Part 6

The driver slowed up a bit so they could talk better but he didn’t stop. The man with him swung around in his seat and began to explain.

“The boat isn’t at the landing, lady,” he said much to Mrs. Merrill’s dismay; “she left an hour back.”

“Then where are you taking us?” demanded Mrs. Merrill.

“To the boat,” he said. “You see it’s this way, lady. The first part of that trip is on the St. John’s River and right here” (he swung his arm off to the left) “the river makes a bend. We had to let the boat go on time because folks don’t like to wait, but we’ll take you across the bend straight, you see, and catch the boat at the first stop. We can do in half an hour in this car what it takes her about an hour and a half to do on the water. Never you fear, now, you’ll catch the boat right enough, lady.”

“Then we might as well enjoy the ride,” said Mrs. Merrill to the girls as, fairly satisfied with his explanation, she settled back in her place.

“If you call this enjoying,” laughed Alice, as she tossed from front to back as they sped over the rough road.

“Here,” said Mrs. Merrill, “let me sit in the middle and hold each of you.” Alice moved over and Mrs. Merrill sat in the middle of the seat with an arm around each girl. “Now we have the fun of knowing that if any one bounces out we all will!”

None too soon did they brace themselves either, for at that minute the driver turned off from the road into a woods. If the road had been rough, there’s no describing the roughness of the rude path they followed through the woods. Hardly more than a trail it was and over it they bumped and tossed and hurried down a hill, through the trees and out onto a rude dock on the bank of a great river.

“Boat come yet?” asked the driver of a lone fisherman.

“Yeh,” he replied, “she come an’ gone fifteen minutes er-go!”

Mrs. Merrill exclaimed with dismay but the driver didn’t stop for consultation. With a whirl of his wheel that sent the car spinning he turned around and dashed back up the hill.

“Girls,” said Mrs. Merrill solemnly, “I think he’s crazy. But all I can see for us to do is to sit still and hang together. Maybe sometime we’ll get somewhere--let’s hope. Here, Mary Jane, snug up close so you won’t bounce out!”

And turning onto the road, the car dashed off toward the south.

ON THE OCKLAWAHA

It seemed to Mary Jane that she surely must be in a funny dream. It couldn’t be possible that folks, really live, wide-awake folks, would go racing over the country in a strange car as they were racing; and she glanced up at her mother questioningly to see if she too was thinking it queer. But Mrs. Merrill, her arms around her two daughters, was looking straight ahead in a puzzled way and Mary Jane couldn’t guess what she was thinking about.

The little car raced on. Through sandy roads that would have stalled a heavier machine; across bridges; through woods dim with the shelter of moss laden trees; by small fields where they caught glimpses of tiny truck gardens--they dashed.

“Government camphor reservation!” shouted the driver over his shoulder as they drove between rows and rows of low, close-cropped trees set in neat orderly fashion and the Merrills got a whiff of the smell of camphor as they rushed by the rough factory where the camphor leaves are crushed to make the drug so many folks use.

“Now we’ll _have_ to stop!” said Mrs. Merrill with a sigh of relief as they swung around a short curve and came upon a toll bridge at the end of which stood an old man, hand out-stretched for his fee. But she didn’t know the driver! He didn’t intend to stop for mere toll--not he!

“Pay you on the way back,” shouted the driver and on they rode.

After what seemed, oh at least a day! but which really was only an hour, the car slowed up in a tiny village and rolled down a hill to a fishing dock by the St. Johns river.

“There we are!” said the driver as he brought the car to a full stop and, jumping out, opened the door with a flourish. “In plenty of time too, I’ll say!” He helped Mrs. Merrill and the girls out, then rubbing his hands in satisfaction added, “I guess that’ll please him--no, lady,” as he saw Mrs. Merrill reaching for her purse; “you don’t owe me a cent--not a cent! Glad to do it for him!”

“For who?” asked Mrs. Merrill, puzzled but greatly relieved because she had begun to be anxious about the hole this ride might leave in her pocket book!

“For Mr. Merrill,” replied the driver, “aren’t you Mrs. C. F. Merrill?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Merrill, still puzzled.

