Chapter 3

"Yes, she did, and here she is!" laughed father as he stepped up to greet the little lady. "Welcome, Aunt Effie! This is Mary Jane come to meet you!"

Now Mary Jane had never seen her grandmother or any older auntie, at least she hadn't seen them recently enough to remember them because the Merrills lived many miles from all their kith and kin. So she was much puzzled at the little old lady and far too shy to do more than to drop a nice little courtesy as her mother had taught her to do. Then they all climbed into the car and drove home.

Aunt Effie was tired from her long journey so she didn't talk much that evening and Mary Jane went off to bed feeling not one bit acquainted with the auntie she had thought and talked so much about.

"I don't believe she likes little girls," she thought sadly. "I don't believe she even _saw_ me because when grown folks see little girls they always say, 'How old are you, little girl?' and then they say, 'My! my! you're almost big enough to go to school!' and she didn't say a thing to me!" And she went to sleep thinking about how fine it would be to have a really truly "play-with" auntie come to visit.

Aunt Effie hadn't come down to breakfast yet when Mary Jane had finished hers so she started playing all by herself. "I think I'll play dress up to-day," she said to her mother as she slipped down from the table.

"That will be fine," said Mrs. Merrill; "the attic is plenty warm and you can play up there all you like to, only you must remember to put everything away neatly when you have finished playing."

"I will, mother dear," answered Mary Jane and she kissed her mother and started up the stairs.

Now up in the Merrill attic, off in a nice comfortable corner where it wouldn't be in any one's way, was the girls' "dress-up box." In it were kept all the clothes that Alice and Mary Jane were allowed to play with. There were old coats and wonderful old hats that were so queer one would never guess real ladies had worn them! And slippers and hair ribbons and petticoats and shawls and silk dresses and morning dresses and parasols and--oh, the most things you ever saw! Whenever Mrs. Merrill had something that she couldn't use any more and that wasn't worth giving away to some needy person, she put it in the girls' box. And whenever the girls, either Alice with her big girl friends or Mary Jane with her little playmates wanted to dress up or have a show they helped themselves out of the box--it was great fun as you can see. Many a morning when Mary Jane was tired of being Mary Jane, she slipped off to the attic and dressed up to be somebody else.

This particular morning she hardly knew what she was going to be. She pulled out a couple of gay hair ribbons, a pair of dark gloves and a shopping bag. And the bag decided the play for her.

"I'm going to be Aunt Effie-like-I-thought-she-was," she said gayly, "and I'm going to come and visit!" And then she set to work pulling stuff out of the box and hunting just the right thing to dress in. She finally put on a gay plaid skirt, a big black hat trimmed with a great pink rose, a yellow waist and a red scarf. Then she pulled on the pair of gloves, picked up the shopping bag and started for the stairs.

And who do you suppose she met coming up? Aunt Effie! The real Aunt Effie!

"Well, good morning!" said the real Aunt Effie smilingly, "who have we here?"

Mary Jane looked long and carefully. She hated to take other people into her games and then find out that they laughed at her. And she had learned by experience that some grown folks never learn the game of "dress-up." But Aunt Effie, the this-morning Aunt Effie, whose eyes looked rested and smiling, seemed very much as though she might understand dress-up, very much. Mary Jane decided to try her.

"I'm Aunt Effie come to visit," she said solemnly.

"Now, isn't that nice," answered Aunt Effie and she didn't seem one bit surprised or amused or anything that grown folks sometimes are, "and who am I?"

"Oh, will you play too?" cried Mary Jane clapping her hands happily.

"To be sure I will," laughed the real Aunt Effie, "that's what I came upstairs for."

"Then you come over here by the box and I'll dress you up in some little girl things and you can be Mary Jane," said the happy little girl. "Do you like pink or blue sashes?"

Aunt Effie decided for blue and fortunately they found a nice, long blue ribbon and a white dress of Alice's that was just the thing. Such fitting and pinning and dressing and tying you never saw. And when it was all done, Aunt Effie looked so much like a little girl that she couldn't help but act like one and she and the "dress-up" auntie played together all the morning long.

