One day, not so very long after the trip through the parks, the bell at
the Merrills' front door pealed long and hard. Mary Jane, whose job was
answering the door, ran to the little house 'phone, and heard a loud voice
shout, "Special for Merrill!"
"What's he mean, mother?" she asked, in a puzzled voice.
"Better press the buzzer and let him in, dear," replied Mrs. Merrill, "if
he has the name right he must have something for us."
So Mary Jane pressed the downstairs buzzer and then opened the front door.
Yes, it was for them--a special delivery letter for Mrs. Merrill. Mary
Jane and Alice were much excited and could hardly wait till the
messenger's book was signed and the letter was opened.
"It's from grandma," said Mrs. Merrill as she glanced at the writing, "and
listen! This is what she says:
"'Grandpa finds quite unexpectedly that he must come to Chicago on
business and he says that if it's convenient to you folks I can come along
and we'll stay two or three days for a visit. Please wire reply because we
must start Wednesday evening.'"
"And it's ten o'clock Wednesday morning now!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill. She
hurried to the telephone, called Mr. Merrill so he could send a telegram
at once, then she and the two girls went right to work making ready for
the guests.
It was decided that Alice and Mary Jane should sleep on couches and give
up their room to the visitors. "Now's when I wish we had our nice guest
room," said Mrs. Merrill, "but then, grandma knows that folks who live in
Chicago flats don't keep guest rooms for infrequent visitors." For her
part, Mary Jane thought sleeping on a couch would be great fun--so grown
up and different from every day. She was to have the dining-room couch and
Alice was to sleep in the living-room. When all plans were made, bedding
sorted out and laid ready for making up the beds fresh first thing in the
morning, Mrs. Merrill began planning the meals. If the visitors were to
stay only a short time she wanted to have as much baking and marketing as
possible done beforehand, so every minute could be spent in fun and
visiting. Alice and Mary Jane, who had been marketing so much with their
mother of late that they really could be trusted, took a long list up to
the grocery and Mrs. Merrill set to work baking coffeecake and bread and
cookies. Um-m! It wasn't an hour till that tiny kitchen began to smell so
good that the girls could hardly be coaxed away. Mrs. Merrill let them
help in a good many ways. Mary Jane put the sugar and nuts on the tops of
the cookies after her mother put them in the pan and Alice, who was
getting to be a really good cook, tended to the baking. She put the big
pans in, and watched the baking, and took them out when every cookie was
evenly browned. Then, after she took a pan out of the oven, she gently
lifted the hot cookies out from the baking pan onto a wire rack where they
could cool without losing their pretty shapes. When the cookies were cool,
it was Mary Jane's turn again. She put them all in the tin cookie box,
counting them and laying them neatly between layers of paraffin paper so
they would keep fresh even in the hot weather.
It was a rule that only perfect cookies should be packed away--scraps
never went into the tin box. But for some reason or other, the girls never
seemed to mind the job of eating the broken ones! In fact Mary Jane often
asked Alice _not_ to be so careful--to please break a few so there would
be plenty to eat right then and there.
The day went by so quickly that it was bed time before the girls realized
it and then, after about forty winks, it was morning--the morning when
grandma and grandpa were coming.
Everybody was up early, Alice and Mary Jane made up the beds fresh and
neat, mother cooked a good breakfast and Dadah went to the train, at a
near-by suburban station, to meet the travelers. It was a jolly party that
sat around the breakfast table--you may be sure of that!
"Now then," said Mr. Merrill, when the breakfast was eaten up and news of
the farm had been told, "I'll have to go to work and I suppose grandpa has
to do his business to-day, so we'll leave you folks to yourselves. Then
to-morrow, if grandpa is through his business, we can plan some fun."
So the two business folks went down town and grandma was left to enjoy
life at home. The girls were glad she could stay.
"Let's take grandma over to the lake," suggested Alice, "I know you'd love
riding in one of those little electric launches, grandmother."
