Chapter 8

"That's a basket they'll like to open," said Alice, proudly, as she tucked the brand new comforter Mrs. Merrill had made, around the top, "they'll be so happy they won't hardly be able to wait till they can put 'em on!"

The third basket was fully as interesting as the others. It was a big, big one and in it the girls packed groceries, cans of vegetables and soup and sugar--a very little bit to be sure for there wasn't much to be had, but the Merrills had decided to send exactly half of what they had--and oranges for breakfast and cereals and bread. Then on top, they were to put cookies and candy and the turkey. But of course those last things would go in in the morning, just before the baskets were taken away.

By the time Mr. Merrill came home, the three baskets were packed, covered up and set in the corner of the dining-room ready for morning.

"Now for the tree!" said Mr. Merrill as he took off his coat ready for work. He set their tree in the dining-room and with Alice's good help fixed a solid bottom standard and set it up in the living-room right in front of the foolish little fireplace. They wired it firmly and then Mrs. Merrill brought in the boxes of Christmas trimmings and everybody set to work.

Such fun as it was! Mary Jane kept saying, "Remember this!" And Alice added, "Remember that!" till it seemed as though it _couldn't_ be more than a week since last Christmas when they had put the same things on a tree that looked exactly like the one they were now trimming. This year, seeing Mary Jane was such a _very_ old person, she was allowed to put the gold star on the top of the tree; she climbed the ladder, with father holding one hand and wired it on all by herself; and Alice, as a special privilege, was allowed to hang the crystal icicles on every tip.

Nobody put any tinsel on the tree--that was left for the middle of the night like the story of the old time legend. Whether the spiders and the Christmas fairies, working together, really covered the tree with silver, Mary Jane never stopped to figure out. But at any rate the tree was covered with strings of gold the next morning and Mary Jane thought it the prettiest Christmas tree she had ever seen!

The very last thing before she went to bed, Mary Jane hung up her stocking. And Alice, looking a bit foolish, hung hers close by.

"I thought you two folks weren't going to have any Christmas," said Mr. Merrill teasingly.

"Of course we're not," said Mary Jane bravely, "but we want to hang our stockings just the same as if--you know." And Dadah must have understood for he nodded his head and didn't tease any more.

Nobody would say how it ever happened. Certainly it was well understood that there were to be no presents. But, anyway, when Mary Jane and Alice looked at those stockings Christmas morning they were fat, as fat could be! Just bulging over with queer shaped parcels!

Mary Jane couldn't even wait to put her slippers on! She bundled a kimono around her, grabbed up her stocking and ran into her mother's room to open it. Alice wasn't far behind and certainly for girls who were to have _no_ presents, they fared very well indeed! Santa Claus must have got his signals mixed some way! There were doll things for Marie Georgiannamore, and a ring for Mary Jane; hair ribbons, handkerchiefs, skates for Alice (think of that in a stocking!) and slippers for the little girl who forgot to put on her old pair and, oh, many lovely little things that could be tucked into a stocking.

The girls spread the things out on mother's bed and had a happy time till suddenly Mr. Merrill exclaimed, "Girls! It's eight o'clock and I ordered that taxi for nine!"

Then there _was_ a scramble! Gifts were hustled away, clothes were put on, breakfast was eaten and a few last things packed in the baskets, just as the taxi arrived.

It was fortunate Mr. Merrill had ordered a big car for with three baskets, a bundle containing the doll bed and another the turkey, to say nothing of the tree roped on the side of the car and the box of trimmings on Mrs. Merrill's lap even a big car was pretty full.

Mary Jane felt like a real Santa Claus for sure!

The family they were going to see didn't know they were coming, so when the car stopped in front of a shabby little house, three puzzled and very sober faces pressed against the window and looked out. But the sober faces soon changed. In a few minutes the mother was helping Mrs. Merrill put the turkey in to roast, the older girl was helping Mr. Merrill set the Christmas tree in place and Tom and Ellen, the little girl, were helping the Merrill girls trim the tree.

When the Merrills left the house some two hours later the turkey was almost cooked, the tree was trimmed, presents unpacked and happiness and good cheer had settled down in the little house for many a day.

It was a good thing they came away when they did, though, for exactly as they drove up to their own home, they met an express wagon. And in their own vestibule they found the driver. "Family of Merrill here?" he asked them.

"They're us," said Mary Jane eagerly. And whereupon the driver carried upstairs the biggest, fattest Christmas box Mary Jane had ever seen.

Of course it was from grandma and in it were so many lovely things from uncles and grandparents and cousins that Mary Jane thought she never would get everything unpacked!

"Well," said the little girl as some time later the family sat down to their own belated dinner, "I think for not having any presents, we got a lot! And I think I like Christmas in Chicago just as much as anywhere, I do."

A SUMMER HOME--AND A TELEGRAM

"Let's go skating!" called Frances one cold morning as she saw Alice shake the bath room rug from the balcony.

"Skating?" answered Alice, "where?"

"Down on the Midway," said Frances. "As soon as you get your work done, you and Mary Jane come around to our front door and Betty and I will be ready."

"But Mary Jane doesn't know how to skate," said Alice.

"Betty doesn't either," answered Frances, "but they can take their sleds and coast down the sides of the bank while you and I skate."

Alice promised and then she hurried inside to finish her work. She had heard about the fine skating on the Midway where the park board flooded the sunken greens for the benefit of neighborhood children, but thus far the weather had been too mild for any skating, so she hadn't had a chance to try it. But a sudden cold snap, with snow enough to cover the sloping banks, had provided both skating and coasting.

Well protected with warm mittens and leggings the girls set out and had the jolliest kind of a morning. At one end of the ice, the younger folks did their coasting, the sloping sides giving a flying start and the smooth ice a glorious finish. At the other end the older boys and girls did their skating, so there was no mix up or interference.

