Chapter 6

The day after the call at the Westlands the postman brought a letter from Mrs. Merrill which said that Alice could come to her grandfather's in two days if that would be convenient. Grandfather was very fond of Alice; she had visited there before and he was hoping she would have a nice long stay there this summer. So, as soon as he read the letter he got out his car, took Mary Jane with him and went into the village to telegraph that Alice should come at once.

The next morning Mary Jane helped her grandmother clean the room that Alice was to have--it was just across the hall from Mary Jane's and was so quaint and cozy with its old-fashioned furniture and ruffled white curtains. Then the next day Grandmother made a great jar full of cookies; Mary Jane loved that because Grandmother let her cut out some. They made stars and crescents and squares and some just plain round ones; and Mary Jane put the sugar and nuts over the top, too. Then they made apple pies and berry pies and a tart of each kind for Mary Jane's dinner and supper that day. Mary Jane decided then and there that she was going to be a good cook when she grew up because cooking was about the most fun of anything she had ever tried.

On the morning Alice was to come, Mary Jane got up early; dressed herself as quickly as possible and ran down the stairs. Just in the nick of time she was too, for Grandfather was ready to start to the station.

"Take me, please take me along!" she called as she heard him crank up his car.

"Hello, Pussy; you up?" he answered; "to be sure you may go along. Get your grandmother to give you a big piece of coffee cake to eat on the way and we'll be off."

Grandmother heard what he said and had the coffee cake ready as Mary Jane ran into the kitchen. A wonderful big piece, she cut, all full of sugary, buttery "wells" that Mary Jane liked so much. She wrapped it in a napkin so it wouldn't get Mary Jane's dress sticky with its sweetness, threw a woolen scarf around the little girl's shoulders for the early morning air was cool and waved a good-by as they rode out of the yard.

They reached the station just as the great train pulled in and saw the conductor and porter help Alice down the steps of the car. Mary Jane thought she had never seen any one look so nice in all her life! Grandfather set her out of the auto and she ran as fast as ever she could and threw her arms around her sister. Alice held her tight a minute and then turned to kiss her grandfather.

"So you're here all right, Blunderbuss," said Grandfather heartily, using the nickname he had given her long ago, "and you haven't lost a bit of your hair!" Alice laughed as he looked admiringly at her long golden braids.

"I haven't," she replied teasingly, "but I can't say as much for you!" And she laughed at her grandfather's bald head.

"Such a girl! Such a girl!" exclaimed Grandfather proudly; "now I suppose I'll have to get your trunk and take you home and stand your teasing the rest of the summer!" And in mock dismay he went for the trunk the baggage man had tossed off the train.

That was the beginning of more fun for Mary Jane. First there was the house and farm which must be shown to Alice just as carefully as though she had never seen it before. Then there were all the jolly things that Alice thought of to do--Alice was always thinking up something to do, it seemed. She fixed up a saddle for the lamb and taught Mary Jane to ride. She tied tiny bells on the rabbits so they could be more easily found. She helped Mary Jane take the ducks down to the creek at the end of the pasture and turn them into the water. Mary Jane thought it perfectly wonderful that they should know how to swim--"just as though they had taken regular lessons, Grandfather," she said as she told him about it afterwards. And Alice learned how to make bread--with Mary Jane helping to turn the crank of the bread mixer so she wouldn't feel left out.

On the third day of Alice's visit Frances Westland came over to play and the three little girls went out into the front yard and wondered what they would do.

"I wish we had doll houses here like we have at home," said Mary Jane. "I know Frances would like to play with doll houses."

"But you haven't any here," said Frances practically.

"Maybe we can get some," said Alice thoughtfully; "we ought to be able to find something to make a doll house out of. Let's hunt."

"Where'll we hunt?" asked Mary Jane.

"Let me see," said Alice. She looked around the yard but saw nothing that interested her. She looked across the road to Grandmother's lot and saw all the grasses and brush that flourished there.

"We ought to be able to find something over there," she said; "let's hunt."

So the three little girls scrambled over the fence and roamed through the lot. The lamb was used to a good deal of petting and he supposed, of course, that was what they had come for. So he poked himself into their way at every step.

