SAND CASTLES
“I Guess I’m lost! I’m lost in school!”
Mary Jane’s frightened little whisper sounded like a shout and the doors and walls and hallways seemed to echo back, “Lost! Little girl lost!” in a most desolate fashion. Mary Jane was so frightened that she stood perfectly still—just as still as though her shoes were fastened to the floor. And she looked straight ahead as though she was trying to see through the wall at which she was staring. To tell the truth, Mary Jane wasn’t trying to see through the wall. She didn’t even know a wall was in front of her. She couldn’t see a single thing, not even a big wall, because a mist of tears was in her eyes and a great lump was growing in her throat.
Now Mary Jane wasn’t a baby. And she never cried—or any way, shehardlyever cried because she was going on six and girls who are going on six don’t cry. But to belost in a strange school and in a strange city and—everything; well, it’s not much wonder that Mary Jane felt pretty queer.
But before the tears had time to fall, there was a heavy footstep behind her and Mary Jane whirled around to see—the kindly face of Tom the janitor smiling at her.
“Aren’t you pretty late getting to your room?” he asked.
Mary Jane couldn’t answer. She was so relieved to have someone around that for a minute she just couldn’t get the lump out of her throat enough to talk.
Tom must have been used to little girls—maybe he had one of his own—because he didn’t pay any attention to Mary Jane’s silence. He took hold of her hand and said pleasantly, “Now don’t you worry a minute. You just show me which your room is and I’ll go with you.”
“I’m looking for it too,” said Mary Jane, finding her voice again, “but I don’t know where it is.”
“Don’t know where your room is?” asked Tom in surprise.
“No,” replied Mary Jane with a decided shake of her head, “I don’t.” And then, for talking was now getting comfortable and easy, she added, “you see, it isn’t really my room. It’s Betty’s. And I’m just a-visiting her. I’m just moved to Chicago and they haven’t any chair for me only just to visit in when somebody’s absent.”
“That sounds like the kindergarten,” said Tom.
“It is,” agreed Mary Jane with a laugh of relief, “I’m kindergarten, I am.”
“Then here we go, right down this way,” said Tom, and off they started in just the opposite direction.
Before they got clear up to the kindergarten, though, they met Miss Gilbert, who was coming in search of the little visitor. “Betty missed her,” she explained, “but I thought you’d find her, Tom.” With a thank you to her janitor friend, Mary Jane took tight hold of the teacher’s hand and they went into the kindergarten room together.
After that, the morning went very quicklyand happily and Mary Jane could hardly believe her ears when the big whistles began to blow for twelve o’clock and Miss Gilbert told them to put away their scissors and cut-out papers and get ready to go home. Mary Jane had cut out two beautiful tulips and she was very happy when she was told they might be taken home as a souvenir of her visit.
On the way home they met Frances and Alice and Ed so they had plenty of company.
“What you doing Saturday?” asked Ed as they neared their own corner.
“I don’t know,” replied Alice, “is there anything nice to do—special?”
“Well,” answered Frances, “we were afraid you might all be busy—but—well you see, we were going to have a beach party and we thought maybe you folks would like to go along. All of you.”
Now Alice and Mary hadn’t the slightest idea what a beach party was, only of course they knew it must be something about the lake. But there wasn’t time for questionsand talk just then for Frances discovered that they had walked so slowly that they must rush on home to lunch.
“We’ll get mother to tell you,” she promised, “and do say you’ll come ’cause it’s a fire and cooking and marshmallows and piles of fun.”
“And we’ve plenty of wires,” added Betty, “and they’re plenty long so you won’t burn your fingers.”
It sounded amazingly puzzling to Alice and Mary Jane, who couldn’t in the least understand what a fire and wires and all that had to do with a beach. But they were to find out before so very long. For that same afternoon, while Alice was still in school, Mrs. Holden and Betty came over to call on Mrs. Merrill and Mary Jane and then the beach party was all explained.
“We go over to the lake very often,” said Mrs. Holden. “And on the sandy beach, close by the water, the children build a big fire. Then, when the coals are good, we toast sandwiches and roast ‘weenies’ and toast marshmallows. The children are soanxious to show your girls just how it is done,” she added, “and as the weather promises to be warm and sunny I think we should have an extra fine time.”
So it was settled. And a person would have thought from the excitement and fun of preparation that the party was to be that same day instead of twenty-four hours away. For as soon as Alice and the older Holden children came home from school, they all set to work planning the menu and getting out baskets and cleaning the wires on which, so the Merrill girls learned, marshmallows were held over the coals to be toasted.
But when everything that could be done the day before, was finished, there was still some time for play, so the children went down into the Holden yard and the boys, Ed and John, showed the girls how to run a track meet—how to jump and vault and race in proper track style. Alice and Mary Jane thought the boys wonderfully skilled and the boys, thrilled by such warm admiration, broke all their previous records and had a beautiful time.