“Just so,” replied the driver; “well, you see, last time he was down here I was a-working in Jacksonville and he did me a good turn. Now I’m a workin’ with the boat folks and when we see by the agent’s telegram that it’s you that’s late, seys I to them, ‘Now’s when I do _them_ a good turn’--see? So here you are and the boat’ll be comin’ along in a minute.”

“I hope it does,” said Alice.

“And I hope it’s got a pantry on it cause I’m about starved,” said Mary Jane fervently.

“Sure faith!” exclaimed the man; “of course you are and it’s most four o’clock! Well, let’s see what we can do for you!” He turned to go up the hill in the hope that he might find some fruit in an orchard near at hand, but he hadn’t gone a dozen steps before a long, low whistle in the distance sent him hurrying back.

“There she comes!” he shouted, “I hear her! Look!”

Mrs. Merrill and the girls looked up the river and sure enough, swinging around the bend of the river was the boat they were waiting for. The driver and his companion hurried down to the dock and put up a great red flag they found in the dock house, then fearing that that might not be enough, they brought the dust robe from the car and waved it too. In a couple of minutes a reassuring “toot-toot!” from the boat gave back the answer they were waiting for and they knew the captain had seen their signal and would stop at the dock.

There was just time to thank the men for the ride, which, now that it was safely over, the Merrills realized had been a very interesting one, and to get bags and camera from the car before the boat sidled up to the dock.

“Can’t stop to tie up!” shouted the Captain, as the boat brushed the weather worn dock; “jump aboard!” There was just barely time for the Merrills to jump from the dock to the broad open lower deck; then a bell rang, the engines again began working and the space between boat and dock widened--they were off. Mary Jane and Alice waved good-by to the men on the dock and Mrs. Merrill turned to greet the waiting captain.

“I am afraid you have had a hurried ride,” he said, politely, “but the gentleman yonder,” he waved his hand toward the dock, “who is now our advertising man, was sure he could meet us at the other dock and he wanted you to take the trip. It seems he feels indebted to your husband.”

“We certainly are indebted to him,” said Mrs. Merrill, “for the nice ride--though it did seem a bit hurried at the time” (she smiled at the girls as they all thought of the wild jolting!)--“and for getting us to the boat in time. We go back north soon and we would have been sorry to miss the trip. But I wonder if my little girls could have some lunch--they haven’t had a bite since breakfast.”

For answer the captain rang a bell for the steward and the order he gave made the girls hungrier than ever. “Ham,” he said, “browned to a turn, all the fresh eggs they can eat and some of your good biscuits. Can you have that in twenty minutes?”

“Yis sir, yis sir, bery good, sir!” said the darky steward, smiling broadly at the hungry folks, “and if you like, sir, they’s jest a few more strawberries than I’ll be a needin’ fo’ suppa to-night. If the little ladies would like to eat them a-while they’re a-waitin’?”

Would they? Mary Jane’s face shone and Alice smiled so sweetly that the steward nearly tumbled over his feet in his eagerness to get them comfortably settled at once. Upon the broad second deck a table was set--“we won’t ask you to sit in doors this time of day,” said the captain, “because you’ll want to see the scenery as we just now turn from the St. Johns into the Ocklawaha.” And on the table were three big dishes of great, red, luscious strawberries.

“Yumy yum!” exclaimed Alice; “Mother, do you know what Dadah did to get us all this?”

“I haven’t an idea,” replied Mrs. Merrill; “he’s always doing things for folks, I know, but I never heard him speak of anything special down this way. Whatever he did though, I’m glad he did it--it certainly is lucky for us that these folks have good memories.”

Mary Jane and Alice felt like queens as they sat there eating their berries and real cream and smelling the odors of broiling ham that came invitingly up the companionway.

“I’m glad we hurried up and got the boat!” exclaimed Mary Jane appreciatively as she scraped up the last bit of cream and the last half berry she had saved for a final tit-bit, “and I’m _very_ glad we’re on a boat that has a pantry, _I_ am!”

“Wouldn’t you like to look over the boat and find your rooms?” asked the captain some half an hour later; “in a few minutes we’ll be turning into the narrow Ocklawaha and then all my attention will be taken up with the steering. I like to have all my passengers comfortably settled so they will feel at home aboard.”

