, but that they liked helping. So Mary Jane had learned to
+dry dishes some time ago and could polish the silver and shine the glasses
+just as well as any one. Of course it might take a little longer than when
+mother or 'Manda or Alice did it, but who cares about time when a job is
+well done? And there was one thing about working with her mother that Mary
+Jane especially liked; while they worked, they always talked--such fine
+talks, Mary Jane thought, about everything that Mary Jane liked to talk
+about.
+
+This morning it was sewing, of course.
+
+"How old were you when you learned to sew, mother?" asked Mary Jane as she
+picked up a glass and began to shine it.
+
+"Let me see," said Mrs. Merrill thoughtfully. "I was younger than you are,
+I know, I wasn't more than three and a half or four years old."
+
+"And did you sew on a card?" asked Mary Jane.
+
+"No, because sewing cards for little girls to learn on were not made then.
+Or if they were, my mother didn't know about them. I learned by making a
+quilt for my doll bed."
+
+"What's a quilt?" asked Mary Jane as she set her first glass down and
+picked up another.
+
+"A quilt is something like a comforter," explained Mrs. Merrill, "only it
+isn't made so thick and heavy and the outside is made up of lots of little
+pieces of cloth sewed together in a pattern. I remember my grandmother
+Camfield came to visit us and she thought it was so dreadful that I--a
+great big girl nearly four years old--hadn't learned to sew or knit. So she
+hunted up my mother's piece bag the very first day she came and cut out
+some blocks for me to piece. Funny pieces they were, too, Mary Jane, you'll
+laugh when I show it to you sometime! Because the goods look very different
+from the kinds of goods we see now, very different. I know one piece had
+big red horse shoes all over it and another had horses' heads. Those pieces
+were from my little brother's waists and were thought just exactly right
+for boys in those days."
+
+"Can't I make a quilt for my dollies?" asked Mary Jane eagerly.
+
+"To be sure you can, dear," answered Mrs. Merrill, "only I think you will
+find it more fun to learn to sew on those pretty cards I've ordered. Then
+when you can handle your needle well, you can make a quilt just as I did.
+There, now, we're through here," she added, "and if you'll clean the
+bathroom washstand while I tidy the bedrooms, we can sit right down to
+sew."
+
+If there was one bit of housework above another that Mary Jane loved to do,
+it was to clean the bathroom washstand; and she could do it beautifully,
+too. Mrs. Merrill gave her a soft cloth and the box of cleaning powder and
+she went to work. First she cleaned the soap dish; then she sprinkled a
+little powder on her cloth (just as she had seen 'Manda do many a time) and
+then she rubbed and rubbed the faucets till they shone so bright and clear
+that she could see her hair ribbon in them. Next she sprinkled powder on
+the stand and cleaned that; and last of all, she scoured the bowl. Then
+she called to her mother (and this part was the most fun of all Mary Jane
+thought) and watched while Mrs. Merrill inspected the work and said (as she
+always did), "that's _beautiful_, Mary Jane! What a fine worker you are!"
+Then she ran and put away the can of powder and the cloth and the job was
+done.
+
+This morning, just as the can was set in the closet where it belonged, the
+door bell rang.
+
+"Can you go, dear?" asked Mrs. Merrill. "I expect that's the delivery man
+with your sewing."
+
+Could Mary Jane go? Well, indeed she could! She rushed down the stairs as
+fast as she could go and opened the front door in such a jiffy that the
+delivery man jumped with surprise as she said, "Is it my sewing?"
+
+"Search me," he answered, "it's a box." And he handed her the parcel.
+
+"Oh, dear, then it isn't," said Mary Jane much disappointed; and she
+turned and went slowly up the stairs--so slowly, that you would never have
+guessed, from the time it took her to go up, that they were the same stairs
+she had so quickly hurried down not two minutes before.
+
+"It isn't it," she announced sadly at the door of her mother's room.
+
+"Oh, yes, I guess it is," said Mrs. Merrill, and Mary Jane noticed that she
+didn't seem a bit worried. "It must be, because I haven't bought anything
+else. Come over here and let's see."
+
+She pulled her chair up to the window and turned Mary Jane's little rocker
+facing it. "Now, let's see what it is," she said; "maybe you'd like to open
+it."
+
+Mary Jane would. She pulled off the string, unfolded the paper--and what do
+you suppose she found inside? The prettiest box you ever saw! On it was a
+picture of a little girl, about as old as Mary Jane maybe, and some queer
+looking cards, pictures of the cards, that is, and some gay looking colors
+that appeared to be pictures of colored thread.
+
+"Why, it _is_ my sewing, isn't it, mother?" exclaimed Mary Jane in happy
+surprise.
+
+"Looks like it, doesn't it, dear?" agreed Mrs. Merrill. "Suppose you open
+it to be sure."
+
+Mary Jane opened the box as it lay on her lap and the inside was even more
+interesting looking, she found, than the outside had been. The box was
+divided into three parts by tiny little partitions. In the biggest part was
+a pile of cards with funny marks and holes that looked as though they were
+meant to make a picture; and in the middle sized part was a pile of gay
+colored skeins of thread; and in the littlest part was a paper of needles
+with nice big eyes.
+
+"Oh, mother!" exclaimed Mary Jane. That was all she could say, she was so
+surprised and pleased.
+
+"I thought you'd like that," said her mother. "Now, while I get out my
+sewing, you look over the pictures and see which one you'd rather make
+first. Then pick out the color thread you want to sew with and I'll show
+you how to cut the skein and thread your needle."
+
+Mary Jane looked once through the pile of cards and then again before she
+could make a choice. She finally laid out one that had a picture of a
+little girl in a big sunbonnet and another of a sunflower growing in a
+garden. "There, now!" she asked her mother, "which shall I make? I want to
+do both right away quick and see what they look like when they are sewed."
+
+"Let's make the little girl first," suggested mother, "and make her wear a
+pink sunbonnet just like yours. Then you can make the sunflower next and
+the two together will be Mary Jane working in a garden."
+
+That suited Mary Jane exactly; so the thread was cut, the needle threaded
+(and that wasn't nearly as hard work as Mary Jane had feared it would be,
+thanks to the needle's big eye) and she set to work.
+
+Such a busy morning as they did have--Mary Jane and her mother! Mary Jane
+liked sewing even better than she had thought she would and she worked
+faithfully. So faithfully that by the time the clock said, "time to get
+lunch"! the little girl with the pink sunbonnet was all finished and the
+thread was ready to begin the sunflower.
+
+"Ugh!" exclaimed Mary Jane with a big stretch, "we worked hard, didn't we,
+mother?"
+
+"Indeed we did," laughed Mrs. Merrill, "and now we'd better hurry down and
+start lunch. I see Alice way down at the corner there and by the way the
+girls are all talking together--see them, Mary Jane" (and she pointed down
+the street where a parting between the trees allowed them to see a long
+way)--"I guess Alice has some plan to talk about. Luckily we'll be ready
+for her in a jiffy!" And together the sewing ladies hurried down to the
+kitchen.
+
+
+
+
+MAKING READY FOR THE PICNIC
+
+
+Alice dashed into the house with a flurry of good spirits.
+
+"Oh, mother," she exclaimed, "the girls say that the violets are out and we
+do want to have a wild flower hunting picnic up Clearwater! May we? And may
+I go?"
+
+Mrs. Merrill dropped her work and looked up at her big girl in surprise.
+
+"A picnic up Clearwater!" she said. "Is it warm enough for picnics? Oh" (as
+Alice started to exclaim), "I know it is warm enough if a little girl has
+been running home from school--I don't doubt that it is! But you must
+remember that the ground stays damp a long time in the spring and that a
+picnic usually means sitting around on the ground."
