The late afternoon sunshine sent its slanting, golden rays through the car
windows on to the map that Mary Jane and her sister Alice had spread out
on the table between the seats of the Pullman in which they were riding.
"And all that wiggly line is water?" Mary Jane was asking.
"Every bit water," replied their father, who bent over their heads to
explain what they were looking at; "a lot of water, you see. You remember
I told you that Chicago is right on the edge of Lake Michigan. And Lake
Michigan, so far as looks are concerned, might just as well be the ocean
you saw down in Florida--it's so big you can't see the other side."
"And does it have big waves?" asked Mary Jane.
"Just you wait and see," promised Mr. Merrill. "Big waves! I should say it
has!"
"And all the green part of the map is parks," said Alice, quoting what her
father had told them when he first showed them the map.
"Then there must be a lot of parks," suggested Mary Jane with interest. "I
think I'd like to live by a park," she added thoughtfully.
"I think I should too," agreed Mr. Merrill, "and it's near a park we will
make the first hunt for a home."
"Oh, look!" cried Mary Jane suddenly as she glanced up from the spread-out
map; "what's that, Dadah?"
"That's the beginning of Chicago," said Mr. Merrill. "Let's fold up the
map now and see what we can of the city. This is South Chicago; and those
great stacks and flaming chimneys are steel mills and foundries and
factories--watch now! There are more!"
The train on which the Merrill family were traveling went dashing past
factory after factory--past an occasional open space where they could see
in the distance the blue gleam of Lake Michigan and past great wide
stretches where tracks and more tracks on which freight cars and engines
sped up and down showed them something of the whirling industry that has
made South Chicago famous. No wonder it was a strange sight to the two
girls--they had never before seen anything that made them even guess the
big business that they now saw spread out before them.
They had spent all their lives thus far--Alice was twelve and Mary Jane
going on six--in a small city of the Middle West and though they had had a
fine summer in the country visiting grandma and grandpa and had only the
winter before taken a beautiful trip through Florida, they had never been
to a great city. And now they were not going to visit or to take a trip.
They were going to live there. The great big city of Chicago was to be
their home.
The pretty little house they had loved so well was sold. The furniture and
books and dolls and clothes were all packed and loaded on a freight car to
follow them to the city and all the dear friends had been given a
farewell. Mary Jane had loved the excitement and muss of packing; the
great boxes and the masses of crinkly excelsior and the workmen around who
always had time for a pleasant joke with an interested little girl. But
when it came time to say good-by to Doris and to her much loved
kindergarten and to all the boys and girls in school and "on her block,"
going away wasn't so funny. In fact, Mary Jane felt a queer and
troublesome lump in her throat most of the morning when the good-bys were
said.
But the ride on the train (and how Mary Jane did love to ride on the
train); and the nice luncheon on the diner (and how Mary Jane did _adore_
eating on a diner--hashed brown potatoes, a whole order by herself and ice
cream and everything!); and then father's nice talk about all the fun they
were going to have, made the lump vanish and in its place there developed
an eager desire to see the new city and to begin all the promised fun. It
was then that Mr. Merrill showed them the big map of the city and pointed
out the part of the city where they would likely live.
As the girls watched, the great factories and foundries slipped away into
the distance, and in their place the girls could see houses and occasional
stores and here and there a station, past which their train dashed as
though it wasn't looking for stations to-day, thank you.
"Don't we stop anywhere?" asked Mary Jane after she had counted three of
these little stations.
"Those are suburban stations," explained Mr. Merrill, "and a big through
train like ours hasn't time to stop at every one. Pretty soon another
train will come along and stop at each one of those we are now passing so
don't you worry about folks getting left. _This_ train we are on has got
to get us into Chicago in time for dinner."
And just at that minute, when the big three story apartment buildings that
looked so very queer and strange to Mary Jane, began to fill every block,
the porter came to brush her off and to help her on with her coat.
"I'm going to live here in Chicago," she said to him as he held the coat
for her, "and it's a big place with lots of lake and parks and--houses, I
guess, and most everything."
"'Deed it is big, missy," replied the porter, "and I hope you's going to
like it a lot, I do."
