John's father as he lifted Mary Jane into her place by John. "You're not
going to take all those stones back to Chicago, are you?"
"Well," began Mary Jane, and then she saw how impossible it would be to
carry so many so she decided, "I'm going to take two, the roundest,
whitest two, and I'm going to leave the others for John. You'll like
'em, won't you, John?"
John hadn't an idea what he would do with stones but he was always glad
to acquire valuable possessions, so he answered, "You bet!" most
vigorously, and Mary Jane was happy.
Back at the house, John rushed upstairs ahead of the girls and they
couldn't imagine the reason for his hurry--children don't usually like
to go to bed in a rush like that, at least the Merrill girls didn't.
But when, a few minutes later, they leisurely went up, they found the
reason for his hurry. He met them at the top of the stairs and offered
to each girl a pair of his own pajamas! He remembered that his mother
had promised night things and he wanted to be a good host. The girls
looked with dismay at the cunning little blue pajamas offered them, but
their mother came to their rescue.
"Thank you so much, John," she said to the little boy, "you certainly
were nice to plan for the girls. Now, don't you want to show us your
room? You know you promised you would." And John, carelessly handing
over the pajamas, hurried off to display the room of which he was so
proud.
A few minutes later the tired little fellow was sound asleep, and then
Cousin Louise brought her guests a supply of night things that made them
very comfortable.
"I wish I didn't have to go to bed," sighed Mary Jane as she trailed the
length of her cousin's pretty gown over the floor. "I think it's horrid
when you have a big lady's nighty and it's so long and pretty and like a
court dress that then you just have to go to bed and sleep!"
"Well, if you don't go to bed pretty soon," laughed Cousin Louise,
"you'll hear my alarm clock and John's roosters before you get to
sleep."
But there was no real danger of that because Mary Jane was so tired that
the minute her head touched the pillow she was sound asleep and dreaming
of white stones that perched up on top of Plymouth Rock and of a dear
woolly lamb that came over in the Mayflower.
*THE WILLOW TREE COTTAGE*
Mary Jane thought she never could wake up the next morning. She heard
her mother and Cousin Louise talking in the next room, she heard John
calling, "Mary Jane! Mary Jane! When you coming to breakfast?" But she
simply couldn't make herself wake up and answer. She dozed off again
and again, she was so very sleepy.
Finally she heard Cousin Louise say, "Your mother says you must get up,
dear, so if you'll jump into the bath that is all ready for you, I'll
have breakfast waiting when you come back." Mary Jane heard John and
Alice laughing and playing under her window, so she hopped out of bed in
a hurry and ran in to take her bath.
When she came back, she found that Cousin Louise had pulled a little
table up to the window overlooking the garden and barnyard, and that on
the table was spread out the nicest breakfast any girl could ask for.
"There now," said Cousin Louise as she laid a bathrobe around her little
guest, "while you eat we're going to visit, because when there are so
many other folks around, we don't get a chance to say a word." Mary
Jane liked that breakfast ever so much. She told Cousin Louise all
about Class Day and the game and the lobster salad and commencement and
dancing with one of Uncle Hal's grown-up friends and the shoes that
slipped up and down and made a blister--and everything. And as she
talked she ate and ate--till all the fresh strawberries and all the egg
and potatoes and coffee cake and milk and cereal that Cousin Louise had
carried upstairs on the tray had vanished.
"Well," laughed Cousin Louise, "see how stupid I sit here without
getting you one single bit of breakfast!" And she laughed at the tray
of empty dishes.
"Never mind about any breakfast," replied Mary Jane continuing the joke,
"I don't somehow seem hungry for anything this morning Anything _more_
you might say!"
"Then you slip into your clothes as fast as ever you can," said Cousin
Louise, "and run out to the barn. John's been watching his favorite
hens since he first got up in hopes there would be eggs for you to
gather before train time."
It didn't take Mary Jane long to dress and as Mrs. Merrill came in just
at the right time to brush her hair and put on her hair bow, she was
soon out in the barn lot with Alice and John.
With diligent hunting the three children discovered four eggs by the
time that John's father called to them that it was time to go to the
train.
"You take 'em with you in your pocket," said John hospitably giving his
little cousin all four eggs. "You take 'em 'cause they're good and I'll
let you have 'em."