So much fun did they have that mother had to call twice to make them understand that lunch was ready!

"Here, you show me how you want things put away, Mary Jane," said Aunt Effie hastily when they finally heard. "Let's scramble them away so as not to keep mother waiting."

"We'll put them right on the top in the box," said Mary Jane, "'cause we'll want to play some more--lots!"

And they did, many times.

KEWPIE AND THE WASHING

One morning a few days after the dress-up fun Aunt Effie had to go down town on some errands and Mary Jane was left to play by herself. She and her auntie had grown to be such good play fellows that it was hard to find something interesting to do without Aunt Effie to join in the fun.

"Why _don't_ you find something to do and then do it?" said Mrs. Merrill after Mary Jane had made pictures on the window pane and rummaged through the mending basket and poked her finger into the canary's cage and fingered the forbidden little green balls on the ends of the fern leaves. "Little girls can't expect to have a good time when they do all the things they are not allowed to do. Go and play with Marie Georgiannamore, you haven't played with her since Aunt Effie came."

"Will you play too?" asked Mary Jane.

"Not for a while yet, dear," replied mother, "because this is wash morning and I have a new laundress to look after. Didn't you see her come around the house when we were at breakfast? I have to go downstairs and show her how we like our clothes washed and starched. Don't you want to go along?"

"Oh, yes, mother, I do!" cried Mary Jane happily. "I want to learn to wash, too." Then she thought a minute. "But I believe I'd better take Marie Georgiannamore along too--she's lonesome."

"I'm sure she is," answered Mrs. Merrill. "You run along and get her and then we'll go to the laundry."

Mary Jane hurried upstairs for her big doll, but, though she searched every place that a big doll ought to be, not a sign of Marie Georgiannamore could she see.

"Mother!" called Mary Jane over the front stair railing, "Marie Georgiannamore's lost!"

"Lost--no, surely not," said Mrs. Merrill and she started up the stairs to hunt for the misplaced dolly. "Oh, I remember now, dear," she added when she was half way up, "Aunt Effie took her clothes off to wash them and I expect the dolly is some place in her room. Get your biggest kewpie and come on, I can't wait too long."

Now Kewpie, the biggest kewpie, was the doll with the broad smile who slept with Mary Jane every night. Other dolls got their hair mussed or their clothes untidied or something; but Kewpie could always be depended on to be neat and smiling no matter where he slept or what happened to him--a most satisfactory doll to take to bed as you can see. Mary Jane ran into her room to get him but her bed was all neatly made and Kewpie was nowhere to be seen.

"Kewpie's lost too," called Mary Jane.

"No, he isn't," laughed mother, who by that time was at the bottom of the stairs, "he must be right there, you had him in bed last night, you know."

Mary Jane ran back and poked her hand under the pillow; looked under the bed; on the dresser and on the window seat. No Kewpie was to be found.

"You'll find him in a minute," Mrs. Merrill called up the stairs, "and then you come down and meet me--I'll be looking for you, dear." And then she hurried on to her waiting duties.

Mary Jane hunted and hunted but she didn't find Kewpie. She did find her rag doll tucked back in the far corner of the closet and she began playing with her and forgot all about Kewpie and the new laundress and even about her own lonesomeness with Aunt Effie away. She had such a good time dressing the rag doll in new clothes and going visiting with her and all that, that she didn't notice mother when she twice peeped into the door to see if her little girl was safe and happy. First thing Mary Jane knew, it was lunch time--you know how quickly the clock does run round and round when you are having a good time.

Now on wash day the Merrills didn't have their lunch on the dining table as they did on other days; no, because they liked to do different things and wash day is a very good day to be different. On that day Mrs. Merrill fixed a tempting little tray for each person and left all the trays on the kitchen table. Then each person as he or she came home, father and Alice and Aunt Effie (and of course mother and Mary Jane who were already at home, had trays too), went into the kitchen and got his or her own tray--the trays could be told apart by the napkin rings marked with initials--and carried it into the living room and sat down in a comfortable chair and ate lunch. And afterwards, each person carried his or her own tray back to the kitchen table. They thought that way of eating lunch was lots of fun and Mary Jane well remembered how big and important she felt the first day mother allowed her to carry her own tray (with the glass of milk on mother's tray for safe keeping, of course) and to hold it on her own lap like big folks instead of sitting up to the piano bench like a baby! Mary Jane felt bigger that day than she ever had in all her life.