At four o’clock the next afternoon the two families set out for the beach party. And it surely was quite a procession that made its way the four or five blocks to the park. First there was John with the wagon which held all the heavy things—baskets of food and such. Next came Ed, who started out walking behind the wagon to see that nothing dropped off. He and John were to take turns pulling the load. Then the others carried bundles of kindling and the wires for marshmallows and toasting racks for meat. They had such a jolly time getting off that everybody felt sure the party was to be a success.
Mary Jane had been so busy helping get settled and all that, that she hadn’t had time for a real visit on the beach. To be sure she had had glimpses of the big blue they could see down their own street, but to really come over and see the lake and play in the sand—this was her first trip. So she skipped along very happily and thought she could hardly wait till they got there.
Fortunately they hadn’t far to go. Threeblocks down and two blocks over and there was the park—such a beautiful park with tiny lakes and bridges and great trees whose buds were swelling in the warm afternoon spring sunshine. Mary Jane thought she must be in fairyland come to life, it was all so beautiful. They crossed an arched bridge; saw a lovely view off toward the south where other bridges and lagoons and trees made such a pretty picture they were tempted to stay and look longer; walked around a big circle where, so John told them, the band gave concerts in the summer time; circled a tiny little inlet lake and came out, quite suddenly, right close to the big lake—Lake Michigan. It almost took Mary Jane’s breath way, coming suddenly that way, upon the sight of so much water. It was all so blue and clear, she thought, for the minute, that surely it must be the very same ocean she had seen in Florida only a few weeks before.
But the boys didn’t give much time for sight-seeing of lakes—they had seen the good old lake many a time and they werethinking more about supper than any view, however pretty.
So they hurried their wagon across the boulevard driveway, and of course all the folks had to follow close behind, and down the beach walk a couple of hundred yards and there they settled themselves on a stretch of clean white sand.
“Now,” said big brother Linn, whom the girls hadn’t seen much of as yet, but who seemed to be master of ceremonies, “you boys gather those big logs down there, you girls fix the kindling and I’ll set these stones up so we get a good draft when we light our fire.”
Everybody set to work. The logs proved to be so big and heavy that Ed and John were very glad to have the help of their father and Mr. Merrill to roll them into place. The four girls sorted out the kindling in their basket and added to it by picking up drift wood on the beach. Frances explained that they always brought some along to be sure they had some real dry wood for a start.
With such good help and so much of it, of course it wasn’t long till a fine blaze was going and the beach party was actually begun.
“Go ahead and play now,” said Linn, when he saw the fire was started and that there was a big pile of reserve wood close by. “You know we can’t cook till we get some coals.”
“But I’m starved,” hinted Ed, with a hungry look toward the baskets his mother and Mrs. Merrill were guarding.
“Then you’ll have to stay starved, young man,” said his mother, laughing, “because not a basket is to be opened till the coals are ready for cooking.”
“Then let’s make a sand castle,” suggested Betty and she ran down to a smooth place on the beach, away from possible smoke, and began molding the white sand.
That pleased Mary Jane. She hadn’t forgotten the fun she had playing on the beach in Florida, and while this beach was different—it didn’t have any of thepretty shells or funny little crawdads she had found on the Florida beach—still it had lovely white sand and dainty little waves and was quite the nicest place for play that Mary Jane had seen.
“I’ll tell you what let’s do,” suggested Alice, as she saw that all the children were going to play in the sand, “let’s each build a castle and make it any way we like best and then when they’re all finished, have an exhibition and everybody look and see which is the best.”
“All right, let’s,” agreed the children and they set to work.
Mary Jane chose for her castle a place down close by the water. She loved the nearness of the waves and the thrill of knowing that maybe, if she didn’t watch out, a wave would come up really close and get her wet. Betty picked out a spot nearer the fire on the side away from the smoke and Alice chose a place where a few pretty pebbles would give her material with which to pave a “moat” she intended to make.
And then everybody set to work. So busy were they that Linn had to tend the fire all by himself and Ed forgot he was hungry.
Before very long that beach looked like a picture book. Towers and ditches and castles and bridges were where flat sand had been a few minutes before. The Holden children had made many a sand house and they knew just how to pack the damp sand so it would stay in place and just how to put a small board here and there to hold a second story or a tower straight and tall.
But with all their experience, Alice’s castle was as pretty as theirs, or at any rate she thought it was, and Mary Jane’s was quite wonderful. She smoothed off the “garden” in front of her palace, stuck in a few sticks for flowers, made a pebbly path down to the tiny lake she had scooped out at one side and then shouted, “Mine’s done! Look at mine!” and stepped aside so all could see her handiwork.
