Mary Jane's City Home Part 15

Alice promised and then she hurried inside to finish her work. She had heard about the fine skating on the Midway where the park board flooded the sunken greens for the benefit of neighborhood children, but thus far the weather had been too mild for any skating, so she hadn't had a chance to try it. But a sudden cold snap, with snow enough to cover the sloping banks, had provided both skating and coasting.

Well protected with warm mittens and leggings the girls set out and had the jolliest kind of a morning. At one end of the ice, the younger folks did their coasting, the sloping sides giving a flying start and the smooth ice a glorious finish. At the other end the older boys and girls did their skating, so there was no mix up or interference.

That morning was the first of many happy Sat.u.r.day mornings spent on the ice. Even Mary Jane got some skates and, with the help of Dadah when he could get away from the office, she learned to be a fine skater.

But winter fun never lasts very long. Just about the time Mary Jane learned to skate well enough to challenge Alice to a race, the spring sun sent the ice to nowhere land and the while-ago ice pond turned to green gra.s.s! Spring had come.

With the coming of spring, Mary Jane grew very restless. She wasn't sick, but something was wrong. Something was making her very solemn and sober--quite unlike her usual lively self.

"I know what's the matter with me," she announced one warm sunny morning, "I want to dig."

"You want to dig?" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill in amazement, "well, why don't you go down and dig in the Holdens' yard? You know Mrs. Holden said you might."

"But I don't want to dig in somebody's yard," answered Mary Jane, without a spark of interest, "I want to dig in my _own_ yard and have flowers and a sand pile and everything right in my own yard, I do."

Mrs. Merrill didn't reply but she did do a lot of thinking and that evening she and Mr. Merrill had a long conference.

As a result, at breakfast table the next morning Mr. Merrill said, "How would you girls like to have a summer home of your own? A place in the woods where we could go as soon as school closes and where you could wear bloomers and play in the sand and gather flowers and make garden and all the things you love to do but can't do in the city. How would you like that?"

Mary Jane and Alice stared at him. Would they _like_ it? anybody could see by their faces that they would _love_ it!

"But we wouldn't want to leave you here in Chicago, all summer," objected Alice.

"And I wouldn't want to be left," Mr. Merrill a.s.sured them. "But I am sure, somewhere in the suburbs around Chicago there must be _some place_ we could get a summer home. And we'll make it our business to find that place."

"I thought," began Mrs. Merrill, and then she hesitated.

"Something nice?" asked Alice, encouragingly.

"It would have been nice," admitted Mrs. Merrill, "but likely we couldn't do it. I'd been thinking how pleasant it would be to take another trip this summer. You know how you girls enjoyed going to Florida. And you remember Uncle Hal graduates from Harvard this June. I had been wondering if we could go east in time to be there when the festivities are going on."

"Oh, mother!" cried Mary Jane, "what fun! I do want to ride on a train, a big train with a sleeper and a diner! But then I want to dig, too," she added, insistently.

"Then we'll take one thing at a time," suggested Mr. Merrill. "We'll look into the question of a summer home--we know we'd all like that. And you folks don't know that a very popular uncle would _want_ a grown up sister and two small nieces hanging around at commencement time," he added teasingly.

"How do you find a summer home?" asked Alice thoughtfully.

"That's what we'll have to discover," laughed Mr. Merrill. "And we'll begin this very Sat.u.r.day afternoon if the weather is fine. We'll take a suburban train and ride till we see a place that looks homey and there we'll get off and hunt."

The next Sat.u.r.day was warm and sunny, the kind of a day for bringing flowers into bloom and for making little girls want to play out of doors.

Mrs. Merrill and the girls met Mr. Merrill at his office so as not to lose a minute's time, and they hurried right over to the station, and got aboard the first suburban train they could find.

"I think this is lots of fun," said Mary Jane as they found their seats, "we don't know where we're going--we're just going!" And the train was off.

For some time the girls were really discouraged. They pa.s.sed factories, and tenements, and more factories till Mary Jane was sure they were never coming to country--real country. But suddenly, when she was about to give up, the factories were gone and from the window the girls could see wide fields and strips of woods and an occasional brook. Two or three little stations were pa.s.sed and then the train ran through a beautiful stretch of woods--rolling woods all leafy and budding and flower decked. The ground was fairly covered with early blossoms and trees of wild crab were just bursting into pink bloom.

Mary Jane grabbed her coat and started down the aisle.

"Make 'em stop the train, Dadah," she said, "this is where we want to live!"

Fortunately at that minute the train really did stop at a small station and the Merrills got off and looked around. It didn't take long to explore into the woods far enough to find that they had come to the very place they were looking for--a spot not too far from the city for Mr. Merrill's daily trip and yet wild enough to give the girls some real woods. The girls picked flowers as they explored and had such a happy time that it was hard work to persuade them to go back to the city when the twilight came. But they had found the very place!

Three weeks later Mr. Merrill bought a lot in the heart of the woods, and the summer home was no longer a mere dream--it was to be really truly.

"Now," announced Alice, "we'll draw the kind of a house we want. I love to draw plans of a house!" She cleared off the dining table, sharpened pencils, brought two tablets and insisted that everybody come out and help.

And just then the door bell rang.

"Telegram for Merrill!" shouted a voice through the tube and Mary Jane pressed the buzzer in a hurry--a telegram usually meant something exciting.

It was addressed to Mrs. Merrill and said, "Have all tickets and hotel reservations. You and the girls must come." And it was signed by Mrs.

Merrill's brother.

"If that isn't just like a college boy!" laughed Mrs. Merrill. "For weeks he doesn't answer a letter and then he telegraphs! Girls," she added, "let's go! Wouldn't you like to go to Boston and see the college and the ocean and the White Mountains--and--everything?"

"Oh, mother, _really_?" exclaimed Mary Jane. (She felt as though she must be dreaming, things were happening so fast!)

"But what about the summer home?" asked Alice.

"Don't you worry about the summer home," Mr. Merrill a.s.sured her, "we'll have that summer home just the same. You girls take your trip east. You won't be gone more than a couple of weeks--and what are two weeks out of a whole summer? And before you go, we'll get the shack all planned and when you come back we'll move out."

"Goody! Goody! Goody!" cried Mary Jane happily, "then I can see Uncle Hal and ride on the train and dig a garden and _everything_!"

And if you want to hear all about Mary Jane's beautiful trip to Boston and the White Mountains, the fun she had sight-seeing and the jolly party on "Cla.s.s Day," you must read--

"MARY JANE IN NEW ENGLAND"