"No, sir," said Alice, laughing; "we didn't come to play with you to-day! You run along, sir!" She rubbed her hand over his back to push him away and something rough and pricky scratched her. She pulled at his wool and a small brown burr came off in her hand.

"Look! Girls!" she cried suddenly. "If he got this, there must be more in the lot!"

"Of course!" said Frances, looking scornfully at the burr Alice held up for her to see; "there's a million over there--see? They're an awful nuisance, burrs are, even this early in the season."

"They may be a nuisance," laughed Alice, "but I'll venture to say they'll make good doll houses for all that. Here! I'll show you what I think we can do." She ran over to where Frances had pointed out a lot of burrs, pulled off a handful and began sticking them together. "Yes, it works," she said in a satisfied tone, "but let's not stop to make the houses here. Let's gather a lot of burrs and take them over to Grandmother's front yard. Then we can make a whole village!"

Frances and Mary Jane didn't quite see how a village was to come out of a lot of burrs, but Alice was so sure of what she was going to do that they thought she must be right. So they gathered up their skirts and filled them with burrs and then helped each other back over the fence.

Under the big pine tree, where the ground was the levelest of any place in the yard, Alice had them spread out all their burrs.

"Now," she said when the burrs were ready, "you make them stick together--so. Make eight rows of six burrs each. That will be the floor of the house. Then start up the sides for walls."

Frances and Mary Jane got the idea in a minute and they set to work in a jiffy. Such fun as it was! The houses and barns and churches grew so rapidly that none of the girls gave a minute's thought to pricked fingers--there wasn't time! When the stock of burrs was entirely used up, Alice set the houses along in a straight line as though they were on a street. Frances put the barns back of the houses where they belonged and Mary Jane ran to her garden for nasturtiums to lay by the houses for gardens.

"But we haven't any dolls to live in the houses!" exclaimed Frances suddenly.

"That's easy," said Alice; "I've made dolls before. Grandmother showed me how years ago. Come on and we'll get some."

She led the girls back to the orchard, where by now tiny green apples were lying on the ground, scattered there by the summer winds.

"You girls get all the apples you can while I get the toothpicks." And she ran to the house.

"What does she mean?" asked Frances, who wasn't used to this sort of play.

"I don't know, but let's do what she says and then we'll find out," answered Mary Jane, who had great confidence in this big sister of hers. They filled their skirts with apples of all sizes and hurried back to the front yard where Alice, carrying a box of toothpicks, met them.

"Now we'll all make dolls," said Alice as she spread out the picks. "Use the biggest apples for the body; stick in two toothpicks for arms and two for legs. And a middle-sized apple makes the head. Then take another toothpick and mark out eyes and nose and mouth--so!" And she set up the finished doll for the girls to see.

Frances and Mary Jane picked up apples and went to work too, and first thing they knew there was a doll standing in front of each house. They were just starting on animals, pigs and horses and cows which Alice showed them how to make, when Grandmother came out with a pitcher of lemonade and a basket of cookies. So the burr making turned into a party which lasted till Mr. Westland came tooting along the road and Frances had to go home.

EARNING MONEY

"Now if I only had a camera," said Alice as she and Mary Jane and her grandmother were sitting out on the back porch one morning, shelling peas for dinner, "I'd take a picture of you both. Wouldn't it make a good one?"

Grandmother looked at Mary Jane. The sunshine splattered through the cracks between the vine-covered lattice and shone on her bobbed brown hair, on her pink play dress and on the bright green pea pods in her lap. Mary Jane looked at her grandmother and saw the snow white hair, the kindly face that smiled above the big work apron and the busy hands.

"Wouldn't it, though!" they both exclaimed at exactly the same minute. And then they all three had a good laugh.

"All the same I wish I had a camera," insisted Alice.

"Does your mother think you're old enough to know how to use one?" asked Grandmother.

"Old enough, Grandmother!" exclaimed Mary Jane. "Alice's twelve!" And the way she said twelve showed that she thought twelve was very, very old indeed.