And then, sliding in the wet sand, she sat right down inthe lake and sent a wave of ripples right over her castlePage 61
And then, sliding in the wet sand, she sat right down inthe lake and sent a wave of ripples right over her castlePage 61
But Mary Jane wasn’t used to working so close to the water and she forgot entirely where she was! Instead of stepping to one side, as she should have done, she stepped backwards—straight into the big lake! And then, sliding in the wet sand, she sat right down in the lake and sent a big wave of ripples—right over her castle and garden and lake and everything and washed it all away, every bit!
THE BEACH SUPPER
A minute before Mary Jane slid into the lake, the beach was a scene of busy building and fun. Linn tended the fire, the grown folks gathered wood and visited and guarded baskets and the children all were intent on their sand castles. But with Mary Jane’s tumble everything changed.
Sand flew helter skelter as the children jumped hastily and ran to Mary Jane’s assistance; castles were trampled on as though they didn’t exist and fire wood and baskets were all forgotten.
“Don’t be afraid, you’re all right!” called Mrs. Merrill as she ran toward her little girl.
“Coming! Coming! Here!” shouted Mr. Merrill reassuringly as he dashed over to his little daughter, picked her up by the shoulders and set her, safe and sound, ondry sand just in time to miss a fair sized wave.
“I guess I’m wet!” said Mary Jane.
“I guess you are,” laughed Mr. Merrill, “but I guess things will dry and you’re not so very awfully too wet—not enough to spoil the party, is she, mother?”
Mrs. Merrill looked thoughtful and all the children waited anxiously for her answer. Would Mary Jane have to go clear off home and miss the party and everything! But it wasn’t to be as bad as all that. Mrs. Merrill remembered the warm day, the glowing sun that was still bright and warm and she also remembered the hot fire Linn had underway and the warm sand all around the fire.
“Of course she isn’t wet enough to spoil the party,” said Mrs. Merrill, much to every one’s relief. “Only she’ll have to stay close by the fire till she gets warm and dry. Suppose we appoint her head cook and make her stay right there where it’s hot?”
“She’ll get dry then!” exclaimed Ed, so fervently that they all knew he had hadmany a hot face from working by the fire at previous picnics.
“But how about your castles?” asked Mr. Holden, “weren’t we to have an exhibit?”
But the castles! Dear me! In the excitement of Mary Jane’s tumble, no one had given a thought to the castles. They were stepped on, and trampled down and all matted down into the sand.
“That’s just too bad!” said Mrs. Merrill.
“Pooh!” exclaimed John, dismissing the whole question of castles with one wave of the hand, “who cares about castles!We’regoing to have supper.” And every one set to work.
Mary Jane was supposed to be head cook, but as she had never before been to a beach party, she really didn’t know what to do. So she simply stayed close by the hot fire while the boys brought three benches and made them in a triangle around the fire—a little way back of course. Then Mrs. Holden and Mrs. Merrill unpacked the baskets and fixed a place on the bench for each person. To be sure nobody was expectedto sit on the bench—that would be quite too proper for a beach party meal. But the mothers put a paper plate and a cup for each person on the benches and then they put on the plate as many sandwiches and pickles and cookies and everything as each person was entitled to.
While they were doing this, Linn raked down the hot coals, set in place a light wire rack he had made and spread a couple of dozen weenies out to roast.
“Now then, Mary Jane,” he said to the head cook, “you take this long fork. And as soon as a weenie begins to sputter and brown, turn it over so it browns on the other side too.”
That was a very important job, Mary Jane could easily see, and she determined that every weenieshecooked would be done just to a turn. She bent over the fire till her back got a crook in it; then she sat down on the hot sand close to the coals and by the time the weenies were done ready to eat she was so dry and hot that she felt sure she had never slipped into the lake—never!
And all the time Mary Jane was cook, Linn and Mr. Merrill stayed close to see that the coals kept evenly hot and that no bit of flame started up to burn the head cook.
At last the weenies were ready. Each one was beautifully brown and was sizzling and sputtering and sending a most tempting odor to hungry folks.
“Form a line, folks,” said Mrs. Holden, “ladies first!”
With much laughter, each person got their own roll, which had been split and buttered, and filed passed Mary Jane. And Mary Jane, instructed by Linn just how to do her job, picked up one weenie after another on the long fork and dropped each one in an open roll held out before her. It was a scary job, for the sand was close below and Mary Jane knew that weenies dropped into the sand wouldn’t taste very good. But she took her time—too much time, John thought.
“Don’t be ’fraid of any old sand,” he assured her when she put his weenie in his roll so very carefully, “I eat ’em any way—sand or not.”
Betty eyed Mary Jane a bit enviously. This being chief cook and having a chance to fill the rolls of each person must surely be fun.
“Next time we have a beach party,” she announced between bites, “I’mgoing to fall into the lake too!”
“I’ll save you the trouble,” replied Mr. Holden understandingly, “I’ll let you be chief cook without getting wet.”