+
+"Well, this wouldn't be a sitting around picnic, mother," said Alice
+eagerly, "because we're going to hunt violets and you can't sit around much
+if you do that."
+
+"No, that's true," laughed Mrs. Merrill, who very well knew how Alice loved
+to flower hunt through the woods. "Who are 'we' that you speak of?"
+
+"Oh, Ruth and Marcia and Frances, of course, and maybe Virginia and Jane,"
+replied Alice.
+
+"And whose mother is going along?" questioned Mrs. Merrill, who always
+liked to get all the information she could before making a decision.
+
+"The girls all _hoped_ you'd go, mother," said Alice, proudly, "because
+you're such good fun at a picnic."
+
+"Jollier!" teased Mrs. Merrill. "What would I do with Mary Jane?"
+
+"Why not take her along?" asked Alice. "She's getting big now."
+
+At that, Mary Jane who had been watching and listening all this time,
+dropped the napkins she had just taken out of the drawer and clapped her
+hands happily.
+
+"Oh, goody, goody, will you really, mother?" she cried. "I've always wanted
+to go to one of Alice's picnics!" Which was perfectly true. You see, the
+little group of girls of which Alice was a member, often had gay picnic
+parties and always and always Mary Jane had wanted to go along. But always
+and always she had been told she was too little to walk so far, or too
+little, to carry her share of baskets or too little to--something; so she
+had had to stay home.
+
+"Take Mary Jane too?" asked Mrs. Merrill thoughtfully. "Why, yes, I guess
+we could. I'll tell you what we will do, girls. We'll watch and wait and
+see what the weather is by Friday noon. If it continues fine and warm for
+two days, as it is to-day, I really believe we could have a picnic. Of
+course the girls understand that it would be a 'start in the morning'
+picnic? It's too early in the season for late afternoon picnics."
+
+Alice assured her that a morning picnic was just what they all wanted. "You
+see, mother," she added, "Sunday is Miss Heath's birthday" (Miss Heath was
+the girls' teacher) "and we want to fix a big basket of flowers to give
+her."
+
+Never was the weather watched more closely than it was those two days. The
+girls at school talked of nothing but the hoped-for picnic and the minute
+Alice came into the house she had something to say about it. Mary Jane, for
+her part, thought she simply _could_ not wait till the promised day came.
+She sewed on her cards, she watered her garden and watched for the first
+bits of green, and she played with her dolls, but with all those nice
+things to do, the days seemed to drag by so slowly.
+
+But at last Friday noon came. Alice rushed home from school to announce
+what every one knew already--that the sky was clear, the air warm, and they
+could surely have the picnic.
+
+Mother met her at the door as she hurried up the walk.
+
+"I did hope you'd come promptly," she said. "Mary Jane and I have lunch on
+the table ready to eat and we want you to hurry and help us plan the picnic
+eats."
+
+"Oh, goody!" exclaimed Alice and she threw down her hat and sweater and
+slipped into her seat at the table.
+
+With the help of father and Mary Jane, the picnic dinner was planned. Each
+girl was to take a basket containing her own sandwiches, a paper plate, a
+knife, fork and spoon and cup; and then one more thing to eat--and enough
+of that one thing for everybody. There was to be cake, and cheese and
+pickles and fruit and eggs and many good things.
+
+"And will Mary Jane take a basket?" asked Alice.
+
+"Indeed she will," replied Mrs. Merrill, "and it will have something good
+in it, you can count on that."
+
+"Oh, what will it be?" asked Alice eagerly.
+
+"It will be a surprise," said Mrs. Merrill, laughing. "No, there's no use
+asking, it's a surprise! Now you run along so as to give these slips of
+instructions to each girl before school begins." And not another word would
+she say.
+
+After Alice was safely out of the house, Mary Jane and her mother had a
+good laugh over their surprise.
+
+"Won't she be pleased?" said Mary Jane happily.
+
+"And won't she be surprised!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill. "I thought surely she
+would ask to take some and then she might have guessed! Now, dear, you help
+me clear up this lunch table, then you run upstairs and take your rest
+while I bake the cake. After you are dressed, you'd better run down to the
+grocery and order your surprise so they surely have enough on hand in the
+morning. I'll write what you want on this slip of paper."
+
+So Mary Jane, who always loved to help in big folks fashion, tidied up
+the table. First she put away all the clean silver and napkins. Then she
+propped open the swinging doors that led through the butler's pantry. Then,
+with the way clear to the kitchen, she carried out all the plates and
+glasses and cups that were to be washed. After the dishes were all out, she
+shook the crumbs off the little blue doilies mother used for lunches and
+put them away neatly in the drawer. Mrs. Merrill thought that was a great
+deal of help for a little girl her age to give.
+
+At three o'clock she skipped down to the grocery at the corner and showed
+him the paper on which Mrs. Merrill had written the order for the morning.
+
+"You tell her that'll be all right," said the grocery clerk as he looked
+at the slip. "You can come down any time after nine and I'll have them all
+done up ready for you, young lady."
+
+Mary Jane walked primly out of the store; it always made her feel funny to
+be called young lady. But the minute she was out of the clerk's sight she
+ran as fast as ever she could, toward home.
+
+"He says it's all right, he has plenty," she reported to her mother.
+
+"That's good," answered Mrs. Merrill comfortably; "there's nothing like
+being sure. You run to the kitchen now, Mary Jane. I left the frosting bowl
+on the chair. You'll find a teaspoon in it and you can have any frosting
+you can scrape out--it's white butter frosting, the very kind you like
+best."
+
+Mary Jane hurried off to the kitchen and found that mother had kindly left
+nice little streaks of frosting all around the side of the bowl and oh,
+dear, but it was good!
+
+Alice came in soon and a pleasant bustling around there was then. You see,
+it was the first picnic of the year and baskets had to be brought down
+from the attic and dusted out; picnic plates and cups hunted up from their
+winter storage places and everything made ready for the morning. Mary Jane
+went here and there helping all that she could and having the happiest kind
+of a time--for wasn't this _her_ picnic too? The very first picnic she had
+ever had with the "big" girls!
+
+By dinner time that evening, everything was ready as ready could be the day
+before. Alice had her practicing done, mother had the grocery order for
+Sunday made out and the baskets with their napkins, plates, knives, forks,
+spoons and cups were set in a row on the dining room window seat.
+
+Bright and early the next morning the two girls were up and ready to help.
+Mary Jane tidied up the breakfast table and helped mother wash the dishes
+while Alice did her practicing. Then the two girls made the beds and Alice
+set the bathroom in order.
+
+"Now, we're ready to make sandwiches," Alice announced.
+
+"That's good," said Mrs. Merrill. "I think you can make those all by
+yourself, Alice. Mary Jane will help you if you need any waiting on, and
+perhaps she can wrap the sandwiches in oiled paper as fast as you make
+them."
+
+"Yes, I can, mother," cried Mary Jane happily. "I'll get the old scissors
+to cut out the papers while Alice begins."
+
+"Will you cut the bread for me, mother?" asked Alice. "You cut it evener
+than I can."
+
+"Gladly," replied Mrs. Merrill. "Then I'll skip up to the grocery with
+my order so that things can be delivered in time, before we lock up the
+house."
+
+She cut the bread and set it in neat piles ready for the sandwich making;
+then she hurried off on her errand and the girls set to their work.
+
+Mary Jane cut the papers and chopped nuts in a chopping bowl and got the
+lettuce from the ice box and wrapped up the sandwiches Alice made. She
+could do that nicely--wrap them just as nice and neat as though they were
+packages from a store. She set them at the back of the table ready for
+the baskets; three nut sandwiches, three celery sandwiches, three lettuce
+sandwiches and three jelly sandwiches all ready to be put into Alice's and
+mother's and her own baskets.