Mary Jane took them gratefully. She had never been particularly fond of
eggs but John's eggs, like grandpa's eggs, tasted awfully good and she
was quite willing to carry four home. She promised faithfully to carry
them all the way to Chicago so her father could taste one. "That'll make
one for each of us, 'cause there's four of us," she told John as she put
the fourth one in her second pocket.
But when the children got back to the house Mrs. Merrill inquired into
the cause of the bulging pockets and out came the eggs--to stay in
Marshfield.
"Why Mary Jane," said her mother, "you've stones, all those white stones
you gathered on the beach last night, you know, and stones and eggs
don't mix very well, you'd find. Then we're going 'way up to Rye Beach
for Sunday, and you'll have lots to carry as it is. And there's no use
taking the eggs away from John just to run the risk of breaking them, is
there?"
Mary Jane agreed that there was no use of that. And with John's promise
that next time she came she could have four eggs--not necessarily these
same eggs however--for her very own, she was satisfied to put the eggs
in the ice-box and wash her hands ready to go to the train.
The little cousins hated to leave each other; they were just getting
well acquainted and were planning all sorts of fun they could do
together. But Mrs. Merrill thought that Mary Jane, and Alice too, had
had such a very busy week that they had better have a very quiet
week-end. So as Uncle Hal had friends outside of Boston he wanted to
see before leaving for his home in the middle west, it was decided that
Mrs. Merrill and the girls go up to a quiet little hotel at Rye Beach
and spend Sunday resting and loafing, and that they meet in Boston again
on Monday to finish up the sightseeing and visiting.
"You come and see me again," shouted John, as the girls climbed aboard
their train half an hour later. "Don't you forget to come to see me and
get your eggs!"
"I won't forget," called back Mary Jane, and then, much to the surprise
of the brakeman who was giving the signal to go ahead, she stepped half
down the steps of her car and shouted back to John, "Next time I come
I'm going to stay all day and get a lot of eggs--all the eggs you've
got!" Then she hurried into the car to wave to John out of the window
as the train moved away.
It was a very dusty morning, as there hadn't been rain for more than two
weeks; so Mrs. Merrill shut the window by which they sat. Mary Jane
liked that, for then she had a window sill where she could spread out
her precious stones without danger of losing any out of the window.
"Now that's the father stone," she whispered to herself, as she hunted
out the biggest stone and put it in the left hand corner of the sill,
"and that's the mother stone," she added as she chose the next biggest,
a round white stone that was her favorite, "and this is the big sister
stone and this the big brother stone and here's all the little stones."
She pulled them out of her pocket, every one and made a long row of
stone children that filled the whole window sill.
"I guess I'll call them Mr. and Mrs. Stone," she laughed softly to
herself, and then I'll name the Stone children. "You're Patricia," she
announced to the biggest stone sister, "and you're William Stone and
you're Edward and you're Margaret and you're Ellen and
you're--you're--dear me! How in the world do people name their
families? I should think it would be hard work! I should think it
would be as hard as naming rivers."
The thought of rivers made Mary Jane remember that she was thirsty, so,
with her mother's permission, she went up to the front end of the car
where the case of paper drinking cups and the water fountain was. The
drinking cup case didn't work very well, and Alice had to come and give
her assistance before two cups were dropped out of the slot so that the
little girls could get a cool drink. Then Boston was so near that Mary
Jane had time only to pick up her Stone family and stow them safely in
her pocket--and it was time to get off. There hadn't been a minute to
wonder what she would do--the time just went that quickly.
They took a taxi up to their hotel, packed bags with things they would
need for over Sunday, ate a bit of lunch and hurried back to the station
to catch the train for Rye Beach.
"Did you ever see so many pretty flowers!" exclaimed Alice as their
train went past station after station made beautiful with flowers--late
irises, early roses, bridal wreath and snowballs, to say nothing of the
gay geraniums in formal beds along by the tracks. "Wouldn't you love to
have somebody say, 'just pick all you want to, Alice Merrill?'"
"We wouldn't have time to pick 'em, 'cause the train doesn't stop; it's
taking us to Rye Beach where Mother went a long time ago. Tell us about
it, Mother dear," Mary Jane added. So Mrs. Merrill snuggled the tired
little girl close up and told her about the time she and her brothers
went to Rye Beach so long ago and how they all went in bathing in the
surf when the whistle blew the temperature of the water; and what good
things they had to eat at the Willow Tree Cottage and how--but there
wasn't any use talking any more, for Mary Jane was fast asleep.