Betty needn’t have worried about Mary Jane’s being willing to give up her job. For there was one disadvantage in that position Miss Betty hadn’t thought of and Mary Jane had just discovered—the head cook had no time to eat. And Mary Jane was getting fearfully hungry. She was more than willing to give up the big fork, let Betty fill her roll for her and stand up with the others to eat the good hot morsel.
Did anything ever taste as good as those hot weenie sandwiches, eaten there on the edge of Lake Michigan, with the fine lake air blowing in their faces and the sunshine warming them and making them forget thechill of the long winter? The Merrills thought they had never had so much fun and tasted such good things. Every weenie (and there had seemed to be far too many) was eaten up; every roll disappeared and cookies and pickles and sandwiches just vanished as though a warm breeze had melted them away.
Supper over, the sun going down reminded the children that they must get the fire ready for dark. They scampered up and down the broad beach, gathering together all the pieces of drift wood they could find. Later in the year wood along that beach would be hard to find. But in the early spring, before the driftings of the winter’s storms had been burned up by picnickers like themselves, there was plenty to be had.
Linn and Ed put away the cooking rack in the case they had made for it, the two mothers packed up débris and burned it so the beach would be left clean and tidy, and all the others gathered wood. Such a lot as they did find! Linn piled it on high andby the time the sun went to sleep in the west, the fire was so bright that nobody noticed the growing darkness. They all sat around on the warm sand and sang—college songs that the children had learned from the fathers, school songs and popular songs that they all knew. It was fun to sit there close by the big lake, to watch the sparks fly upward, to hear the waves swish against the sand and to sing and sing as loud as they liked.
But when the darkness settled down enough so that mysterious shadows lurked over every shoulder and the stars helped the fire make a light, Ed announced, “Now let’s play Indian.”
So they did. Playing Indian, the Merrill girls found, meant a queer follow-the-leader game. Ed led off first and everybody had to follow. He ran round and round the fire, prancing and yelling like a wild man. And the point of the game was for everybody to do exactly as he did. They ran and jumped and yelled till everybody was breathless with exercise and laughter andwas glad to sit down again and do nothing.
By this time the fire had again died down to a bed of coals.
“Nowit’s time for the marshmallows, isn’t it?” asked Betty. She was right, it was.
The boxes of marshmallows were opened, wires pulled out of the baskets and all the children sat around the fire a-toasting. ’Twas just as Betty had promised. The wires were plenty long enough so that no fingers needed to be burned or dresses scorched and the bed of coals was big enough to make room for all.
Betty and Mary Jane thought they would keep count and see who could eat the most, but after six they lost count, and they ate and ate till they simply couldn’t eat any more.
“Let’s play still pond,” suggested Frances.
She stood up near the fire and announced, “Twenty steps, two jumps, three hops and a roll. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten—STILL POND.”
As she said the numbers off, the children began scampering to a place to safety. All but Mary Jane. She wasn’t used to playing on the slippery, slidy sand. And though she started off just as big as anybody, she slipped and stumbled and hadn’t more than got to her feet when the words, “Still pond!” were called. And after that she couldn’t move but just to use the steps, jumps, hops and roll Frances had given them.
To make matters even more exciting, Frances started off exactly in her direction.
But Mary Jane hadn’t played “Still Pond” in her own yard for nothing. Perhaps she hadn’t learned to run on slippery sand as yet, but she did know how to play that game. Instead of trying to quietly take her twenty steps in an effort to get out of Frances’ way, she took two quick steps, dropped down on the sand, gave one little roll, and—was safely hidden under one of the picnic benches they had used for supper!
Frances passed so close Mary Jane could have touched her. Other folks were chasedand found, but Mary Jane’s hiding place was undiscovered. Of course when she rolled in under the bench, Mary Jane had expected to roll right out again when somebody else was caught. But when she found that they couldn’t see her; that they went right around close at hand, talking about her and wondering where she was and all that, she thought it was such a good joke that she lay very still and watched.
She heard them asking each other where she was seen last; she heard her father say she couldn’t be so very far away; and she saw them all start off in search of herself. Then, just the minute their backs were turned but before they had had time to be really frightened, she slipped out from under her seat, stood up close by the dying fire and shouted, “Here I am, can’t you see me?”
They thought it a very good joke she had played and Mary Jane was sure she would always remember that the best hiding place is often the nearest one.
“Time to go home,” said Mr. Holden,looking at his watch, “the fire’s most out and the party’s over.”
“But there’ll be another one, won’t there?” begged Mary Jane.
“Let’s have it next week,” said Betty.
The boys loaded up the empty baskets on their wagon—not much of a load going home! Mr. Merrill raked out the fire so no harm would come to anything; Mr. Holden gathered the children together and started the line of march. It was a happy little crowd that wandered homeward and they all agreed with Mary Jane when she said, “Well, anyway, I think a beach party’s the mostest fun I know. It’s more fun than moving!”