Just as she had picked up her tray and was going out of the kitchen on this particular noon, the new laundress came up from the laundry. Of course that wasn't so very unusual for Mary Jane often met the laundress in the kitchen at noon time, but it was unusual to have the laundress step up and lay something on her tray. Mary Jane had to hold tight to keep from spilling something she was so surprised!

"I guess this must be yours, little girl," the laundress said, "I found it in one of the sheets." And Mary Jane looked and saw her Kewpie that she had hunted so hard to find.

"Oh, that must be my fault!" exclaimed mother. "I gathered the sheets up in such a hurry this morning that I quite forgot to look for Kewpie--I'm sorry!"

Mary Jane looked up at the kindly face of the new laundress, "Thank you so much," she said, "and I'm coming down to see you after I have eaten my lunch."

So as soon as she had lunched and had carried her tray back to the kitchen table, she hurried downstairs to the laundry. That new laundress seemed to know a great deal about little girls and to like them for she answered all Mary Jane's questions and told stories and didn't seem to be bothered a bit by having a little guest.

"There!" she said finally, "I'm ready to hang out. Do you want to come along to the yard and hold the clothes pins?"

"I'll come pretty soon," said Mary Jane, and then she added importantly, "I have something I want to do first."

"Come along then, when you're through," answered the laundress unsuspiciously, and she picked up the heavy basket and went out of doors.

Left alone, Mary Jane slipped over to the wringer--that was the one thing above all others in the laundry that interested her and she did want to see how it worked. She turned the handle slowly three or four times, watching the cogs as she did so to see how they fit into each other so neatly and then so quickly slipped out again.

"I do think that's funny," she said thoughtfully; "there must be something in there that makes them act so, I guess I'd better see what it is." And slowly turning the handle with one hand, she stuck an inquiring finger in between the cogs.

Of the few minutes that followed, Mary Jane never had a very good idea. She knew she must have screamed with the pain of a hurt finger because the laundress rushed in from the yard, mother came from upstairs and in a few minutes Aunt Effie hurried breathlessly down the stairs. Then, before long, the doctor was there too, and her finger was all tied up with sticks on each side and father hurried in the front door and asked her how she'd like a nice, long, Christmasy stick of candy. It all happened just that quick.

"I think things is so funny," said Mary Jane later as she luxuriously licked her candy. "If Marie Georgiannamore hadn't hid and if Kewpie hadn't gone to the washing and if I hadn't wondered about that wringer thing, I wouldn't have had this candy that I've wanted for--for ninety-seven days."

"Yes," agreed the doctor as he went out of the door, "things is funny. And my advice to you, young lady, is this; next time you want to see how a wringer works, ask before you investigate. Another time you might lose, instead of bruise, your finger."

"I will," nodded Mary Jane, "only I don't want to know how it works any more--I know enough now, I do."

JUNIOR'S SHOWER BATH

It's very funny to go around the house with your finger tied up in a bandage and two strips of wood--that is, it's funny the first day. By the second day it's queer and after that it's no fun at all; it's a bother.

Long before Mary Jane was allowed to use her hand again she had decided that never, _never_, NEVER would she poke her finger into anything. It takes only a second to poke a finger in but it takes a good long time to get a badly hurt finger well, she had learned that.

For the first three days Aunt Effie played with her all the day long and that wasn't so bad. They played dress up and school and Aunt Effie showed her how she had school when she was a little girl. And they made new dresses for all the dolls; and straightened the drawers of all the doll dressers and--well, they did every single thing that Mary Jane could think of or Aunt Effie could plan. And then, without a minute's warning a telegram came; a telegram which said that Aunt Effie must come home at once because her sister was sick.