Mrs. Merrill glanced over at Alice who was reading a favorite book
Cousin Louise had given her, then she too picked up a magazine and read
as the train sped northward toward New Hampshire.
It was a good thing Mary Jane had a long nap that afternoon, for when
they got off at their station they found they were still a long way from
Willow Tree Cottage and that there was a lot to see on the way. Several
passengers got off, and the bus which met the train was filled to the
last seat.
First they drove along by some pretty golf links where many folks were
enjoying an afternoon game; then they turned into a handsome big hotel.
Mary Jane saw children running up and down the broad verandas and caught
a glimpse of the ocean through the trees.
"I'd like that place to live," she said to herself, "I wonder if that's
where we're going?" But it wasn't.
Next they drove down a street where there were many private houses, in
front of some of which the bus stopped to drop passengers. Mary Jane saw
children playing in the grassy yards and everything looking so homelike
and restful that she couldn't help but think, "I wonder if that's where
we're going. I'd like to have that our place." But it wasn't.
Then they drove around a corner with a flourish that almost sent Mary
Jane from her seat and out through the opposite window, and drove up in
front of a grand-looking hotel right close to the ocean. Folks in
pretty light dresses were walking on the broad porches. Children were
playing in the great sand-pile out under the trees, and young folks were
having a croquet match over near the beach.
"Now that must be where we're going," thought Mary Jane. But it wasn't.
At last, when everyone but Mary Jane and her mother and sister were out
of the bus, the driver whipped up his horses and drove away down the
beach and then turned down a short road and stopped in front of a
rambling, old New England farmhouse. It was painted white, with green
shutters; the porch had comfortable chairs enough for a big, big family
and rambled around the front and sides of the house as though it was in
search of the kitchen door. But out in front, close by where the bus
stopped, was the most interesting sight of all--a great willow tree. It
had half a dozen trunks all grown partly together and each big enough to
make a tree of itself; it had wide spreading branches that arched over
the roadway, over the house and over a wide, grassy yard. And under the
tree, just past the porch steps was a swing, a big sand pile and a small
merry-go-round and a slide place so that little folks who slid down it
would tumble gently into the clean white sand.
Was Mary Jane glad that they hadn't stopped at the other places? You
should have seen her happy face!
"Oh, Mother," she cried, "let's not just stay here over Sunday! Let's
send for Daddah and stay and stay and stay 'cause I know I'm going to
have a good time here."
But before Mrs. Merrill had time to answer, Mrs. Bryan, the hospitable
lady who owned the cottage, came out to greet them and to say to Mary
Jane, "Oh, my dear! I'm so glad you're here! Because I have the nicest
surprise for you! Come right into the house and see. I know you'll
like it because it's just what your mother and your Uncle Hal always
liked to see."
And Mary Jane, followed by Alice, both wondering what in the world the
surprise might be, hurried out of the bus and into the house.
*LOST! ONE MARY JANE*
"Can we see it right away?" asked Mary Jane as she hesitated by the
newel post at the front stairs. (It was a lovely long, straight
stairway with a white banister made of dainty white spindles and a
mahogany railing wide and shining on top--just exactly the right sort of
a banister for sliding down, and Mary Jane resolved to take a trial
slide the first time she could get the hallway to herself!)
"If it's what I think it is," said Mrs. Merrill, looking laughingly at
Mrs. Bryan, "you'd better run upstairs and wash off the stains of your
journey before you go to see it, because once you get out in the kitchen
with Mrs. Bryan you won't want to bother with washing and combing. Is it
what I think?" she added.
"Pretty likely!" laughed Mrs. Bryan, "you're not forgetting so easily
what you always liked to see. So do as your mother says, Mary Jane,"
she added kindly to the little girl, "and as soon as she says you may,
come out through that door over there and you'll find me."
Alice dashed up the stairs, with Mary Jane close at her heels, and in a
very short time they were down again with clean hands and faces and
fresh frocks and hair ribbons. Out through the door they went, through
the dining-room and into a great, roomy kitchen about as different from
their own little apartment kitchen as one could imagine. It had a big
pastry table in the middle; two huge stoves at one side and a long sink
and several tables on another side. Big windows looked out on a grassy
yard.