MARY JANE GOES SHOPPING
The days after the beach party seemed to fly past on wings. First it was a Monday and then, before a person could do half the nice things planned, Saturday was coming ’round again and Alice was home all day from school and fun for the four Merrills could be planned. Mrs. Merrill and Mary Jane took to doing all their “Saturday marketing” on Friday afternoon so they could have more time on Saturday for trips and sight-seeing and all the lovely things folks like to do when they’ve just moved to a big city.
One Saturday morning, not so very long after the beach party, dawned—not bright and warm and sunny as Mary Jane had hoped it surely would—but rainy and cold and windy as some May mornings are sure to be in Chicago. A cold northeast wind raced across the city and folks had blue noses andshivery finger tips and not a single thing to be seen looked like spring.
“Now just look at it!” exclaimed Mary Jane as she stared out of the living-room window, “and we were going to take a trip through the parks and I was going to wear my new hat and everything. And look!”
“And we can’t go to the parks again for another whole week!” bemoaned Alice, “’cause there’s school!”
“Just look!” exclaimed Mary Jane again as a hard gust of wind tossed the rain against the winds exactly as though Mr. Rain was saying to Mary Jane, “Thought you’d go out, did you? Well, look what I’m doing!”
“You girls talk as though parks were the only things to see in Chicago,” said Mrs. Merrill as pleasantly and comfortably as though there was no such thing as a disappointment in the world.
Alice and Mary Jane turned away from the window quickly. Something in their mother’s tone of voice made them suspect that the day wasn’t to be a disappointment after all.
“It’s funny to me,” continued Mrs. Merrill in a matter of fact voice, “that you folks haven’t asked to go to the big stores—wouldn’t you like to?”
“Like to!” exclaimed Alice.
“Would we?” cried Mary Jane. “But we didn’t think about it!”
“Then we’ll think about it now,” replied Mrs. Merrill. “If you can hold an umbrella down tight over your head so as not to get your hat wet, I think we could manage to get to the train without getting soaked. And once down at the store, we could check our wet umbrellas and shop and sight-see through the stores all we wished to without a bit of hurry.”
“Oh, may we really go?” asked Alice.
“Well,” answered Mrs. Merrill, pretending to hesitate, “if youreallycare to—”
That settled it and there was no more time wasted talking about weatherthatmorning. Dishes were washed and beds were made and dusting was done so quickly that the little flat must have been quite surprised and pleased with itself—it got put into rights sovery quickly. Then Mary Jane got her hair fixed nicely and a pretty hair bow put on—the bow wouldn’t show very much under the new hat, but even that little had to be just right—and then, while mother fixed her own and Alice’s hair, she put on a pretty dress—not a party dress, of course, but a nice, pretty, dark dress. Then they all put on rubbers and raincoats and locked up the doors and took their umbrellas and started for the train.
Going down town on the train was fun. In the city where Mary Jane lived before, one could walk down town. Or if one really wanted to ride, a street car hustled one to the stores in about five minutes. But in Chicago, so she discovered, she had to have a ticket and go through a gate, and up stairs and onto a platform and aboard a train and everything just as though one intended to go away, far off. The girls both liked to ride down town. To be sure they couldn’t see much of the lake, even though they did ride right along beside it, because the rain made it all look dim and gray and foggy.But they knew the lake was there; they could see the spray the waves made and once in a while they could hear the noise of splashing water above the roar of the train. All too soon, for there was so much to see, the train pulled into their station and the conductor shouted, “Randolph Street! Everybody out! Far’s we go!” And all the folks aboard got their umbrellas ready and went out into the rain.
Fortunately it was only a very little way from the station to the big store where Mrs. Merrill took the girls, so they didn’t have a chance to get tired or very wet. And as soon as they got indoors, Mrs. Merrill found a checking place and they left wet umbrellas and wet raincoats and wet rubbers and started out for fun.
“I think that’s awfully convenient—just to leave things that way,” said Alice as she settled her collars and cuffs and made sure she was tidy, “and of course we’ll get them back safely?” This checking system was new to her and she wanted to be assured it was all right.
“To be sure we will,” said Mrs. Merrill. “See? I have the checks for them.”
“Well, then,” said Mary Jane, “let’s begin.”
“Yes,” said Alice, “let’s. And let’s seeeverything!”
“All right,” laughed Mrs. Merrill; “shall we take an elevator first?”
“Oh, no,” answered Alice, “’cause then we’d miss the first floor.”
So they “did” the first floor, seeing all the handkerchiefs and jewelry and bags and fans and pretty decorations and ribbons—Alice could hardly leave those lovely ribbons—and neckwear—Mary Jane saw five different neckties she needed—and so many things.
“Do they have anything left for the second floor?” asked Mary Jane when they finally got around to where they had started.