Grandmother smiled and Alice added, "She's willing I should have one, Grandmother, only I must buy it myself. And saving money out of my allowance is slow work. I've a dollar now but I need seventy-five cents more."

"Seems to me you should be able to earn that much," said Grandmother.

"Earn it?" asked Alice. "How?"

"Oh, by some sort of work," answered Grandmother.

"Oh, could I really?" exclaimed Alice delightedly. "What could I do?"

"Could I earn some too?" asked Mary Jane eagerly.

"What do you want money for?" laughed Alice, as though a little girl wouldn't have use for such a thing as money! "You always want to do everything, Mary Jane!"

"Of course she does," said Grandmother comfortably, "and you do too. The thing I'm thinking about is more fun if done by two anyway. But what do you want your money for, dear?" she asked the little girl.

"I want it to get a present for my dear mother," said Mary Jane, "a present that she don't know anything about and that Daddah don't know anything about and that nobody gives me the money for. Can I really truly earn some money?"

"Surely," replied Grandmother. "See those woods, girls?" She pointed across the garden and across the cornfield to the woods about a quarter of a mile away. "In those woods are blackberry bushes, lots of them. And this is about the beginning of the blackberry season. Now if you girls really want to earn some money you may take your little baskets and go berrying. I'll buy all you can pick at ten cents a quart. You ought to easily get your seventy-five cents that way, Alice, for the bushes ate usually loaded with berries."

"But the berries are yours to begin with," objected Alice, who liked to be fair; "we can't sell you something that already belongs to you."

"Of course you can't," replied Grandmother, much pleased with Alice's honesty. "I shouldn't have said 'buy the berries'; I should have said 'pay you for the picking' at ten cents a quart. If I 'bought' the berries of any one I would have to pay fifteen or twenty cents a quart. And if I hired some one to pick them for me as I have some years, I would have to pay ten cents a quart, just as I offered you. So, you see, I promised you no more than you will fairly earn."

"How do you pick berries?" asked Alice.

"There's only one way," laughed Grandmother, much amused at the question. "You touch them and off they come! Just pick them off the bushes and drop them in your basket and the thing is done."

"Let's go now," said Mary Jane eagerly.

"Not now," answered Grandmother, "because it's too near dinner time. Wait till you have your dinner and a little rest of half an hour. Then you can start and pick all afternoon."

By two o'clock the girls had hunted up the berry baskets Grandmother told them to find in the attic (cunning little baskets with long, curving handles they were, too) and, tying on their biggest sun hats, they started out through the garden path.

They crossed the field, climbed the fence into the woods and turned down the wagon road as Grandmother had directed them. And sure enough, there were the berry bushes just as she had said. Bushes that were fairly loaded with shining blackberries that glistened in the afternoon sunshine.

The girls set to work most enthusiastically and by the time Grandfather came to see how they liked their job (for, of course, he had heard all about it at dinner time) they had their baskets nearly full. He walked home with them and helped them measure out their berries with Grandmother's quart measure. Alice had a quart and a half and Mary Jane a full, even quart and Grandmother paid immediately--fifteen cents for Alice and ten cents, a bright new dime, for Mary Jane.

"My, but I do be rich!" exclaimed Mary Jane delightedly. "I can get my dear mother the nicest thing!"

"Of course you can, Pussy," said Grandfather, "and Alice will have her camera in no time. I get the best of all, though," he added with a mysterious nod of his head.

"How do you?" asked both girls at once.

"I get to eat the jam!" replied Grandfather in a comical attempt at a whisper.

"They do too, bless their hearts!" exclaimed Grandmother. They shall eat all they want. I'll make it first thing in the morning."

"And first thing in the morning I mean to get more berries," said Alice. "Let me see--fifteen into seventy-five:--in four more days I'll have enough money to get my camera!" And she danced around gayly, she was so delighted.

"Not quite," laughed Grandfather; "don't be in too big a hurry, Blunderbuss; you have to give the berries a chance to ripen. Better plan to go every other day. You'll get more at a time that way."

"And I'm going, too," put in Mary Jane, "so I can get more money for Mother's present."