Mrs. Merrill, Alice and Mary Jane followed him around the boat which they thought the most curious they had even seen. It looked like a great two story house with porches front and back and a pilot house set on the upstairs front porch. Of course it was flat bottomed, for the small river they would travel was too shallow in places for any other sort of boat. The captain told them that even though it drew but two feet of water it often went aground and had to be pushed off shore by means of great poles--“that’s the reason we have to carry such a big crew,” he added.

Inside were two floors with bedrooms--staterooms Mary Jane found they were called--all around the sides of each. Mrs. Merrill’s rooms, two of them, were side by side on the upper floor; that was nice for it was easy to speak through the thin wooden wall that was the only partition.

“But I see the wooden shutter is nailed shut,” said Mrs. Merrill as she stepped into the larger room and attempted to raise the old fashioned sliding shutter. “We’re fresh air fiends, Captain,” she explained laughingly, “and I guess I’ll have to trouble you to raise that blind.”

“Well, er--well,” said the captain hesitatingly.

“Of course if it’s too much trouble,” said Mrs. Merrill, in a puzzled voice.

“Not a bit,” answered the captain, “not a bit. But you see, in the night we go through pretty wild country and the trees over-hang the boat. It doesn’t often happen,” he added half apologizing, “but occasionally a snake drops off a tree and gets in if the window is open.”

“Ugh!” shivered Mrs. Merrill, “between snakes and no air, I think I’ll take the poor air _one_ night! I had no idea we were going through such wild regions!” she added a bit skeptically.

When they returned to the deck after they had arranged their bags and seen to covers for the night, they were amazed at the difference in the scenery. The boat had left the big St. Johns River and was twisting and turning up the winding little Ocklawaha which was wild enough to satisfy any one. The girls found two other children on the deck, Ned and Katherine Ritter of New York, and the four of them sat at the very front of the boat and kept count of the creatures, snakes, turtles, squirrels and wild hogs that they saw on the bank. Ned counted the snakes because they were the worst. Alice had the turtles because they were the hardest to see; Katherine did the squirrels and Mary Jane the hogs--she liked those the best because they made such fearful grunting noises--noises that made a person glad they were on a boat counting instead of walking in those deep woods.

After supper the passengers all came out on the deck again and the deep night of the forest was weirdly lit up by a great searchlight that flashed from the top of the boat; it made the trees and mosses look like a great fairyland of dreams.

“Couldn’t I just go to sleep in my chair here?” asked Mary Jane when her mother suggested bed time; “I’m so comfy here.”

“Indeed no!” laughed Mrs. Merrill; “you’d be stiff as a poker in the morning. I’ll go in with you and Alice and stay till you get in bed, then in about an hour I’m coming to bed too. You know we want to be up early in the morning.”

“What do we do in the morning?” asked Mary Jane, slipping out of the chair and taking her mother’s hand.

“Oh, we ride on the boat till ten o’clock and then we stop at an orange grove and then we ride some more. And I shouldn’t wonder but what we’d see some of those alligators you’ve been wanting to see. To-morrow’s the time for them.”

“Then I’ll go to bed quick,” said Mary Jane willingly, “’cause I want to be up and see ’em before Ned does. ’Cause the first one who see ’em gets to count ’em.”

“Good night, Mr. Captain,” she called as they passed the pilot house, “I’m going to see alligators in the morning.” And in barely ten minutes, Mary Jane was sound asleep.

“HELP YOURSELVES, CHILDREN! HELP YOURSELVES!”

“Those girls won’t be awake for an hour yet!” said a voice just outside Mary Jane’s window the next morning; “I’ll bet I see the first alligator all right!” But Ned Ritter shouldn’t have been so sure! He little guessed that as he was taking his early morning walk around the boat with his father, he made that rash remark just outside the Merrill girls’ window. And still less did he guess that Alice, just waking up, heard him.

“Mary Jane! Mary Jane!” she whispered; “let’s get up!”

No answer.

“I’ll have to wake her,” said Alice to herself. She bent over the edge of the upper berth where she was sleeping and gave Mary Jane’s elbow a vigorous pull. Mary Jane was that surprised she sat straight up in bed even before she opened her eyes.

“Where is it?” she asked, evidently thinking of alligators.