“You just see,” said Mrs. Merrill.
And sure enough there were plenty of things on the second floor, pretty dishes and lamps and so many things that, really, Mary Jane almost got tired looking at them all.
By the time they got ready for the third floor, Mary Jane was wondering if there were any seats in that store. Not seats where you sit down to buy things, but really seats where you just sit down whether you buy anything or not. And sure enough there were just those seats. Nice, big comfy ones, that appeared to be made for Mary Janes who went a-shopping and wanted to sit down. The Merrills sat down on a big couch and Mary Jane leaned back ready to rest when—who should she see right in front of her but Frances Westland! The girl she met at grandmother’s house nearly a year ago.
In a jiffy Mary Jane forgot all about wanting to sit down. She slid down from the comfortable couch, dashed after Frances, who, not guessing that a friend was so near, was hurrying by, and brought her back to meet mother and Alice.
Then they all sat down for a visit.
“No, I’m not living here,” said Frances in answer to Mrs. Merrill’s question, “I’ve been spending the spring with my auntieand going to school here. But just as soon as school is out I’m going back home. Mother needs me.”
“I don’t doubt it,” replied Mrs. Merrill, who was much pleased with the little girl, “I’m sure your mother misses you greatly. But where are you living and can’t we see you before you go and can’t you take lunch with us to-day?”
It seemed that Frances’s auntie lived in the same part of the city the Merrills lived in and there was every reason to believe that the girls might see each other at least once or twice in the little time left of the school year.
“But I don’t believe I can eat lunch with you,” added Frances, “’cause auntie and I have to hurry home.” So with a promise to come to see them soon at the address Mrs. Merrill wrote out on her card for Frances, the friends said good-by.
“I’ll declare!” exclaimed Mrs. Merrill, looking at her watch after Frances left them. “It’s almost twelve o’clock already! And we were to meet father at one. If you girlswant to see anything of the toys and dolls and playrooms, we’d better not be sitting around here any longer.”
Of course the girls did want to see the toys and dolls and everything. When they got to the fourth floor where all the children’s things were kept, they were sorry they had spent even a minute any place else. For all the lovely dolls and marvelous toys and enticing games and beautiful pictures and fascinating puzzles made a person think that Santa Claus’s shop and fairyland and magic were all mixed up together and set down in one place. The girls looked and looked and looked. They “oh-ed” and “ah-ed” and exclaimed till they couldn’t think of anything more to say—and then they kept right on looking just the same.
Mary Jane picked out the doll coat she wanted Georgiannamore to have and Alice selected a lovely desk. They agreed upon a set of dishes and upon charming furniture for their balcony—just the right size too.
“And we’ll pretend we’ll buy it all, mother,” said Mary Jane, who knew perfectlywell she couldn’t buy all the things she talked about getting, “and we’ll pretend we’ll have it all sent up, that’ll be such fun.”
So they pretended and looked and looked and pretended till they had been over most all that part of the store.
“Now then,” said Mrs. Merrill, “if we’re to meet Dadah for lunch—”
“Oh, goody!” cried Alice, “are we to meet him here?”
“Not here,” said Mrs. Merrill, “but in this store in the lunch room and in ten minutes. So we’d better wash our hands and go to the lunch room floor.”
Mr. Merrill was waiting for them and had a table engaged close by a charming fountain (“Just think of a fountain in a house!” exclaimed Mary Jane when she spied it) and all the time Mary Jane sat there eating, she could look right over and watch the fishes and she could hear the splash of the water.
But Mary Jane wasn’t thinking of fishes or water just then. She was hungry. And the things her father read to her sounded so good—oh, dear, but they did sound good!She and Alice had a dreadfully hard time deciding just what did sound the best. But Alice finally decided on stuffed chicken legs (she hadn’t an idea what they were but they sounded good) and potato salad and strawberry parfait. And Mary Jane chose chicken pie—a whole one all her own—and hashed brown potatoes and orange sherbet.
While the lunch was being fixed, Mr. Merrill took Mary Jane over to the window so she could look down, down, way down, to the street below, where the folks appeared so little and upside down and where the automobiles looked like the ones they had just seen in the toy department.
When the lunch came, it proved to be just as good as the menu promised it would be and the girls enjoyed every bite. Mary Jane was afraid for a minute that she had made a mistake. For Alice’s parfait came in a tall glass, with a long spoon that made the girls think of the story of the fox and the goose and the banquet, and Mary Jane was sure nothing she had ordered could be as nice as parfait. But when the maid setthe orange sherbet at her place, Mary Jane was quite satisfied, for the ice was set in a real orange, all cut out in dainty scallops and trimmed with green.
“Yummy-um!” she whispered, happily. “I’m so glad you had this party, Dadah!”