"Oh!" exclaimed Mary Jane rapturously, "I'd just love to live at your
house, Mrs. Bryan. Would you let me beat eggs and fix the edges of pies
and wipe dishes?"
"And the cupboards!" exclaimed Alice no less pleased, "would you look at
these cupboards, Mary Jane! Wouldn't you just adore getting out sugar
and spice and putting dishes away?"
"Well," replied Mrs. Bryan, half puzzled but very much pleased with
their enthusiasm, "you're not much like most of the children who come
here. Mostly they don't know or care what a kitchen looks like or where
it is! I can't think what their mothers mean either, because a house
without a kitchen is just nothing. And as for offering to help with
dishes--" The good lady broke off in amazement at the unusual
occurrence of two boarders offering assistance because they _wanted_ to.
"Was this the surprise and may I look in that cupboard?" asked Alice as
she spied a stack of pretty blue and white dishes--just the kind she had
always wanted for her own--behind a half open cupboard door.
"Mercy no!" laughed Mrs. Bryan, "this isn't the surprise. But goodness
knows you may look in any cupboard you like, dearie; I know you won't do
any harm because you like things too well. The surprise is out here."
The girls followed her through a long pantry, the walls of which were
covered with cupboards and shelves clear up to the high ceiling, through
a summer kitchen where maids were working at preparations for supper,
and out into a half dim shed, the floor of which felt soft under their
feet because it was covered with thousands of tiny chips of wood, left
from the chopping of wood for the big kitchen range.
"There," she said, pointing to two great tubs near the outside door,
"that's what your mother and your uncles used to like to see when they
used to come here. Have 'em every Saturday evening--just that many,"
she added as she pointed to the baskets, "and it's time they went into
the pot this very minute."
"But what _are_ they?" asked Alice while Mary Jane just stared at the
queer sight.
Two heavily woven split baskets, bigger than bushel baskets,
considerably, were filled with brownish, greenish things that seemed to
move--but of course they _couldn't_--but they _did_, they surely _did_.
Moved slowly but crawlingly like great spiders--
"Ugh!" shivered Mary Jane, "whatever are they?"
"You've a good catch this time, haven't you?" Mrs. Merrill's voice
behind her reassured Mary Jane. Her mother had followed them out and
surely if her mother didn't mind those queer things, they must be all
right for she well knew her mother didn't like spiders any better than
she did!
"But what _are_ they?" insisted Alice wonderingly.
"Don't you know," laughed Mrs. Bryan, "they're lobsters. Sam caught 'em
just to-day and a fine lot they are too. Do you like lobsters?"
"Um-m," replied Alice, "do I? You just try me! But all the lobsters I
ever ate were red, bright red."
"Sure enough," laughed Mrs. Bryan as she bustled about a great iron pot
in a corner, "and all you ever will eat will be, I hope, because they'll
be cooked. The cooking makes 'em red. These are alive."
"But if they're alive you can't cook 'em!" exclaimed Mary Jane in great
excitement.
"Oh, yes we can," replied Mrs. Bryan comfortably, "just that easily. We
have the water boiling hot and dump 'em in--just that quick and they
never know what happens to 'em. Now you can go out this door," she
added, "because we've got to hurry now with supper. But don't you go
far, for pretty soon you'll hear a gong and that means 'come to supper!'
and you come first thing because I know you must be hungry."
Mary Jane and Alice needed no urging--they were hungry, for it had been
a long time since breakfast at Cousin Louise's, and their hurried
luncheon in Boston wasn't much to remember.
They ran out to the sand-pile, looked at the pretty shells, took a slide
or two and a few swings in the big swing and made friends with the two
children, a boy and a girl from Springfield, Massachusetts, who were
playing there, and, in a very short while it seemed, the gong sounded
and they went in to supper.
It was a different sort of a supper from any Mary Jane had ever eaten
away at a hotel--though as a matter of fact the Willow Tree Cottage
wasn't really a hotel at all; it was an old New England farmhouse
enlarged a bit and opened to some twenty-five selected boarders through
the summer season. And this meal truly was not a dinner such as Mary
Jane was used to eating in the evening; it was a real supper, delicious
and old fashioned as one could hope to find. There was coffee cake,
fresh baked and luscious with great "wells" of sugar and butter running
through in streaks of sweetness; baked beans in brown pots; cold ham,
coldslaw with a sour cream sauce, and hot potatoes with cream gravy.