"I was thinking about that present while you girls were gone," said Grandmother. "You'd better get that present in the city where the stores are good. Why don't you save it for her Christmas gift? That would be nice."

"But I wanted to give her something when she comes to take me home!" objected Mary Jane, who had set her heart on making her mother a gift, "something that I did."

"That's all right," Grandmother assured her; "give her something then, too. Something you made yourself and save the money you earn till Christmas. How would you like to make her some blackberry jam? She likes blackberry jam and you could make that."

"Could I really?" exclaimed Mary Jane, and she sidled over to where her grandmother was standing.

"How silly!" cried Alice. "You know she can't make jam, Grandmother; she's only five years old. Why, even I don't know how to make jam and I'm twelve!"

"Is that so?" laughed Grandmother, and she slipped her arm around Mary Jane. "Well, what you can do and what Mary Jane can do has no connection. You don't know what she can do. She's going to be a good cook; she's begun already. And if she wants to make a glass of jam for her mother, all by herself, she shall do it, so there! And you can make some, too, if you want to, dear," she added kindly to Alice.

"Thank you, Grandmother," said Alice, "and I'm sorry I spoke so about you, dear," she added to Mary Jane; "go ahead and make your jam, pet, and I'll make Mother something else. I know it would be more fun for you to make it without me. May I make her a cake, Grandmother? Make it the day before she comes?"

Grandmother assured her that she could and they all went in to get supper.

The next morning Mary Jane put on her cooking cap and apron and she and Grandmother went at the jam while Alice and Grandfather rode to the village on an errand.

"Measure out a good big cup full of berries," said Grandmother; "pile it full as it will hold and wash them and put them in this pan."

Mary Jane picked out nice big, juicy berries; that wasn't hard to do because most of the berries were very fine; the girls hadn't picked any other kind. Then she washed them carefully and put them in the pan Grandmother had given her.

"Now measure an even cupful of sugar," said Grandmother, "and pour it over your berries." And Mary Jane went to the sugar bin and did as she was told.

"Now," continued Grandmother, "shake the berries till the sugar's well mixed in and then set the pan on the stove."

While the berries were cooking Grandmother had her hunt out a nice jelly glass, one that the top fitted on firmly; wash and dry it ready for the jelly. Then Mary Jane took a big spoon and Grandmother took a big spoon and they stood by the stove and watched the jam boil. When the bubbles got big, oh, very big, and looked as shining as big glass beads, Grandmother said it was about done and must be tested. She put her spoon in and then, holding it over the pan of jam, let the hot jam drop off.

"Almost done," said Grandmother, with a satisfied nod; "now you try it, Mary Jane."

So Mary Jane dipped her spoon in just as her grandmother had done and again the jam dropped off, this time a little slower and with longer drops. Grandmother told her to put the glass on a chair, on a paper, and by the time she had done that the jam was ready to pour into the glass.

When Alice and Grandfather came home from their errand the glass of jam was all done and was on the table near the window, covered neatly with its tin cover ready to give to Mrs. Merrill when she should come.

"And that won't be so many days now either," said Grandmother. "I declare, how this summer has gone!"

THE PICNIC AT FLATROCK

On the very day that Alice counted out her money and found she had the seventy-five cents she needed for her much wanted camera and that Mary Jane had fifty cents, there came a telegram from Mrs. Merrill saying that she and Mr. Merrill would arrive the next morning for a stay of ten days.

"Now this is something like old times," said Grandmother happily as she and the two girls bustled around making ready for the guests. "Lots of cooking to do and two nice girls to help me do it. Seems like the days when our own girls were here! Mary Jane, you've done plenty of dusting for today; you go and get your grandfather to pick out two nice fat chickens for frys while I teach Alice about making her cake. She's going to have a beauty to show her mother, that's what she is!"

Mary Jane liked doing things with her jolly grandfather, so she skipped out happily and found him in the barn.

"Pick out some frys, should we?" he said. "All right, that suits me, only we'll fool her, Mary Jane; we'll get _three_! I believe in having enough, I do."