+
+"There, now," said Alice, as she made the last one, "that's four for each
+of us and mother said that would be plenty with all the other good things
+we'd have to eat. But, Mary Jane!" she added in dismay, "we haven't a
+single meat sandwich! And I do love meat sandwiches! How could mother have
+forgotten that?"
+
+"She didn't forget it," said Mary Jane, "she--" And then she clapped her
+hand over her mouth and ran out of the room for fear she'd tell the secret.
+
+But Alice was so interested in her sandwiches that she didn't notice, which
+was a very good thing as Mary Jane wouldn't have wanted her secret guessed,
+indeed, no!
+
+Mrs. Merrill came back from her errand just then and, meeting Mary Jane in
+the hall she whispered, "I brought your package from the grocery, dear.
+It's all wrapped up and hidden in the bottom of your basket." Then aloud
+she added, "Now run along and get your wraps, Mary Jane, I saw Frances and
+Jane coming as I turned the corner."
+
+She helped Alice tuck the sandwiches in the baskets, one of each kind in
+each basket; she put the big, beautiful cake in her own and the plate of
+deviled eggs in Alice's and covered the napkins over the tops.
+
+"Mary Jane hasn't anything to take in her basket but just her own things,"
+said Alice suddenly; "she ought to have something."
+
+"So she ought!" said Mrs. Merrill, her eyes twinkling, "but it's too late
+now to get anything more; the girls are out front this very minute. I guess
+we'll have enough to eat so don't you worry about Mary Jane's basket. You
+start along out to the street and I'll lock the back door and join you in a
+jiffy."
+
+A jolly party it was that strolled out of the front yard! Each girl had her
+basket covered most mysteriously with a fresh white napkin--it was enough
+to make a person hungry just to look at them! Mary Jane, who felt a little
+queer and important on being with the big girls for her first outing,
+waited at the end of the walk for her mother and then they ran a few steps
+till they joined the big girls.
+
+"They don't know what they're going to do!" said Mary Jane gayly.
+
+But, dear me, Mary Jane didn't know what _she_ was going to do! If she had
+even guessed what was to happen to her before she came back home--but she
+didn't and perhaps it was just as well she didn't; knowing might have
+spoiled the fun!
+
+
+
+
+THE PICNIC UP CLEARWATER
+
+
+Clearwater was a pretty little stream that ran through the woods just west
+of the city where the Merrills lived. And as the Merrill home was on the
+west side of the city, the woods and the creek were not far from their
+home. To reach Clearwater they only had to walk through the Campus just
+west of their yard, cut through the fields back beyond and after a walk of
+less than a mile they would find themselves by the bank of a swift running
+creek of clear fresh water. And along the banks of this little creek grew
+the loveliest violets and buttercups and Sweet Williams that could be found
+anywhere.
+
+Mary Jane held her precious basket firmly and walked along beside her
+mother while the big girls skipped on ahead.
+
+But when the girls reached the banks of Clearwater they waited till Mrs.
+Merrill and Mary Jane caught up with them.
+
+"Now keep your eyes open for flowers," called Alice as they started on
+again, all together this time, "we don't want to miss any."
+
+"What are we to do with them when we've picked them?" asked Frances as they
+walked along.
+
+"You won't get more than a bunch before lunch, I fancy," said Mrs. Merrill,
+"so you can hold them in your hand till we find where we will eat. Then,
+after lunch, you can dampen your napkin and wrap up the stems and put your
+posies in the bottom of your basket. That is," she added slyly, "unless you
+have a lot of food to take back home."
+
+"Not much danger of that!" laughed Frances. "I could eat more than I have
+in there right this very minute!"
+
+So, laughing and joking and picking the blossoms they found as they walked,
+the little party walked along the creek till they came to a bend where the
+creek widened a bit and where some big bowlders made an interest looking
+spot.
+
+"This is the very place I was looking for!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill. "I
+couldn't recall just how far down the creek it was! Suppose we make this
+our headquarters. Set your baskets on that biggest rock over there--that
+will keep your food high and dry. That flat rock will be our table and
+these two rocks here," pointing to two angle-shaped rocks that formed a big
+V, "will be just right for making a fire."
+
+"A fire!" exclaimed Alice. "What do we want with a fire?"
+
+"Oh, I thought it might be fun to make one," said Mrs. Merrill
+indifferently, "but of course if you don't care to--"
+
+"But we do, Mrs. Merrill," interrupted Ruth, "I think it would be jolly."
+
+"So do I," said Alice hastily, "only I was wishing we had thought of it
+before and had brought along something to cook."
+
+"But we can have the fun of making it anyway," said Frances and she started
+off in search of kindling.
+
+In a few minutes a brisk little fire was burning between the stones and
+Mrs. Merrill added the sticks the girls brought her till she had a nice bed
+of coals.
+
+"Do let's eat now," said Marcia, "I'm starved! Then we can finish our
+picking afterwards."
+
+"It's only half past eleven," said Mrs. Merrill, laughingly.
+
+"Who cares?" asked Ruth. "That's the fun of a picnic--doing something
+different."
+
+"Yes, let's," said Frances and Virginia together. So, as every one seemed
+willing, the baskets were opened and the goodies spread out on a tablecloth
+laid over the biggest rock.
+
+"I love a picnic that happens before fly time," said Virginia as she spread
+a tempting pile of cookies out where every one could see.
+
+"We all do," agreed Mrs. Merrill, "and as there doesn't seem to be one
+single prowler around, I guess I'll set out my cake." And of course the
+girls "oh"-ed and exclaimed over its tempting whiteness as she set it on
+the rock table.
+
+"What have you in your basket, Mary Jane?" asked Frances.
+
+Mary Jane looked at her mother and, as Mrs. Merrill nodded approvingly, she
+laid back the napkin and gave each girl a long wire toasting fork.
+
+"Well, what in the world, mother!" exclaimed Alice. "Did you bring
+marshmallows?"
+
+Mrs. Merrill shook her head and Mary Jane, without a word (though she was
+trembling inside, she was that excited over her secret) picked up a big,
+funny looking package and unrolled it slowly. The girls scented a secret
+and watched eagerly. Slowly the paper unrolled--and then the white paper
+inside and--there was the secret in plain sight!
+
+"Sausages!" exclaimed all the girls in one breath, "sausages we can cook!"
+
+"How jolly!" cried Alice. "You certainly did keep that secret well, Mary
+Jane--I never even suspected."
+
+"May we cook them right away?" asked Ruth. "I could eat a million!"
+
+"Pass them around, Mary Jane," said Mrs. Merrill. "I expect you could eat
+a good many, dear, but be sure to cook each one well before eating it--you
+don't need to hurry, I think there are plenty!" she added teasingly.
+
+The girls, each armed with a long fork on the end of which was speared a
+sausage, gathered round the fire. Mary Jane had her own fork and her own
+sausage, just like the big girls and cooked her sausage without burning her
+fingers, which was lucky, as burns are no fun.
+
+How good those warm sausages did taste with the fine sandwiches and pickles
+and other goodies from home. But Ruth didn't eat a million after all--she
+found three quite a-plenty; if she'd had more she couldn't have eaten any
+cake and that _would_ have been too bad!
+
+By half past twelve, there wasn't a scrap of anything left and every one
+was saying that they had had just exactly enough to eat.
+
+"Then I suggest we shake our crumbs into the creek," said Mrs. Merrill, "I
+know the minnows will enjoy them. Then you can fix the baskets ready for
+your posies and still have a good two hours left for picking."