Dadah seemed to want everything to be all right, for he had added to their order some little cakes, done up in frilly papers and unlike anything the girls had ever seen. They almost hated to eat them, they were so pretty, but cakes one cannot eat are not good for much, Mr. Merrill reminded them, and so the cakes were eaten up.
“Now then,” said Mary Jane, as she dabbled her fingers in the finger bowl and ate up the candy she found at the side of the tiny tray, “what do we do next?”
THE BUS RIDE
“What do we do next?” asked Mr. Merrill, repeating Mary Jane’s question. “I’m sure of this much—we must do somethingverynice because it’s such a nice day.”
“Nice day!” exclaimed Alice. “What in the world are you talking about, Dadah? This is the worst weather we’ve had since we came to Chicago—but we don’t care ’cause we’re having such a good time anyway.”
Mr. Merrill laughed and replied, “Suppose you look out of the window.”
So they left their cozy table, where nothing but empty dishes told the story of their delightful lunch party, and wandered over to the window where Mary Jane had looked down at the street not much over an hour before. But what a difference! With a sudden, unexpected shift of wind that only the Chicago weather man knows how tobring about, the stiff, cold northeaster that had brought the cold rain of the morning had been sent off and in its place a warm breeze from the south blew softly across the city, bringing with it sunshine and warmth and pleasantness for all.
“Why—” exclaimed Mary Jane, much puzzled, “where’s the rain?”
“Did you want it back?” laughed Mrs. Merrill, and then she explained to the girls something about the effect the big lake might have on weather and told them that one of the queer things about Chicago was its sudden changes to good, or sometimes bad, weather.
“So I was wondering,” said Mr. Merrill, “if you folks wouldn’t like an hour of fresh air and then, if you’re not through shopping we can come back to the stores.”
The girls hadn’t an idea what he might want to do, but they were pretty sure it would be fun. So they agreed that an hour out of doors was just what they most wanted and they went down to get wraps from the check room. They left the umbrellas tilllater, put on their wraps and left the store.
“Now then,” said Mr. Merrill, “see that big bus down there—we’re going for a ride on the top.”
“What’s a bus?” asked Mary Jane, who had never heard the word before. But before her father could answer they were pushed into the crowd at the crossing, hurried across and the next second Mr. Merrill had hailed a great, lumbering, top-heavy automobile and was helping the girls to step aboard.
The “bus” proved to be a large-sized passenger automobile, with a deck on top for passengers who wished to ride in the open air. Mary Jane and Alice were thrilled with the fun of getting on it. It seemed exactly like going aboard a house-boat on wheels. They stepped into a little hallway and then—and this wasn’t so easy because the bus immediately began to move—they climbed up a curving flight of stairs and walked down an aisle—an awfully wiggly aisle it was too!—to seats on the very front row.
Then, before they had had a chance to look around or feel at home, the conductor, who stood at the back, shouted, “Low bridge!” and everybody ducked their heads while the great bus went under the elevated railroad. Mary Jane felt, truly, as though she must be a person in a story book—Arabian Nights or something marvelous—because surely the things that were happening to her weren’treallyhappening.
But after the elevated was passed, the bus rolled out onto Michigan Boulevard and Mary Jane settled herself comfortably in her front seat with her mother, smiled across the aisle to Alice and her father and began to feel really at home in her high perch. By the time the bus had turned northward and crossed the river, she began to feel that riding on the top of a bus was the thing she’d been wanting to do all her life. It was such fun to sit up high and watch the lake, so blue and beautiful in the sunshine, the trees just getting a tinge of green at the tips, the pretty houses that lined the parkway, the people—it seemed as everybody inChicago must be out in their ’tother best clothes—and most of all, it was fun to watch the automobiles dart in and out of the crowd, around the bus and beside it, till Mary Jane was sure their driver must be some wonderful being to be able to manage so that everybody stayed alive!
“Here, Mary Jane,” said Mr. Merrill, interrupting Mary Jane’s sight-seeing, “don’t you want to pay your fare—Alice is paying ours.” He slipped two dimes into her hand just as the conductor stepped to the front of the bus. Mary Jane wasn’t quite sure what she was to do with the dimes till she noticed that the conductor had in his hand a queer-looking thing like a clock, only it had a hole in the top just the right size for a dime. Into that hole Mary Jane dropped a dime. And—“dingding!” went a musical little bell somewhere in the “clock.” Then she dropped the other dime. And again the bell sounded, “dingding!” just as though it tried to say “Thankyou!” that way. Alice then dropped her two dimes and Mary Jane had the fun of hearing the bell again. Shethought she wouldn’t do a thing but watch the conductor and listen to his bell all the time he collected fares, but just as he stepped back to get the next folks’ money the bus passed in front of the queer old stone building with great tower that Mr. Merrill said was the city water works building, and of course that meant the girls wanted to hear about when it was built and hear again the story Mr. Merrill had started to tell them several evenings before about how the great Chicago fire started and how it burned up to this very spot they were now passing. Somehow, being at that place and seeing the one building that stood through the fire made the history stories seem very plain and there were a lot of questions to be asked and answered.