"What we going to do to-morrow, Pussy?" he asked when that job was done.

"Why, we're going to get Mother and Father at the train and then we're coming home."

"Oh, yes, I know that," said Grandfather, "but let's do more than that. Let's have a picnic to celebrate their coming."

"Oh, Grandfather!" exclaimed Mary Jane, "could we?"

"We certainly could," said Grandfather, "and I think it would be a fine thing to do. There's a full moon and we could go about four and come home by moonlight. Let's see what your grandmother and Alice think about it."

Grandmother and Alice were enthusiastic. "I can take my cake!" exclaimed Alice eagerly. "It's a beautiful cake, Grandfather, see?" she said proudly. "It's all done but the frosting and I'm going to put that on as soon as it's cool enough."

"Looks good enough to eat," said Grandfather admiringly, "and I'm sure it will be fine to-morrow."

"And I can take my frys," said Grandmother, planning; "your father loves cold fried chicken, girls," she added, "and maybe your mother will make a bowl of her fine salad to-morrow while I make a custard--yes, Father, that's just what we'll do. We'll have a picnic. Where'll we go?"

"To Flatrock," replied Grandfather, who had decided that point long ago, "and you needn't plan too much fixyness because Mary Jane and I have a surprise."

"Oh, goody!" cried Mary Jane. "What is it?" Everybody laughed at that and Grandfather took the little girl out to the garden to show her what the secret was. But they didn't tell anybody else what it was--I should say not!

It was lucky there was plenty to do that day, and many interesting things to plan for the picnic; for, even so, Mary Jane thought the day would never end--never. She hadn't realized she was so anxious to see her mother till she knew the long separation was so nearly over.

"To-morrow I'll see my mother! To-morrow I'll see my mother! To-morrow I'll see my mother!" she whispered over and over to herself as she went to sleep, and she thought it was the best news she ever told herself.

She was awake and up the first of any one in the house the next morning, and long before Grandfather was ready to start she was out sitting in the automobile.

"Look who thinks she's going to the station!" exclaimed Grandfather. "'Fraid you can't go this time, Pussy; there won't be room."

"Oh, _Grandfather_!" exclaimed Mary Jane over the big lump that suddenly came into her throat, "I _must_ go to see my _mother_!" And then she looked at her grandfather and saw the twinkle in his eye. "You're just teasing, aren't you, Grandfather?" she added anxiously.

"Yes, I am, and I ought to be shot for it, so there!" said Grandfather, who, when he saw how eager she was, regretted his hasty teasing. "Surely you can go--we'll start in two minutes."

It wasn't more than a second after her father and mother got off the great train before Mary Jane was held tight in her mother's arms and oh, how good it did feel to be there! "I didn't know how much I did want you," cried Mary Jane, "till you're here!"

Mother replied with a satisfying whisper and another pair of kisses, one on each rosy cheek, and then Father had to have his hug and they started gayly home.

After breakfast Mary Jane showed them all the creatures she had learned to love--from the lamb in the pasture lot to the ducks that now lived down by the creek. Then they went back into the house and Mary Jane gave her mother the glass of jam made all by herself (and you can just guess how proud and happy Mrs. Merrill was over _such_ a gift!) and Alice showed her cake.

"Look's good enough to eat right now," said Mr. Merrill, smacking his lips; "let's have a piece."

"I should say not!" exclaimed Alice; "that's to take to the picnic!"

So then they told all about the plan for the picnic, and Father and Mother were pleased just as everybody had known they would be. And every one set to work at the pleasant preparations.

Mrs. Merrill, Grandmother and Alice stayed in the kitchen, while Mr. Merrill joined Mary Jane and Grandfather in making preparations for the secret. They didn't let any one see a thing of what they were doing and they carefully covered up the big basket that they stowed away in the back of the car.

At three o'clock they were off and with such good company and over fine roads the twenty-five mile ride to Flatrock seemed all too short.

"Now you folks who think you have the eats," said Grandfather as they all got out of the car, "can just fool around any way you like. Mary Jane and I are going to build a fire for the coffee her father and I will be sure to want."