+
+So the napkins were shaken out and the baskets arranged in neat order on
+the biggest rock and then every one ran in search of flowers.
+
+"My, what a lovely bunch you have!" exclaimed Alice a little later as she
+saw how diligently Mary Jane had been picking. "Miss Heath will like that,
+I know."
+
+"But Miss Heath isn't the one this is for," said Mary Jane quickly, "not
+unless mother says so."
+
+"Who do you want to give it to, pet?" asked Mrs. Merrill who happened to be
+near enough to hear what was said, "your father?"
+
+"No," said Mary Jane, decidedly, "Daddah will come out and get some
+to-morrow, maybe. I want to send mine on the train--will they take flowers
+on the train?"
+
+"On the train!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill. "Yes, they take flowers, but who do
+you want to send them to?"
+
+"My Aunt Effie," said Mary Jane. "I want to send my flowers to her."
+
+"My thoughtful little girl!" said Mrs. Merrill and she put her arms
+tenderly around her daughter. "I think that is a fine plan and she'll be
+so glad to get them. You pick all you can and then after we get home, I'll
+pack them in a box and Daddah will take them down to the station this
+evening and put them on the New York train."
+
+So of course, after that promise, Mary Jane picked more and more till she
+had a fine big bunch of violets and buttercups.
+
+But picking violets is tiresome work--that is, it is tiresome if you do
+it for long. And it's not much wonder that after she had picked three
+handfuls, Mary Jane decided that she had enough. She wandered back to the
+rocks where the baskets were set and looked around for the others. All were
+in plain sight, but they were scattered about, each one picking where she
+thought the picking was best.
+
+"I think I'll sit down here," said the little girl, "and fix mine so their
+stems are all straight." And she sat down on the biggest rock close by the
+edge of the creek--right at the bend where the water was deepest.
+
+She spread her posies out on the rock and rearranged them so that the stems
+were all tidy and straight. Then she happened to think of the crumbs that
+were fed to the minnows. "I guess they's all eaten up now," she thought,
+"but I guess I'd better see."
+
+So she leaned out over the water to look. No one ever knew quite how it
+happened--Mary Jane was sure she didn't lean too far, and mother and the
+big girls, busy with their picking, didn't notice a thing till they heard a
+scream. Then they looked up and no Mary Jane was to be seen!
+
+From all directions they came a-running, Mary Jane's screams guiding them
+straight to the big rock.
+
+Alice and Ruth reached there first and without a word to each other or a
+thought of their clothes or shoes, they slid down the bank and waded out
+into the water.
+
+"Don't be frightened, sweetheart," called Alice comfortingly, "we're
+getting you!"
+
+Alice grabbed her shoulders and Ruth took her feet and together they
+scrambled up the bank and handed her into mother's out-reaching arms.
+
+[Illustration: She sat down on the biggest rock close by the edge of the
+creek.]
+
+Then there was a hurrying for surely! Virginia and Ruth and Jane rushed
+around for more sticks to build up the almost burned out fire. Frances and
+Alice made a curtain of sweaters to keep off the winds while Mrs. Merrill
+pulled off Mary Jane's wet clothes and rubbed her briskly with the old
+tablecloth. Then Mary Jane sat in state, wrapped up in four sweaters, while
+the "rescue girls," as Alice and Ruth were called, dried their shoes and
+wet skirts.
+
+"You brave girls!" said Mrs. Merrill as soon as she had time for a word. "I
+am _so_ proud of you!"
+
+"Pooh!" exclaimed Alice, "it wasn't deep a bit! See, mother, I'm not wet
+above my knees!"
+
+"All the same," said Mary Jane firmly, and it was the first word she had
+said since they pulled her out, "water's wet! And it's lots colder than I
+thought it would be and the bottom of the water's hard--so there!"
+
+Everybody laughed at that, and then they all felt better--the scare was
+over.
+
+By the time Mary Jane's clothes were dry, everybody had a basketful of
+flowers. Alice and Ruth straightened them all out neatly and tied them into
+bunches while their shoes and stockings were drying. As the girls all lived
+in the neighborhood, they decided to put the bunches in a tub in Alice's
+basement.
+
+"Then we can come over at eight o'clock in the morning and put them in the
+gift basket and take them to Miss Heath's before breakfast," said Frances.
+And so it was planned.
+
+Alice and Ruth put on their shoes and stockings and Mrs. Merrill dressed
+Mary Jane in her dried out clothes--and how funny they did look too--and
+then the picnic started for home.
+
+Mr. Merrill was just driving up to the house when they got back home and he
+stared in amazement when he saw Mary Jane.
+
+"What have they done to your dress and your hair ribbon?" he asked.
+
+"_They_ didn't do anything but just dry it," explained Mary Jane. "I doned
+it myself. I bent over to look at the fishies and the water hit me and
+the bottom was hard and I got wet and Alice and Ruth pulled me out and
+everybody dried me and will you please put my flowers on the train for Aunt
+Effie?"
+
+"Well, I'd call all that enough for one day," replied father. "It's lucky
+the water wasn't deep--it's better to feel a hard bottom than none at all,
+little girl."
+
+"And will you mail my flowers?" asked Mary Jane.
+
+"As soon as they're ready," promised father. And so the picnic ended.
+
+
+
+
+GOING SHOPPING
+
+
+"Well, what are we doing to-day?" asked Mr. Merrill as he finished his
+breakfast. "This is a fine enough day to be doing something big and
+important."
+
+"I'm just going to play around," said Mary Jane, "I'd like to do something
+big if you have it, Daddah," she added, encouragingly. "Could we go on a
+picnic?"
+
+"No more picnic for you this week, young lady!" answered Mr. Merrill. "I
+should think you were wet enough last Saturday to last a while!"
+
+"But that wasn't the picnic's fault," explained Mary Jane, in distress,
+"that just happened, and I want to go on another picnic right away." To
+tell the truth, she had been a bit worried for fear her accident of the
+picnic would keep her father and mother from letting her go next time
+somebody gave a picnic party and she did so hope it wouldn't make any
+difference.
+
+"I expect you do," laughed Mrs. Merrill, "and I'm certain your wetting
+didn't hurt you any. Don't you worry, dear, you shall go next time there
+is any picnic to go to. In fact, you and Alice and I may go on a picnic
+to-morrow--but it will be a picnic of quite a different kind, I'll assure
+you."
+
+"Oh, mother! Do tell us what it will be!" exclaimed both girls.
+
+"I was talking with Doris's mother last evening," began Mrs. Merrill, "and
+she tells me that it's very satisfactory to go to the city to buy hats and
+shoes. What would you think" (she asked Mr. Merrill) "if the girls and I
+took the trolley to the city to-morrow and bought our summer outfits?'
+
+"I'd think that was a fine plan," said Mr. Merrill, "and I'd say that
+perhaps I'd go along if I was asked."
+
+"Oh, would you, Daddah?" cried Alice. "That would be jolly. Then it's all
+settled--we're going!"
+
+"Talk about deciding in a hurry," teased Mrs. Merrill; "when do we start?"
+
+"I have some business that I've needed to do for a week. Suppose we all
+take the early limited that leaves at eight? Then we can have a good long
+day and time for a fine lunch together."
+
+That plan suited Mrs. Merrill and was agreed upon at once. "Only remember,"
+she reminded them, "eight o'clock on the car, means everybody up early."
+
+"I'll set the alarm for six," promised Mr. Merrill.
+
+"And I'll do my two days' practicing today," said Alice.
+
+"And I'll help, mother, truly I will," said Mary Jane.
+
+"We ought to have no trouble getting off then," said Mrs. Merrill, "and I,
+for one, think we'll have lots of fun."