And after that Mary Jane was lonesome, oh, so very lonesome and she couldn't think of half enough things to do to fill the days. For, you see, Mrs. Merrill had her duties and father had to go to his work and Alice had her school and Doris had the chicken pox so no one, much as they might have wished to, could spend every minute of the day with a little girl who was perfectly well except for a hurt finger. That little girl had to play by herself a part of the time.

Mary Jane was standing by her mother's dresser, a couple of mornings after Aunt Effie left, when the cleaning woman came into the room to give it its weekly cleaning.

"Why don't you help here, Mary Jane?" suggested Mrs. Merrill; "you could dust my dresser things with your well hand and lay each thing, as you dust it, on the bed. Then I'll shake the dresser cover and Amanda will put the dust sheet on the bed and everything will be ready for cleaning in a jiffy."

If there was one thing above another that Mary Jane loved to do, it was to handle the pretty things on her mother's dresser. Ordinarily she wasn't allowed to touch a thing there, so she quickly replied, "Yes, mother, I'd love to help," and then took the dusting cloth Mrs. Merrill handed her and set to work.

She dusted off the pin tray and the toilet water bottle and brushed the fringe of the lamp shade--she knew exactly what to do because she had watched her mother many times.

"There, now!" she said in a satisfied voice, "it's all ready for the cover cloth. Can you put it on, 'Manda?" Amanda Rice was the good cleaning woman who came every week to set the Merrill house in apple pie order; she and Mary Jane were fast friends.

"Jest a little minite, honey," replied Amanda, "soon as ever I gets this rain room clean."

Just off Mrs. Merrill's room was a tiny room which opened also into the bathroom and in this tiny room was a shower bath. Amanda insisted on calling it the rain room because the water came down from the ceiling like rain; and she always seemed to have a fear that something about that room would hurt her. She was most particular to clean that room before she did either the bathroom or Mrs. Merrill's room--she seemed to want the bad job out of the way.

Perhaps when Mary Jane asked her to hurry with the cover cloth, Amanda hurried a little too fast with her scouring of faucets or perhaps she was just careless. However it happened, she turned on the cold water and it poured over her from the ceiling in an ice cold shower.

"Heavens! Honey! Lor' a mercy! De water hit me!" she shouted and she ran, dripping and screaming out of the shower room, out of the bedroom and down the hall.

Mrs. Merrill came hurrying to see what the matter might be and Mary Jane jumped to turn off the water before it should splatter out on the bedroom floor. And then, while Mrs. Merrill was busy comforting Amanda and hunting some dry clothes for her, Mary Jane sat down on the bed room floor to think. How funny Amanda had looked with the water running all over her clothes! Mary Jane, who had been used to a shower bath from the time she was a tiny little girl, had never before realized how funny it seemed to other folks. "I expect Doris would think it was funny," she thought. "I wonder if she knows about it. And wouldn't Junior look--" but Mrs. Merrill bustled into the room just then and Mary Jane had no more time for thoughts.

Mrs. Merrill worked rapidly to make up for lost time. She shook the dresser scarf out of the window, brushed off the window-seat pillows and finished making the room ready for Amanda. "Now, dear," she said to Mary Jane when everything was finished, "Amanda is coming in here to sweep, why don't you go out and play a while with Junior? See? He's out in the yard. If you play nicely, you won't hurt your finger, I'm sure."

Mary Jane didn't care much about playing with Junior just then; she would far rather have stayed and help Amanda sweep. So she walked very slowly down the stairs and out of doors and was none too cordial in her greeting to Junior. But he didn't seem to mind and as it's very hard to keep on snubbing a person who doesn't notice he is being snubbed, Mary Jane soon gave it up and they began making mud pies. Nice goo-y mud pies out of the black mud in the to-be-geranium bed near the house.

But hardly had they finished their pies and arranged them on the edge of the porch to bake, before Junior's mother called him to come home.

"She's always calling you home," protested Mary Jane, "but I 'pose you'll have to go or you can't ever come over here again!"

"Yes," agreed Junior, "I'd better go home. But I'll come back again." And he started to wipe his muddy hands on his trousers.

"Oh, don't, Junior!" cried Mary Jane. "You know what your mother'll say! She don't like mud pies anyway. Come into the house and wash 'em before you go."