"Let's take some lunch and not come home till she's seen everything in
Chicago," said Mary Jane in a rush of hospitality.
"Dear me! Child!" exclaimed grandma in dismay, "don't you know there's
another day coming!"
Mary Jane agreed to leave a few sights for the next day, but she didn't
want to lose any time getting off. Fortunately the morning work didn't
take but a tiny bit of time, and as grandma, who didn't care much for
"stuffy sleepers," was very glad to get out into the fresh air, they very
soon were on their way to the park.
The girls felt quite at home in the neighborhood and in the park by this
time, and they thought it was great fun to show the sights to somebody
else--somebody who didn't know all about Chicago. Grandma loved the
beautiful Midway, the charming lagoons and she enjoyed her ride on the
little launch fully as much as the girls had thought she would.
"But don't you have any _big_ boats?" she asked, "great big ones with two
decks and lots of passengers and all that? I'd like to ride on a big boat
too."
"Then that's exactly what we'll do to-morrow, mother," said Mrs. Merrill.
"There is a big boat that runs from Jackson Park up to the municipal pier.
We'll go on it to-morrow and we'll get our lunch up town and then we'll
come back home on the boat."
And that's exactly what they did.
When Mr. Merrill heard that grandma wanted a ride on a big boat, the plans
for the next day were as good as made. He thought the idea of going to
town on the boat and then getting lunch and coming home was a fine one and
he only made one change in the plan.
"Instead of going to a store, in the loop, let's take one of the little
launches that run from the Municipal pier to Lincoln Park and go up there
for our lunch so grandma can see your favorite swans and perhaps, if we
want to stay that long, see the seals get their four o'clock tea." But
dear me, he little guessed what would happen as his nice-sounding plan
worked out!
So the next morning, the Merrills all had a nice, leisurely, visity
breakfast, then a walk through the park, and never did the park look
lovelier than on the sunny summer morning, and then, boarding the boat
that rocked at the pier on the big lake, they found comfortable seats on
the shady side and prepared for a pleasant ride.
Mary Jane chose to sit on the side nearest the pier because she loved to
look down from the upper deck and watch the people boarding the boat. She
had never ridden on boats very much, only when she went to Florida, and
this boat they were now aboard seemed very different from the big,
awkward, flat bottomed boat they took their river trip on through Florida
jungles.
"You don't need to sit by me if you want to talk to mother," she said to
her father.
"Humph!" said her father teasingly, "how do I know you're not going to
tumble overboard! You know you have a way of mixing up picnics and water,
Mary Jane, so I don't think I'll take any chances." But when Mary Jane
promised that she would sit very still and not walk around a step and not
lean over the edge, he went to speak to grandpa a few minutes. And while
he was gone, Mary Jane leaned up against the side of the boat and watched
the folks down on the pier.
She thought it must surely be about time for the boat to start because
there was hurrying on the pier, and men were busy taking ropes off of the
big wooden posts along the side nearest the water. While she was watching,
a woman came along the dock toward the boat and with her were two little
children, a girl about Mary Jane's own age and a little boy some two years
younger. Just as they reached the gang plank, ready to step onto the boat,
the little boy began to cry.
"I left my boat! I left my boat! I left my boat!" he cried. Mary Jane
could hear him very plainly even though she sat so far up above him.
She couldn't hear what the mother said, but evidently she promised to get
the missing boat for him, because she left both children by the side of
the gang plank, and hurrying as fast as possible she ran back toward the
shore. And right at that minute, the big bell overhead rang three times
and the engine aboard the boat began to throb--it was time to go.
The men on the dock noticed the two children and one said to the little
girl, "Were you going?" and she nodded yes. So he picked up the boy and
hurried the two children aboard just as the gang plank was hauled in and
the boat made away from the pier.
Mary Jane was so thrilled and excited she could hardly sit still. She
tried to call her father but he was on the other side of the boat and she
had promised to sit still--perfectly still--till he came back. What in the
world was a little girl to do? And back on the shore that was so rapidly
getting farther and farther way, Mary Jane could see the mother of the
children, running frantically toward the dock which the boat had left.