+
+That evening, every one laid out their clothes ready for morning; lists
+were made out and then the girls were sent to bed a whole hour earlier than
+usual so they would feel ready for the day's fun.
+
+It was a good thing everything was planned before hand, for eight o'clock
+came _very_ early the next morning--or so it seemed; and there was
+considerable scrambling to get hair ribbons on and gloves buttoned and the
+house all locked up in time for the car.
+
+Alice had been to the city with her mother several times before; but this
+was Mary Jane's first trip and she watched out of the car window with
+great interest and was almost sorry when the car pulled into a big train
+shed--the interurban station.
+
+"You lady folks shop till one," said father as they parted, "and then we'll
+meet for lunch."
+
+Mary Jane thought she had never seen such big stores in all her life.
+Fortunately mother decided to do some of her own and Alice's shopping first
+and that gave Mary Jane a chance to look around and get used to things. But
+finally Mrs. Merrill said, "Now it's your turn, Mary Jane. Let's look at
+spring coats and then at play suits."
+
+They got into the elevator again (and Mary Jane's heart took a funny
+"flip-flop" every time it started or stopped) and went to a floor where
+everything was for little girls. There seemed to be enough suits and
+dresses for all the little girls in the world and Mary Jane was certain
+sure that she could _never_ tell which she liked best. But mother and Alice
+helped her and before very long they had bought a pretty little gray
+coat and one pink afternoon dress and two pink and two blue rompers for
+playtimes.
+
+"There, now," said Mrs. Merrill as she looked at her watch, "that's all we
+can do before lunch. It's time to meet father this very minute." So they
+got into the elevator again and went to the top floor.
+
+"This is the funniest store," Mary Jane told her father, who was waiting
+for them as they stepped off the car; "they sell dresses and coats and
+things to eat and everything right off of one elevator!"
+
+"Think of that!" exclaimed her father as he piloted them to a table. "Well,
+I believe I like the things to eat best--at least right now."
+
+"What are you going to have?" he asked Mary Jane as they sat down and made
+themselves comfortable.
+
+"May I have anything I want?" she asked, "_anything_?"
+
+"Anything at all," her father assured her.
+
+"Then I know what I want," said she promptly, "I want chicken broth and
+mashed potatoes and pink ice cream."
+
+"That's what you're going to have," Mr. Merrill told the waiter. "I wish
+Alice could make up her mind as quickly," he added teasingly, for Alice was
+reading the whole menu from cover to cover before she made up her mind what
+to order.
+
+Mary Jane had her chicken broth while the others were deciding and then she
+had a bit of mother's good fish to eat with the mashed potatoes which came
+later. And of course the pink ice cream, a big dish of it, all for herself.
+
+"Now," said Mr. Merrill, when they were all through, "I'm going to buy Mary
+Jane a pair of white shoes and a pink parasol while you two finish what you
+have on your list and then maybe we'll have time to ride out to the park
+before we start for home."
+
+"Oh!" cried Mary Jane, but that was all she could think of to say. Dresses
+and a coat and lunch and a ride and shoes and a parasol--all in one day!
+And it wasn't a birthday either, just a regular, every day sort of a day!
+
+"Don't worry," laughed her father for he guessed what she was thinking,
+"this is just once a year! Come on, now, and we'll get the shoes."
+
+They went back to the children's floor and bought the shoes and the
+prettiest pink parasol Mary Jane had ever seen and then, just as they were
+ready to go and meet mother and Alice, a friend of father's passed by.
+
+"Well, Tom!" cried Mr. Merrill, and he jumped up to speak to him. Mary Jane
+couldn't hear all they said but from what she did hear, she guessed that
+the man lived a long way off and that he was buying clothes to take home to
+his little girl. "Sit right there, Mary Jane," Mr. Merrill called to her as
+he walked off in the direction of the elevator, "and I'll be back in five
+minutes."
+
+Mary Jane looked around and up and down. She saw the wrapper girl high up
+in her box between the counters. She saw the busy clerks and floorman come
+and go. She saw the many shoppers--grown folks and children that passed by
+her seat. And the more folks she saw, the lonesomer she became; sitting
+there all by herself among so many folks.
+
+"I don't think it's nice for a little girl to sit here in a big seat," she
+decided, "I think I'll sit somewhere that I won't _show_ so much." And she
+looked around for a quiet corner. Between the big cases that formed the
+counters she spied just the place she wanted. A shelf down close enough to
+the floor for her to sit on and quite out of the way of the busy crowd.
+
+"That's where I'll wait," she said softly, "then I won't show while I'm
+waiting for father." And she slipped back of the big cases while no one was
+looking and sat down on the shelf. But the minute she got away from the
+confusing noises and sights, she felt very sleepy, so sleepy that she could
+hardly keep awake; so very sleepy, so very--
+
+Father's five minutes lengthened out to ten and then his friend stepped
+into the elevator and Mr. Merrill hurried back to his little girl.
+
+"You must excuse me, dear," he said as he approached where he had left her,
+"but I hadn't seen Tom in ten years and--" But there was no little girl
+there!
+
+Mr. Merrill called the floorman and asked about her. "I left her only ten
+minutes ago," he said as he looked at his watch, "and she wouldn't run
+off--I _know_ Mary Jane wouldn't run off. She must be here."
+
+"We'll find her," said the floorman, easily, "she must be in some other
+aisle."
+
+They hunted up and down and up and down the aisles and they looked at many
+little girls--the store was full of them. But not a sign of Mary Jane
+did they see. Finally it came time to meet Mrs. Merrill and Alice so Mr.
+Merrill, knowing that they would be uneasy if he was late, hurried down
+to meet them and all three came back to resume the search that by now was
+getting pretty anxious.
+
+"There's no need of your hunting on any other floor," said Mrs. Merrill as
+the floorman suggested that maybe Mary Jane had gone to hunt her father and
+had lost her way. "I know my little girl and she's not far from where her
+father left her. Show me where she was sitting when you left and I'll find
+her--I'm sure."
+
+Mr. Merrill led her to the very seat where he had left Mary Jane and then,
+to the surprise of all the clerks and curious shoppers who had become
+interested in the search, Mrs. Merrill didn't rush around and hunt as
+the others had. Instead, she sat down in the seat as though she had all
+afternoon and not a worry in the world. And then, sitting down as Mary Jane
+had been, she began to look around. And the very first thing she saw was
+the shelf, way back out of the way; and on the shelf, huddled down in a
+sleepy heap, her own little girl!
+
+How the people did stare as she jumped up quickly and hurried over to the
+between aisle where no one had thought of looking. And how every one did
+smile as she reached down and picked up Mary Jane--Mary Jane all sound
+asleep!
+
+The little girl opened her eyes and slipped her arm around her mother's
+neck and then, as she noticed so many folks looking at her, she hid her
+sleepy eyes in her mother's shoulder.
+
+"Don't you be afraid, little girl," said the floorman, in great relief, "we
+like little girls who know enough not to get lost. It was better to stay
+right there and go to sleep than to run around and hunt your father. You
+and your sister take this slip," and he wrote hastily on a scrap of paper,
+"and go upstairs to the lunch room. Maybe a dish of ice cream will help you
+to wake up."
+
+So that was how it happened that Mary Jane had a trip and an adventure and
+some new clothes and _two_ dishes of pink ice cream all in one day.
+
+
+
+
+THE PAPER DOLL SHOW
+
+
+Bright and early the next Monday morning Mary Jane went over to Doris's
+house to ask if she could come and play. Fortunately the chicken pox was
+all over and Doris was well and was allowed to play again. Mary Jane had
+had so many things to do during the time that Doris had been sick and she
+was anxious to tell about them. And she was oh, so very glad to have her
+little friend to play with again.