And then, after each table full of guests were seated and the meal
began, Mrs. Bryan herself (she would trust this task to no one else)
appeared with a great platter of lobsters, red and shining and smelling
oh, so good!
Mary Jane helped herself very daintily but Mrs. Bryan said, "Here,
honey, that's no way to eat at my house! You take a big helping and
then pass up! There's three more platterfuls like this out on the
kitchen table!" The girls needed no second urging; they liked lobster,
but as they polished off claw after claw, they agreed that never _never_
had they eaten lobster before--not really truly lobster as this luscious
food proved to be.
As the maid appeared to ask what dessert they wanted, Mrs. Merrill said,
"Do you want any dessert, girls? You've had such a good supper
already."
"Why mother!" exclaimed Mary Jane, "we _were hungry_!" And then as the
maid said, "Huckleberry shortcake and apple pie" (meaning of course that
Mary Jane should take her choice), Mary Jane, not understanding, replied
blissfully, "I like 'em both, thank you!"
"Bless her heart!" laughed Mrs. Bryan, "she shall have 'em both, Ann.
You bring the girls each a helping of pie and shortcake--it's not too
rich, it won't hurt 'em for once," she added as she saw Mrs. Merrill
starting to object, "remember how you used to eat two helpings of
dessert and how _you_ made your dear father so ashamed!" Mrs. Merrill
and the good lady laughed in recollection--and the girls had their
double dessert.
In the long twilight the Merrills took a leisurely walk through the pine
tree grove off toward the south of the cottage and home along the rocks
by the ocean. By the time they turned toward home the sun had set in
rosy glory and through the gathering shadows could be seen the gleam of
lights in lighthouses near and far. 'Way down the coast on some jutting
rocks, still farther down on an out-reaching promontory, straight off to
the northeast on the Isle of Shoals and away toward the north was the
Portsmouth Light. Some lights burned steadily, red or white; some
flashed on and off as though making a signal. Mrs. Merrill explained
that each different location had its own light and method of burning it,
so that a pilot, out in the ocean when he saw a light burning red,
white, red white, could look on the chart and see just where that light
belonged; and then, when he saw one burning white, white, red, he could
look again and see where that one was.
The girls loved to watch the lights and to listen to the pound of the
waves on the rocks near by. They would have liked to stay and watch a
long time, but Mrs. Merrill led them back toward the cottage by dark
and, to tell the truth, beds didn't feel so very bad after such a big
day and, soon after the stars peeped out, two tired travelers were sound
asleep.
Sunday morning the girls slept late and almost missed breakfast; then
after a short walk to the beach they slipped on fresh frocks and went
with Mrs. Merrill to a quaint little church about a mile away. The walk
there was charming, past the biggest hotel they had seen the night
before, along the beach, through a wood and to the edge of a meadow
where the little church, all vine-covered and rose-laden, came to view.
After dinner at noon, the girls sat on the beach a long time, watching
the tide and talking over the good times they had had and were going to
have. They persuaded their mother that because the water was too cold
for bathing that day, they ought to stay over till afternoon of Monday
so that they might have a chance to bathe in the ocean.
"We'll do better than that," decided Mrs. Merrill, when she saw how the
girls were enjoying the sea air and the quiet, "I'll wire Hal and we'll
stay till afternoon Tuesday. That will give him time to finish his
visit leisurely and we will still have all of Wednesday in Boston and
you may go in bathing twice--if the water isn't too terribly cold."
"I'm a-going in to-morrow even if it's freezing!" said Mary Jane.
"So'm I," agreed Alice, "we're not afraid of cold and it's such fun to
jump in those big waves!" But they little guessed what was really going
to happen when they went in bathing in that heavy surf!
The next morning, promptly at eleven, the whistle on the bathhouse blew
5-8.
"Fifty-eight," said Mrs. Merrill thoughtfully, "that's pretty cold,
girlies."
"Oh, we don't mind," Alice assured her. "The sun's good and hot and if
the water seems cold we don't need to stay in long--we can come out and
sit in the hot sand."
So they took their suits and walked down to the bathhouse.