Surely the captain would see her, Mary Jane thought. But if he did, he
likely thought she was merely somebody who had missed the boat and that he
had no time for turning back. And so the boat continued out into the
lake.
Finally after what seemed the _longest_ time (though it really was hardly
more than five minutes), Mr. Merrill came back and then, such a story as
he heard!
"Are you sure, Mary Jane?" he asked, "certain sure? The men wouldn't put
children on a boat without grown folks along!"
"But they did, Dadah!" insisted Mary Jane, "I saw 'em!"
"Then you come with me," said Mr. Merrill, "and we'll see if we can find
them."
So Mr. Merrill and Mary Jane went down the stairs, and that took some time
because folks were coming and going and getting settled for the trip, and
there, huddled close together and crying as hard as they could cry, were
the two little waifs!
Mary Jane with real motherliness began talking to the little girl; Mr.
Merrill picked up the boy and together the whole party went in search of
the captain. By the time he was found though, the boat was still farther
on its journey toward the city and the dock they started from was farther
and farther behind.
"Well, that is a time we were wrong," admitted the captain when he had
listened to all Mary Jane had to say and talked with the man who had put
the children aboard. "But even though we were wrong, we can't go back now.
We'll have to make the children comfortable and take them back to their
mother on the return trip."
So Mr. Merrill and Mary Jane went back to the deck, only this time they
took with them the two little strangers. Mrs. Merrill was told the story
and she and Alice and Mary Jane, with help from grandma, grandpa and Mr.
Merrill, set themselves to the task of making the little children happy.
At first it was hard work, because they cried all the time for their
mother. But erelong they understood the friendliness around them and they
stopped crying and began to have a good time. Grandpa discovered some
crackerjack and everybody knows what a help _that_ is; Mrs. Merrill told
some funny stories and Mr. Merrill took them all over the boat--to see the
great engine and everything. Then there were the sights to watch from the
deck and the big buildings to count and the boats they passed to
watch--oh, there surely was a lot to do that made that trip interesting
and so very short.
As the boat pulled up near the down town pier, the Merrills saw a taxi
dash up near where the boat was to land: saw a woman get out and, followed
by a policeman, hurry up to the side where the boat would pull in.
"Look!" exclaimed Mary Jane excitedly. "Look!"
The little girl, whose name was Ann, looked along with the others, and
then she gave a happy cry.
"Mother!" she shouted, so loudly that her mother, waiting on the pier
could hear and was so very relieved!
When the boat pulled into the dock, the captain was the first one to step
off; he met the mother and the officer and brought them aboard at once.
Mary Jane was called upon to explain all that she had seen and the
officer, as well as the mother, was satisfied that the whole thing was an
accident and not an attempt to steal the children.
"But how did you get up here so quickly?" asked Mary Jane, when the first
excitement was over.
"My dear child!" laughed Ann's mother, "a person can do a lot when she
thinks something is happening to her children! I took a passing taxi,
dashed to a police station and then on up here. And nothing has happened
at all--except you nice people have given my little folks a very pleasant
trip. Next time, Bobby," she added, "we'll leave your toy boat or we'll
all go together to find it. We won't take any chances of losing each
other!"
"Well," laughed Mr. Merrill when the mother and children and officer and
captain had all gone on about their own business, "what was it we were
going to do to-day?"
Everybody laughed at that! They had been so excited that they had
forgotten, yes, actually forgotten, that this was a sight-seeing trip for
grandma and grandpa. But once they remembered, they knew just what to do.
They climbed aboard a waiting launch, rode up to Lincoln Park, had a
wonderful dinner and fun all the rest of the day.
"I don't see," remarked grandma, as they neared home, late that evening,
"how you girls are ever going to settle down to school again! Did you know
that school was only a few weeks away? Vacation will be over before you
know it!"