“Goodness knows!” laughed Alice in a more natural voice now, for Ned and his father had walked out of hearing. “But if we want to see anything first, we’d better be getting up, Mary Jane, because Ned’s out on deck and maybe Katherine is too.”

“Let’s ask mother if we can’t get up now,” suggested Mary Jane and she tapped on the partition. They had made up a code before they went to bed the night before so Mrs. Merrill knew exactly what they meant to say. One tap meant “Mother, are you there?” two taps meant “Please I want a drink,” and three taps meant “Is it time to get up?”

“I was just listening for those taps,” said Mrs. Merrill, at the door of the stateroom; “open the door, girls, and I’ll help you dress. I’m all ready and you want to get out doors as soon as you can--it’s a beautiful morning!”

With her help at buttons and with their hair the dressing business went very quickly and in a very few minutes all three were out on the deck.

“No alligators yet,” Ned’s disappointed voice greeted them.

“I should say not!” laughed the captain who went by just in time to hear what was said. “Wait till the sun gets up high and the air is hotter--then you’ll see them! Had breakfast yet?”

After breakfast he took the four children up by his pilot house and let them sit on a bench there that gave them a fine view of the river and woods. But though they looked and watched till their eyes ached, not a ’gator did they see!

“I don’t believe there are any,” exclaimed Alice in disgust, “and I’m going to walk around the back of the boat. When we go around that bend we’re coming to I’m sure I can pull some leaves off that great tree. And I’d love to have them in my collection--‘leaves pulled from the boat on the Ocklawaha’--wouldn’t that look well in my book?”

“I think I’ll go too,” said Katherine, who, when she saw how interested Alice was in her collection, immediately wanted to make one for herself.

“I think I’ll fish,” said Ned; “Father said once he caught a turtle from the boat.” And he too disappeared from the captain’s deck.

Mary Jane, left alone, couldn’t quite make up her mind what to do. It wasn’t any fun staying up there all alone, for the captain was so busy with his steering that he wasn’t a bit of company; she had a notion to go to the back of the boat with the other girls.

Just as she was slipping down from the bench she heard a splash at the bank on the south side of the river, and looking quickly, she spied a great log floating slowly down the stream.

“What made that log fall in?” she asked curiously; “I didn’t see anybody push it!”

Splash! There went another one!

“Funny!” exclaimed Mary Jane to herself now much interested; “now what made _that_ one go, I wonder.” Just then Mrs. Merrill came to the foot of the ladder leading to the captain’s deck.

“All right, Mary Jane?” she asked; “want some company?”

“’Deed yes, Mother,” cried the little girl; “do come up here and see these funny logs! What makes them fall into the river when nobody pushes them? There!” she exclaimed, excitedly, “there goes another one!”

Mrs. Merrill looked quickly to where Mary Jane pointed and was just in time to see--a great alligator go sliding into the water!

“Those aren’t logs,” she said, “those are alligators, child! Quick! Let’s call to the others so they can see them too!” But just as she spoke the captain’s voice rang out, “Alligators on the left!” and all the passengers rushed over to see the great creatures as they floated, log-like, down the river.

“That was a good sight,” said the captain; “you must be a mascot, Mary Jane; because we haven’t seen three together yet this season.”

The Merrills found the trip all that it had been promised them. They saw great virgin forests where the trees locked arms over the river; they saw Indian battlefields and Indian burying grounds and then later in the morning, the forests cleared away and about eleven o’clock the boat stopped by an orange grove and everybody piled off for refreshments.

“Eat all you can,” said the owner cordially, “but all you want to carry away, you have to pay for. Just help yourselves, children, help yourselves!” he added as the children hesitated.

“Goody!” said Alice; “this is the first time I ever had the chance to save money by eating! Come on, Mary Jane, let’s begin!”

The pretty little orchard lay on the side of a hill and the orange and lemon and tangerine and kumquot trees were set in neat rows on either side of the walk that led up to the house at the top. The trees were young and the children could easily reach the branches and pick their own fruit.

“I like oranges best,” said Katherine, running to a pretty orange tree.

“I’m after tangerines,” called Alice as she spied a tree of her favorites not far away.

“Well, I don’t want lemons--sour old things!” exclaimed Mary Jane when she saw that she had picked the wrong tree; “I want those little things.”

“Kumquots,” said Mrs. Merrill; “I do too, dear. Here’s a tree.”