The two children skipped into the house and upstairs to the bathroom where Mary Jane filled the bowl with warm water--then she thought of something.

"Do you like to walk out of doors in the rain?" she asked craftily.

"Yes," replied Junior in surprise, "only my mother won't let me."

"Don't you think she'd let you if it rained indoors?"

"I don't know, 'cause it don't," replied Junior decidedly.

"Yes, it does, it does at our house," said Mary Jane. "You stand inside this door, and I'll show you."

Junior seemed to have some objection to closets so it took coaxing to get him where Mary Jane wanted him. But when, on careful inspection, he found that this closet had two doors, quite unlike other closets he was acquainted with, and also that it looked very harmless, he stepped over the high sill and onto the tile floor. Quick as a flash Mary Jane reached up and turned on the water--and down came the deluge!

Water so cold that it took his breath away so he couldn't scream and then, in a minute, so hot that it burned him, descended from the spray in the ceiling and soaked him to the skin. Mary Jane sat on the door sill, in all the splatter, and laughed and laughed. Junior grabbed for the door and shook it trying to get out--just as Mrs. Merrill opened the door from her bedroom onto the sight. Junior darted passed her and ran down the stairs, dripping water and mud from his dirty hands on every step and screaming at the top of his voice all the way.

"What in the world--" began Mrs. Merrill.

"We was just talking about water from the sky in the house," explained Mary Jane innocently, "and Junior was surprised to see it come. I guess he thought water from the sky in the house would be dry," she added.

"And I," said Mrs. Merrill as she took off her dusting cap and reaching into the clothes closet for her coat, "will have to leave my work and go over and explain and apologize. Mary Jane, you sit right there on that chair till I come back and you can't have another little playmate over this week--not one!"

Mary Jane sat down on the big chair and started counting the boards in the floor. "One, two, three, six nine seven, ten," she said to herself patiently. "Then if nobody can come to see me, I guess I'll have to find somebody right in this house. I wonder--"

What did she wonder?--wait and see.

PLAYMATE DOROTHY

"You sit right there, Dorothy, and make yourself at home," said Mary Jane, "and I'll get Marie Georgiannamore for you to play with."

"What in the world!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill to herself as she passed Mary Jane's door on the morning after Junior had had his shower bath. "Who can be there now? I particularly told Mary Jane not to invite any children in, this week." She opened the door and was already to say, "Whose little girl are you?" as she usually did to new friends that Mary Jane brought home. But this time there wasn't any little girl there! Only Mary Jane and her dolls and her teddy bears playing as contentedly as you please.

"Oh!" laughed Mrs. Merrill, much relieved, "that's a joke on me, Mary Jane; I thought you were talking to some new little girl. I didn't know that you had named one of your dolls Dorothy."

"I was talking to a little girl," answered Mary Jane solemnly, "and I haven't changed the name of one of my dolls--not one."

"Well, that's nice," said Mrs. Merrill, but she didn't pay more than half attention to what Mary Jane said because she just happened to think of something that she surely must order from the grocery as soon as she could get downstairs. "I'm glad you are having such a good time." And she kissed her little daughter lightly and went away.

"You'll have to excuse her, Dorothy," apologized Mary Jane, "grown folks don't know much sometimes and I'm sure she didn't see you or she'd have asked you to stay for lunch." She pulled two chairs over to the window seat, got out paper and colored pencils and then sat down in one chair. "Now you make snow on your paper and I'll make a picture."

For some minutes there was quiet in the nursery except for the sound of Mary Jane's pencil rubbing, rubbing on the paper.

"There!" she said at last, "there's a cow and two chickens and a strawberry like they have at my great-grandmother's that Dr. Smith told me about. Let's see your snow," she added politely. She picked up the blank piece of white paper that lay in front of the other chair and looked at it thoughtfully. "You do make nice snow, Dorothy," she said, "it's so clean and white. Now let's go down and see if lunch is ready."

When she reached the door of the nursery, she stepped back to let some one pass out in front of her and as she went downstairs she was careful to keep well to one side so that there was plenty of room for some one to walk beside her. She went through the empty living room, through the dining room and out into the kitchen where her mother was working.