"I'm a-going to," answered Mary Jane confidently, as she picked up
Georgiannamore and Georgiannamore's suit case which at the last moment
couldn't possibly be packed in the trunk, and followed her father and
mother down the aisle, "'cause mother and Dadah and Alice are going to
live here too and we always have fun."
Mr. and Mrs. Merrill had decided to get off at one of the larger suburban
stations and spend a few days in a near-by hotel; they thought the
comparative quiet of a residence hotel would be better for their girls
than the flurry and hurry of a big down town hotel. But to Mary Jane,
accustomed to the sights and sounds of a small city where street cars went
dignifiedly past every fifteen minutes and where traffic "cops" would have
very few duties, the confusion she found herself in was quite enough to be
very interesting.
They stepped off the train, walked down some stairs and found themselves
on the sidewalk of a very busy street. Overhead the noise of their own
train rumbling cityward made a terrific din; and as though that were not
enough, still higher up the great elevated car line made a rumble and
roar. Mary Jane craned her neck as they walked from under the trains and
there high in the air, she saw street cars running along as though street
cars always had and always would, run on tracks high up in the air!
"Can we ride on it, Dadah?" she shouted to her father, "are we going to
ride on that train up on stilts?"
Mr. Merrill shook his head laughingly and hurried them into a waiting
taxi.
"We're not going to ride there to-day," he explained when the door of the
car shut out some of the noise, "but some day soon we'll take a long ride
on the elevated and then you can see all the back yards and back porches
and parks and streets and everything about the city, just as plain as
plain can be."
While he was talking, the Merrills drove through streets lined on both
sides with three-story apartment buildings. But before Mary Jane had time
to ask a question or even think what she would like to say, they whisked
around a corner and out into the beautiful wide driveway on the
Midway--the long, green parkway that stretched, or so it seemed to Mary
Jane, for miles in both directions. The taxi pulled up in front of a
comfortable looking hotel right on the side of the park and Mary Jane
wasn't a bit sorry to get out and take a breath of fresh air and look at
the lovely view before her.
"Now just as soon as you are washed up," said Mrs. Merrill, briskly, as
they went into the hotel, "you and Alice may come out onto this nice porch
and watch the children play on the Midway and get a little run before
dinner."
You may be sure that with that promise before her, Mary Jane didn't take
very long to primp. She had spied a group of children about her age, who
seemed to be having a beautiful time playing ball out there on the grass
and she couldn't help noticing that they played just as she and Doris did
and she couldn't help wishing that she too, even though she was a new
little girl just come to town, could play with them. So she stood very
still while Mrs. Merrill tied the fresh hair bow and slipped on a clean
frock and then, holding tight to big sister Alice's friendly hand she went
down the one flight of stairs--she was in far too big a hurry to wait for
the elevator--and out onto the long roomy porch.
Just across the narrow street in front of the hotel and on the nearest bit
of parkway, three little girls about Mary Jane's age were still playing
ball. One was dainty and small and had yellow curls; one was rather tall
and had long straight dark hair and the third had dark, straight hair
bobbed short, and snapping black eyes.
"Wouldn't it be funny," said Mary Jane as she looked at them wistfully,
"if I'd get to know those girls and they'd be friends. If I _did_," she
added, "I think she'd be my mostest friend," and Mary Jane pointed to the
little girl with the dark, bobbed hair.
While they watched and were trying to get up courage to go over and play
too, a pretty girl about Alice's age came along the street. Her hair was
copper colored and curly and very, very pretty. And her smile when she saw
the little girls who were playing, made her seem so friendly and "homey."
"I've been hunting you, Betty," she said to the little girl Mary Jane
liked best. "It's time to come home for dinner."
So the four girls, three little folks and one bigger one, went around the
corner toward home, and two strangers, standing on the porch, watched them
till they were quite out of sight.
"It would be funny," said Alice, "if we'd ever get to know them. I'm sure
I'd like to."
"Wouldn't it though!" exclaimed Mary Jane. "I hope we do!"
And all the time they were eating their first dinner in Chicago, and
telling mother and father about the children they had seen and making
plans about what to do to-morrow, they were thinking about those two girls
and wishing to know them better.
Little did they guess what would really truly happen before the week was
over!