It was fun to pick the fruit directly from the long hanging branches; and still more fun to suck the sweet juice with which the golden fruit was filled.

“Who’d have guessed,” exclaimed Alice, “that tangerines could be so juicy--not I!”

But after a little while, appetites were satisfied and the children wanted to play.

“I’ll tell you what let’s do,” suggested Mary Jane after she had eaten about a dozen kumquots and had decided that she simply couldn’t eat another suck; “let’s play house and each tree’ll be a house and that great big old tree’ll be a hotel.”

“And we’ll dress up and be queens and go to visit,” added Alice.

“How you going to dress up in an orange orchard where there aren’t any clothes?” asked Katherine.

“Oh, you don’t have to have real clothes to dress up in--not every time, you don’t,” said Mary Jane scornfully; “Alice can fix it--you see!” and she turned to hear her sister’s plan.

“We’ll make crowns out of orange leaves,” said Alice, quickly picking a few and weaving them together; “see how pretty and glossy they are. Just put them on your head this way, Katherine. There! That’s becoming! Now you make a bigger one and I’ll do one for Mary Jane and for me. You girls pick the leaves for me so I can make them quickly.”

“Then if we’re queens we shouldn’t live in a house, should we?” asked Katherine.

“I should say _not_!” exclaimed Mary Jane. “These aren’t houses,” she added, waving her hand grandly toward the trees nearest at hand; “these are palaces--your palace and Alice’s palace and mine. And that big one over there we were going to have be a hotel, it’s a banquet hall now.”

Just as the royal play was getting well under way a man came around with paper bags. “Put all the fruit you want to buy in these,” he announced, “and pay for it at the dock when you get aboard the boat.”

“Let’s not bother,” said Katherine; “we don’t want to stop playing.”

“We don’t have to,” replied Alice laughingly, and she picked up the bag the man had laid under her tree; “these are cloth of gold sacks and we’ll fill them with gold nuggets to take to the good queen mother.”

“Why, so we can!” cried Katherine happily; “come on, let’s hurry and get a lot!”

It was a good thing they did hurry for even so the boat’s great whistle sounded before the bags were full and the captain’s call through a megaphone urged them to hurry aboard.

“Well, seems to me you don’t intend to be hungry for a few days,” said Mrs. Merrill laughingly as she saw what full bags the children were carrying. “I thought you were too busy playing to pick any and so I got enough for us all. But never mind,” she added, as she saw the girls were looking disappointed; “it’s all so good and it’s wholesome eating too, so we’ll keep it if you don’t mind carrying it.”

The rest of that day’s wonderful ride seemed to Mary Jane like living in a picture show. Not long after they left the orange orchard the great boat turned into the tiny Clear River that runs into the Ocklawaha and it almost seemed as if the broad decks were spreading over the whole of the little stream! Here the water was clear as crystal and the girls could see every fish and turtle and water snake that scurried out of their way as they steamed up stream. In the bright noon sunshine they came into the little lake at the head of the stream and there they got out of the big boat and were rowed around in a small glass bottomed boat. It seemed awfully queer to look through the glass at their feet and see the bubbling of the hidden springs and to watch the bright colored pebbles and stones that tumbled about deep down among the rocks like gay pieces of confetti tossed about in the sunshine.

Then there was the scramble into the big touring car, the drive across country to Ocala, luncheon at the queer station dining room where Mary Jane, for the first time in her life, had the fun of sitting up to a counter to eat, and the rush for the train that was to take them up to Jacksonville and Dadah.

“Well,” said Mary Jane with a sigh of relief as she sank into the comfortable Pullman seat, “I just a-going to sit here all afternoon and think and think and think--I am!” But she didn’t count on the many queer things that may happen in Florida.

PIGS BY THE WAY

For more than an hour Mary Jane sat and thought as she had planned to; she thought of all the interesting sights she had seen since she left home; she thought of the new friends she had made and of the fun she had had playing in the many places she had been. Then suddenly it occurred to her that their train was standing still.

“Doesn’t this train go like regular trains, Mother?” she asked.

“Evidently not,” replied Mrs. Merrill, who also had been noticing how much time was being lost; “we stop at every corner store, I do believe, and wait to chat about the weather.”