+
+"Come on over to my house," she urged Doris, "I can play all morning."
+
+"Are you sure Doris won't be in your mother's way?" asked Doris' mother.
+
+"Monday morning is a busy time, I know."
+
+"It isn't at our house," said Mary Jane positively, "because _this_ day
+isn't wash day to-day--it's just getting ready for my sister Alice's party
+this afternoon and mother said we wouldn't bother if we played in the
+nursery, so please do let her come."
+
+"Very well," laughed Doris's mother, "if you're as sure as all that I guess
+I'll let her go, but I should think getting ready for a party would be
+_almost_ as much work as wash day! What are you going to play?"
+
+"Paper dolls," said Mary Jane. "I have two, five new sheets and two
+scissors that don't prick that my Aunt Effie sent to me and she said that
+Doris could play with them too."
+
+"That's fine," said Doris's mother much relieved. "I should think you
+little girls would have a very happy time because you haven't seen each
+other for so long. Run along now, Doris, and be sure to come home when the
+big whistle blows for noon."
+
+The two little girls skipped gayly across the yard, through the gap in the
+hedge between the houses and onto Mary Jane's porch.
+
+"Let's play here," suggested Doris.
+
+"We can't," said Mary Jane, "'cause mother says if we play out doors she
+don't know where we are so we must play in the nursery with all the windows
+open and have a good time and not bother. So let's do that.
+
+"And anyway," she added as they climbed up the stairs, "out doors is bad
+for paper dolls so I'm not sorry."
+
+They got out the five new sheets of paper dolls and the scissors and set to
+work cutting. Now everybody who has ever played cutout-paper dolls knows
+that the cutting out is the most fun. As long as there was a doll or a
+hat or a parasol uncut those two little girls had a beautiful time. They
+figured out which hats belonged to which dresses and they counted the
+children on the five pages so they could be divided equally. But as soon as
+the cutting was done, the fun was over and the girls didn't know what to do
+with themselves.
+
+"I'll tell you what let's do," suggested Mary Jane suddenly, "some of these
+dolls have dress-up clothes like a show. Let's make a show in a box like
+Alice does."
+
+What Mary Jane meant was this. Some of Alice's friends liked to plan rooms,
+and furnish them. And to do that they took a neat pasteboard box and stood
+it on its side; then they lined it with crepe paper for wall paper. Then
+they made furniture to match the color scheme (they were very particular
+about color schemes, Mary Jane remembered that) and they dressed dolls in
+crepe paper to match and put them in the furnished room. And, Mary Jane
+thought this part was the best of all, when they were tired of one room,
+they gave it to Mary Jane and made a new one for themselves.
+
+It happened that only the week before, Alice and her best friend Frances
+had made a beautiful little room, in a box of course, all done in green and
+pale yellow. Later they had planned one in rose and had told Mary Jane she
+might have the green and yellow one. It was this box Mary Jane meant to use
+for the show.
+
+"You just wait till you see," she said to Doris, "you wait till--" and
+she dived into her closet, climbed up on the play box inside the door and
+reached up to the shelf where she had put the box the girls had given her.
+
+"What is it? Where'd you get it?" demanded Doris as the treasure was pulled
+out.
+
+"It's mine!" said Mary Jane proudly, "and we'll give a paper doll show like
+Alice does--you just see!"
+
+Doris had no older brother or sister to give her ideas so she had to wait
+till Mary Jane explained her plan.
+
+"First, we'll fix this up some way, they always do," began Mary Jane.
+
+"But it's pretty now," objected Doris.
+
+"Oh, yes, but we have to _fix_ it," said Mary Jane scornfully, "they always
+do, they never use a box just as it is--never! Now what could we do, what
+could go on top of a house? A roof, but what could we make a roof of? Or,
+oh, I think we'll put on some clouds maybe, clouds ought to be easy, would
+you like clouds, Doris?"
+
+"On the top?"
+
+"Yes, on top of the house where clouds belong."
+
+"All right," said the obliging Doris, "I don't care which you make. But
+where do we get clouds?"
+
+"Let's ask 'Manda," said Mary Jane, "she's here to help make the party. She
+likes me, maybe she knows where we can get some clouds." The two little
+girls hurried down the back stairs to the kitchen, but Amanda wasn't there.
+They were just about to go sorrowfully back to the nursery when Mary Jane
+noticed something white on the table.
+
+"Why, here are some clouds all ready for us!" she exclaimed. "I guess
+'Manda must have known we were coming! You take all you can carry, Doris,
+and I'll take the rest."
+
+Doris plunged her hand bravely into the mass of beaten white of egg that
+filled the great platter and Mary Jane tumbled all that was left into her
+apron and they gleefully hurried back upstairs.
+
+"There, now," said Mary Jane, "we'll make clouds all over our house and
+then we'll have the show." But that show never was held.
+
+For just as they left the kitchen, Amanda came back into it to finish the
+cake she was making for the party and found that her eggs, the beautiful
+whites that she had beaten with such pains, were gone!
+
+"It sooly do seem queer, Mis' Merrill," she said to her mistress, "them
+eggs was right here and then they wasn't here and eggs can't walk, kin
+they--leastwise not when they's beat up?"
+
+"No, eggs can't walk but little girls can," said Mrs. Merrill for she
+suddenly recalled hearing mysterious sounds and giggles on the back stairs
+a moment or two before. "I think I know where your eggs are but _why_ they
+are gone, I can't imagine!" And she hurried up to the nursery. And there,
+sure enough, were the eggs!
+
+"What in the world are you girls doing with those eggs?" she demanded.
+
+"Those aren't eggs," said Mary Jane scornfully, "those are clouds and this
+is going to be a paper doll show."
+
+"I don't know about a paper doll show, daughter," said Mrs. Merrill
+seriously, "but I do know that those are the eggs which were to have gone
+into the cake for Alice's party."
+
+"Oh, mother, not really?" exclaimed Mary Jane, and the tears came into her
+big eyes. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to spoil the party, truly I didn't,
+mother! We just wanted some clouds--anyway I did," she added honestly, "and
+we went down to 'Manda and she wasn't there but the clouds were so we took
+them. That's all. _Will_ it spoil the party?"
+
+"I don't know what to think," said Mrs. Merrill, as she sat down between
+the two little girls to think and plan. "Alice wanted that especial kind
+of cake for her party but eggs cost so much these days--there were eight
+whites on that platter, Mary Jane; I don't believe I can afford eight more,
+really I don't."
+
+"Oh, I can, I _can_, mother dear!" cried Mary Jane and quick as a flash she
+ran to her little white dresser. "I can afford it with this and I want
+to!" She pulled out her precious letter with a dollar bill tucked in its
+folds--the dollar bill that her great-grandmother had sent her and with
+which she was to buy something very special for herself--and handed it to
+her mother. "Please, mother, let her have it with this!"
+
+"Do you realize that this is your very own dollar that you are giving me?"
+asked Mrs. Merrill, and Doris eyed Mary Jane's wealth with surprised eyes.
+
+"Yes, mother, I know it is mine, mine that I was saving for a big doll, but
+I don't want to spoil Alice's party, truly I don't! Please let me go buy
+some more eggs for her cake!"
+
+"I believe you really want to," said Mrs. Merrill, as she slipped her arm
+around the eager little girl, "and I believe it's the best thing to do. You
+didn't realize that you were taking something that you had no right to when
+you took those 'clouds' for the doll house, did you, Mary Jane?"
+
+"'Deed I didn't, mother, and please may we get the eggs now?"