But buses don’t wait for questions—the girls soon discovered that! Long before the fire story was told they had raced up Lake Shore Drive, passed its beautiful old homes, and were turning into Lincoln Park. Here it seemed to the girls that the city ended and fairyland began. The grassseemed greener, the lake bluer and the trees greener than any place they had seen; and hundreds of tulips peeping up through the ground here, there and everywhere, made spots of bright vivid color and beauty.
“Oh!” exclaimed Mary Jane happily, “I hope the bus goes on and on forever! I’d like to keep on riding all the time!”
But when, a minute or two later, they passed near the buildings of the Zoo, Mary Jane forgot all about wanting to ride forever and wanted to get out, right away quick and see all the animals she had heard lived there.
“Not to-day,” said Mr. Merrill, looking at his watch. “You remember we are to go back to the stores—we’re just out for a bit of fresh air this time. Some other day when it’s still warmer so we can get our dinner here, then we’ll come and visit the Zoo. But to-day I want to get back to the stores before they close.”
“Of course,” added Alice, “for our umbrellas.”
“Of course for something else too,”laughed her father, and though both girls were very curious, not another word would he say.
So they stayed on the bus and rode clear through the park, and up Sheridan Road a long way till the bus turned around at a corner and the conductor shouted, “Far’s we go!”
But the Merrills didn’t get off. They wanted to keep those good front seats so they sat still and in about two minutes the bus started south and whirled them through the park and past all the same interesting sights on the way cityward. This time, Mary Jane felt very much at home in her high-up perch. She dropped in the dimes her father gave her, eyed the passing autos without a bit of fear and looked down on all the children she saw walking and playing quite as though she had lived in a city and ridden in busses all her young life.
It was a very reluctant pair of young ladies that Mr. Merrill assisted to the sidewalk when the big stores and “time to get off” were reached.
“But what was it besides umbrellas you wanted to get?” asked Mary Jane, suddenly remembering.
“Well,” said Mr. Merrill, “I haven’t been through the toy department with anybody. And I have a calendar.”
The girls looked puzzled. What had the toy department to do with a calendar? They couldn’t guess. Even Mrs. Merrill looked puzzled.
“Of course if you don’t intend to have birthdays since we’ve moved—” said Mr. Merrill teasingly. And then everybody knew! To be sure! It was almost time for Mary Jane’s birthday—almost a year, it was, since the lovely birthday party when the little girl was five years old—and in the excitement of moving and getting settled and seeing new sights, even the little lady herself had forgotten how near the day was at hand.
“It’s mine!” exclaimed Mary Jane happily, “and I’ll be six! Come on, quick, Dadah! and I’ll show you perzactly what I want.” When Mary Jane got excited shesometimes got words a little mixed, but her father knew well enough just what she meant. She grabbed hold of his hand, called to her mother and Alice to come on with them and away they went toward the elevator that quickly took them to the toy section.
Going through that department the second time was even more fun than the first trip, because now father was along to see things and to explain mechanical toys. And also because there was the fun of picking out the thing she wanted to wish for, for her birthday. That last was a very serious matter, as every little girl knows.
They looked at dolls—but not a doll was as lovely as Georgiannamore, at least that was Mary Jane’s opinion—and then they looked at furniture and at dishes and toys and games and clothes for dolls and, well, at every single thing in that whole big department. After everything had been considered and looked at and thought about, and it was about time for the big warning bell to ring and tell folks that in ten minutesthe store would close and everybody’d have to get out, then and not until then, Mary Jane decided that the thing she wanted most of all was a doll cart. A beautiful little ivory enameled doll cart made just exactly like the one that Junior’s little brother had back at their old home. A cart with a top that moved back and forth just like a real baby cart and that had cushions and tires and everything that a really truly mother is particular to want for her baby.
“Yes,” said Mary Jane, as she looked around the store with a rather tired sigh, “I think that’s the thing I want the most and I’m going to wish for it, Dadah.”
“Sounds easily settled,” laughed her father, “but do you know what time it is?”
Before she could answer, the warning bell rang and clerks began to cover up counters and to straighten up the store for its Sunday rest. So the Merrills four hurried down to get umbrellas and to go home.
On the train going home Mary Jane was so tired looking at things that she didn’t care a bit about looking any more. Shewatched the lake some, but mostly she simply settled back in her little corner behind the door and just sat. Thoughts of all the wonderful things she had seen that day raced through her mind—the lunch, the ride, the lake, the park—but most of all, that wonderful doll cart, and she couldn’t help wondering (and of course hoping) if she really truly would,possibly, get that lovely gift for her birthday.