+
+Mrs. Merrill looked at her watch. "There will be just time if you go right
+away, dear," she said; "come the back way and I'll give you a basket
+to carry them in so none will be broken. And get eight, that's all you
+took--I'll buy the yellows from you so you will still have a good deal left
+from your dollar."
+
+The two little girls skipped down to the grocery in a hurry but they didn't
+hurry home--no, sir! They walked slowly and carefully so that not an egg
+was even cracked.
+
+And by the time they got home and gave Amanda the eggs and saw them all
+opened and divided, the whites on a platter and the yellows in a bowl, the
+big whistles blew for noon and Doris had to go home.
+
+Mary Jane went with her as far as the gate and then waited under the little
+mulberry tree till her father came home for his lunch.
+
+"Well, this is fine," said Mr. Merrill as he tossed her up onto his
+shoulder. "I like to see my little girl waiting for me. And what have you
+learned this morning, pussy?"
+
+"I learned that eggs aren't clouds and that they cost money," said Mary
+Jane, "and I didn't spoil the party!"
+
+"Pretty good for one morning, say I," laughed father, and he carried her on
+into the house.
+
+
+
+
+THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
+
+
+The evening after Alice's party, Mr. and Mrs. Merrill held a long
+conference and as a result a surprise awaited Mary Jane when she came to
+the breakfast table the next morning.
+
+"Do you know of anybody who has a birthday next week?" asked Mr. Merrill as
+he kissed her good morning.
+
+"I do, and I'm five years old," replied Mary Jane, "and that's pretty old!"
+
+"Goodness! I should say it was!" exclaimed Mr. Merrill. "It's so old I can
+hardly imagine it. And I think, Mrs. Merrill, something ought to be done
+about it." As he looked solemnly across the table at his wife, his eyes
+twinkled merrily and Mary Jane knew by their look that something nice was
+coming.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know anything to do about it," began Mrs. Merrill (and
+Mary Jane noticed that her eyes twinkled too) "unless, perhaps, we might
+have a party?"
+
+"A party?" exclaimed Mary Jane, "a PARTY? A really for sure enough party
+all just for me?"
+
+"That is, of course, if you want one," added mother doubtfully.
+
+"Oh, mother," cried Mary Jane and slipping down from her chair she gave
+first her mother and then her father a big "bear" hug, "of _course_ I want
+one! May I have it on my birthday?"
+
+"To be sure," laughed Mrs. Merrill. "When else would a body have a birthday
+party? Now you eat all your oatmeal like a good little girl and then you
+help all you know how with the morning work and then we'll go down town and
+buy some pretty invitations and favors."
+
+Never did oatmeal vanish as quickly as did Mary Jane's bowlful on
+that morning! And never did a little girl help so well with beds and
+bathroom--really Mrs. Merrill hadn't guessed that a nearly-five-year-old
+could do so much. So it wasn't quite ten o'clock yet when they made ready
+to go down town.
+
+"I'll be down in just a minute, dear," said Mrs. Merrill when Mary Jane was
+all ready. "You run along and wait for me at the front porch."
+
+Mary Jane walked down the stairs very slowly, and out onto the porch, and
+out onto the steps, but still mother hadn't come. So, as she didn't want to
+sit down and muss up her dress, she decided to walk once around the house
+rather than wait on the porch. She walked past the hydrangea bed, past the
+blooming bridal wreath and as far as the rose bed. And there she stopped in
+amazement. For right there on the first bush, where it might easily have
+been seen these many days by ice man, grocery man or any one who passed,
+hung mother's handsome butterfly pin! Mary Jane was so surprised she didn't
+even touch the pin, she stood there and screamed.
+
+Mrs. Merrill looked out of the window overhead and asked what the matter
+was.
+
+"Come quick!" called Mary Jane. "Do come quick!"
+
+Mrs. Merrill, too frightened to ask questions, hurried down the stairs and
+out into the yard and--well, she was as much surprised as Mary Jane was
+when she saw her pin hanging there on the bush. She grabbed it quickly as
+though she was afraid it would vanish before her eyes and then she threw
+her arms around Mary Jane.
+
+"You dear child!" she exclaimed in a shaky voice. "I never thought of
+looking there! The pin must have still been on the dresser cover when I
+shook it out of the window and I was in such a hurry I didn't notice. I'm
+glad you have such bright eyes. Now you wait one minute more and I'll put
+this safely away and then we'll go down town."
+
+Such fun as they did have down town! They bought pretty little invitations
+with a picture of a little girl with a pink parasol in one corner; they
+bought cracker bonbons with pink frills outside and folded up paper baskets
+inside and they bought gorgeous big paper hats in all the gay colors.
+
+And then, when they got home, they wrote invitations to five little boys
+and to four little girls, Mary Jane was the fifth little girl, you see. And
+then they began making things for the party. Alice made a game to be played
+with paper balls; father drew a big teddy bear on a sheet and mother made
+a big black nose for him, a nose that little folks, with their eyes
+blindfolded, were to try to pin on in the right place. And Amanda planned
+cookies and cake and candy. Never was there such a party for it was Mary
+Jane's first, you see.
+
+At last the birthday came (Mary Jane had begun to fear it never would for
+the days seemed three weeks long, every one) and the house was set in order
+and the time came to dress. Mary Jane was to wear her brand new dress with
+the pink sash, a new one that her grandmother had sent on purpose for the
+party; and her new white shoes that father had given her and her new silk
+stockings that her great-grandmother had sent. She felt very old, and
+grand, and grown-up when she walked dignifiedly down the stairs and into
+the living room. She had looked in the glass most carefully and the glass
+had told her that she looked just as nice as any little girl could and
+quite grown-up too.
+
+She stood just inside the living room door and her heart beat quickly when
+Amanda went to answer the first ring at the front door--just think the
+wonderful party was beginning!
+
+Junior came first, naturally, because he lived nearest and Mary Jane
+noticed that his pocket bulged in a most curious fashion.
+
+"Of course you didn't have to bring me a present," she said calmly, "but if
+you did, why don't you give it to me right away now, so it don't muss up
+your pocket?"
+
+Junior, who had been puzzling all the way across the street about how he
+was to give Mary Jane that present, was greatly relieved to have the matter
+so easily settled. He pulled out the be-ribboned package and eyed it
+carefully while Mary Jane undid it and exclaimed over the beautiful new
+party coat for Marie Georgiannamore. Mary Jane scampered back upstairs
+to get the forgotten doll and the two children, and the others who began
+dropping in were so busy dressing the dolls that they quite forgot
+"company" manners and had a good time from the start.
+
+[Illustration: There's no need to tell of all the good times at that
+party.]
+
+There's no need to tell of all the good times at that party; of all the
+games and the fun; the scramble into the ten chairs at the candle lighted
+table in the dining room; of the sandwiches which disappeared so quickly;
+the ice cream in the shape of circus men; the big white cake with its five
+pink candles and one white one in the middle to grow on--you know all about
+that yourself because you've been to parties and know what fun they are.
+
+When all the goodies were eaten up; when not a child could have eaten
+another bite had the table been full again, Mrs. Merrill passed around the
+paper bag favors and each guest put the candy he couldn't eat and the nuts
+and the paper caps and the flower favors and a piece of the birthday cake
+into his or her bag and then each bag was laid carefully by each little
+guest's hat and coat ready to take home. And then the five little girls and
+the five little boys slipped down from their chairs and ran out of doors
+for a final romp.
+
+It was a tired little girl that Mrs. Merrill tucked into bed that
+night--but a very happy one. "I do think parties is the nicest things," she
+said with a satisfied sigh; "they's the nicest things I know!"
+
+Mrs. Merrill smiled and kissed Mary Jane good night. Mary Jane had had
+quite enough excitement for one day so she said not a word about another
+surprise that she knew was coming--a surprise that _might_ prove to be even
+more fun than a party!
+
+
+
+
+A LETTER AND A TRIP
+
+
+Mary Jane slept late on the morning after the party. By the time she was
+awake enough to realize that another day had come, she discovered that she
+was alone upstairs. She ran to the top of the stairs and looked over the
+railing. No one was in the hall and sounds from the dining room told her
+that the family was at breakfast.
+
+"I'll just surprise them," she said to herself, "and show them how much
+a big girl like me can do." She ran back into her room and put on her
+slippers and her kimono; she went into the bathroom and washed her hands
+and face and brushed her teeth and then she slipped soundlessly down the
+stairs. At the door of the dining room she stopped to get a good breath
+with which to say "Boo-o-o-o!" and as she took her breath she heard her
+father say, "Well, if you really think it's all right for her to go--five
+years old seems pretty young to me for such a trip."
+
+"Of course it would be if she went alone--I wouldn't even think of that!"
+answered Mrs. Merrill's voice, "but with Dr. Smith to look after her and
+Alice coming as soon as school is out--I believe it will do the child
+good."
+
+"So do I," exclaimed Mary Jane, darting into the room, the "booo" quite
+forgotten.
+
+"Now, you'll have to tell her," laughed father, "and of course she won't
+want to go.
+
+"Of course I will," laughed Mary Jane gayly. "Where am I going, mother?"
+
+"Do you think you are old enough to go visit your great-grandmother Hodges
+all by yourself?" asked mother.
+
+"With my own trunk and my own ticket, and my own pocket book and my own
+conductor?" demanded Mary Jane, who could hardly believe what she heard.
+
+"With your own trunk and pocket book," said Mrs. Merrill, "but I don't know
+about the ticket and the conductor because Dr. Smith is coming again and
+he will take you back with him if we will let you go and trust him to look
+after you on the journey. Do you think you'd like to go?"
+
+"I don't think it, I know it!" cried Mary Jane, and she danced around the
+table with her kimono flying out behind her. "Can I go to-day?"
+
+"Hardly!" laughed Mrs. Merrill. "We have to buy you some strong shoes for
+the country and make you some rompers to play with the chickens in and pack
+your trunk and, oh, a lot of things before you can go."
+
+"Well, a lot of things won't take very long because I'll help," said Mary
+Jane eagerly, "see? I'll climb right up and eat my oatmeal without you
+telling me to--that's how I'll help."
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Merrill both laughed and Mr. Merrill, as he rose from the
+table, said, "If you will eat your breakfast, just as you know you should,
+every morning while you are gone, I really think I'll let you go." (For,
+you see, Mary Jane hadn't ever liked her oatmeal.) And when Mary Jane
+promised solemnly that she would, he said it was all settled.
+
+Such fun as there was after that! Alice and Mrs. Merrill sat at the table
+long after father left for work and they planned out just how many weeks it
+was till Alice could go to the country too, and how many weeks there were
+after that till Mr. and Mrs. Merrill could come for his vacation and how
+many rompers Mary Jane ought to have and how many pairs of shoes and
+rubbers and how big a sun hat Mary Jane needed. And then, after Alice had
+gone to school, Mary Jane helped her mother with the morning work so they
+got off very early for down town and the shopping.
+
+And that evening, when father got home, he carried the steamer trunk down
+from the attic and Mary Jane began packing.
+
+By noon of the next day, she had the trunk so full of dolls and doll
+clothes and teddy bears and books that it couldn't possibly shut and she
+hadn't put in it one single thing to wear--not a single thing!
+
+"You seem to think that there isn't going to be anything to play with in
+the country," said Mr. Merrill when Mary Jane showed him her morning's
+work. "Must you take all your city things? I should think you would leave
+those here and play with grandmother's things while you are at her house."
+
+"Will she have anything for a little girl?" asked Mary Jane in surprise.
+
+"If she hasn't, you come right back home," laughed father, "but I don't
+worry about that. I think she has more than you'll need."
+
+So after lunch Mary Jane took all the playthings and the dolls out of the
+trunk and put them neatly into the closet and that was much better for then
+there was plenty of room in the trunk for clothes and for two mysterious
+packages which Mary Jane saw her mother put in the very bottom. And it was
+a good thing that she put everything away so nicely for at three o'clock
+Dr. Smith telephoned that he was unexpectedly called home and could Mary
+Jane go home with him that very night?
+
+Mr. Merrill was phoned to and he said he would tend to the ticket and the
+trunk check. Mrs. Merrill packed the trunk and Alice, who happened home
+from school in just the nick of time, bathed and dressed Mary Jane for the
+train. So that by the time Dr. Smith came out to dine with them the trunk
+was packed and gone, the little traveler was dressed and everything about
+the house was back in apple pie order.
+
+Mary Jane was so excited she could hardly eat a bit of dinner but Dr. Smith
+said it wouldn't matter so much because she could have some good fresh eggs
+and two glasses of milk and some of Grandmother Hodges' corn bread for
+breakfast.
+
+It's pretty exciting to go off on the train at night and leave your father
+and mother and sister. Mary Jane found that out; and she got a queer lump
+in her throat on the way to the station. A lump that for some reason or
+other grew bigger and bigger when father held her snugly as he lifted her
+out of the car and that nearly made her cry when mother held tight onto her
+hand as they went through the station.
+
+But fortunately the train came in just then and with the seeing that the
+trunk was really put on and kissing folks good-by and sending a message to
+Doris and meeting the big jolly conductor and giving her hand bag to the
+porter and laughing at Dr. Smith's funny jokes and all that--the lump
+didn't get as troublesome as Mary Jane had feared it would. She got into
+her section in time to wave good-by to the three on the platform as the
+train pulled out and then, before she had a chance to feel lonesome, Dr.
+Smith said, "Did you ever see them work a bed on a train?"
+
+"Work a bed?" asked Mary Jane. "What's that?"
+
+"Make up a bed, I mean," laughed Dr. Smith. "Did you ever see how the bed
+works when it is made up? Here, Sambo," and the doctor held his hand high
+and motioned to the porter, "this little girl wants to know how she's going
+to sleep, she doesn't see any bed."
+
+"She'll see in a minute, sir, jest a littl' minute," said the good natured
+porter and he slipped off his blue coat; put on a white one; took down part
+of the ceiling and, right before Mary Jane's astonished eyes, made up a
+bed. Mary Jane thought it was most amazing. She watched every move he made
+and decided that when she grew up she was going to be a bed maker on a
+train because it was so much more fun than making beds at home.
+
+When the bed was all ready, Dr. Smith helped her take off her shoes
+and tuck them into a little hammock that hung over the window; then he
+unbuttoned her dress and helped her climb into her berth bed. Mary Jane
+took off her dress, hung it on the rack just as her mother had told her to
+do and settled herself comfy for the night. But suddenly she remembered
+that she hadn't told the kind Dr. Smith "good night." She fumbled with the
+curtains till she got a crack open and through that she stuck her curly
+head.
+
+"Good night, Dr. Smith," she said when she spied him sitting close by,
+across the aisle, "I'm glad I'm going with you and I like sleeping on
+a train and I'm _very_ glad that you live next door to my dear
+great-grandmother."
+
+"I'm glad too," replied the doctor. "Now you go straight to sleep, little
+lady, so you will have roses in your cheeks when you get to grandmother's
+in the morning."
+
+And if you want to know of all the fun and good times that Mary Jane had
+with the pigs and horses and chickens and strawberries she found at her
+great-grandmother's house, you'll have to read--
+
+"MARY JANE--HER VISIT."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Mary Jane: Her Book, by Clara Ingram Judson
+
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