That morning was the first of many happy Saturday mornings spent on the ice. Even Mary Jane got some skates and, with the help of Dadah when he could get away from the office, she learned to be a fine skater.

But winter fun never lasts very long. Just about the time Mary Jane learned to skate well enough to challenge Alice to a race, the spring sun sent the ice to nowhere land and the while-ago ice pond turned to green grass! Spring had come.

With the coming of spring, Mary Jane grew very restless. She wasn't sick, but something was wrong. Something was making her very solemn and sober--quite unlike her usual lively self.

"I know what's the matter with me," she announced one warm sunny morning, "I want to dig."

"You want to dig?" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill in amazement, "well, why don't you go down and dig in the Holdens' yard? You know Mrs. Holden said you might."

"But I don't want to dig in somebody's yard," answered Mary Jane, without a spark of interest, "I want to dig in my _own_ yard and have flowers and a sand pile and everything right in my own yard, I do."

Mrs. Merrill didn't reply but she did do a lot of thinking and that evening she and Mr. Merrill had a long conference.

As a result, at breakfast table the next morning Mr. Merrill said, "How would you girls like to have a summer home of your own? A place in the woods where we could go as soon as school closes and where you could wear bloomers and play in the sand and gather flowers and make garden and all the things you love to do but can't do in the city. How would you like that?"

Mary Jane and Alice stared at him. Would they _like_ it? anybody could see by their faces that they would _love_ it!

"But we wouldn't want to leave you here in Chicago, all summer," objected Alice.

"And I wouldn't want to be left," Mr. Merrill assured them. "But I am sure, somewhere in the suburbs around Chicago there must be _some place_ we could get a summer home. And we'll make it our business to find that place."

"I thought," began Mrs. Merrill, and then she hesitated.

"Something nice?" asked Alice, encouragingly.

"It would have been nice," admitted Mrs. Merrill, "but likely we couldn't do it. I'd been thinking how pleasant it would be to take another trip this summer. You know how you girls enjoyed going to Florida. And you remember Uncle Hal graduates from Harvard this June. I had been wondering if we could go east in time to be there when the festivities are going on."

"Oh, mother!" cried Mary Jane, "what fun! I do want to ride on a train, a big train with a sleeper and a diner! But then I want to dig, too," she added, insistently.

"Then we'll take one thing at a time," suggested Mr. Merrill. "We'll look into the question of a summer home--we know we'd all like that. And you folks don't know that a very popular uncle would _want_ a grown up sister and two small nieces hanging around at commencement time," he added teasingly.

"How do you find a summer home?" asked Alice thoughtfully.

"That's what we'll have to discover," laughed Mr. Merrill. "And we'll begin this very Saturday afternoon if the weather is fine. We'll take a suburban train and ride till we see a place that looks homey and there we'll get off and hunt."

The next Saturday was warm and sunny, the kind of a day for bringing flowers into bloom and for making little girls want to play out of doors. Mrs. Merrill and the girls met Mr. Merrill at his office so as not to lose a minute's time, and they hurried right over to the station, and got aboard the first suburban train they could find.

"I think this is lots of fun," said Mary Jane as they found their seats, "we don't know where we're going--we're just going!" And the train was off.

For some time the girls were really discouraged. They passed factories, and tenements, and more factories till Mary Jane was sure they were never coming to country--real country. But suddenly, when she was about to give up, the factories were gone and from the window the girls could see wide fields and strips of woods and an occasional brook. Two or three little stations were passed and then the train ran through a beautiful stretch of woods--rolling woods all leafy and budding and flower decked. The ground was fairly covered with early blossoms and trees of wild crab were just bursting into pink bloom.

Mary Jane grabbed her coat and started down the aisle.

"Make 'em stop the train, Dadah," she said, "this is where we want to live!"

Fortunately at that minute the train really did stop at a small station and the Merrills got off and looked around. It didn't take long to explore into the woods far enough to find that they had come to the very place they were looking for--a spot not too far from the city for Mr. Merrill's daily trip and yet wild enough to give the girls some real woods. The girls picked flowers as they explored and had such a happy time that it was hard work to persuade them to go back to the city when the twilight came. But they had found the very place!

Three weeks later Mr. Merrill bought a lot in the heart of the woods, and the summer home was no longer a mere dream--it was to be really truly.

"Now," announced Alice, "we'll draw the kind of a house we want. I love to draw plans of a house!" She cleared off the dining table, sharpened pencils, brought two tablets and insisted that everybody come out and help.

And just then the door bell rang.

"Telegram for Merrill!" shouted a voice through the tube and Mary Jane pressed the buzzer in a hurry--a telegram usually meant something exciting.

It was addressed to Mrs. Merrill and said, "Have all tickets and hotel reservations. You and the girls must come." And it was signed by Mrs. Merrill's brother.

"If that isn't just like a college boy!" laughed Mrs. Merrill. "For weeks he doesn't answer a letter and then he telegraphs! Girls," she added, "let's go! Wouldn't you like to go to Boston and see the college and the ocean and the White Mountains--and--everything?"

"Oh, mother, _really_?" exclaimed Mary Jane. (She felt as though she must be dreaming, things were happening so fast!)

"But what about the summer home?" asked Alice.

"Don't you worry about the summer home," Mr. Merrill assured her, "we'll have that summer home just the same. You girls take your trip east. You won't be gone more than a couple of weeks--and what are two weeks out of a whole summer? And before you go, we'll get the shack all planned and when you come back we'll move out."

"Goody! Goody! Goody!" cried Mary Jane happily, "then I can see Uncle Hal and ride on the train and dig a garden and _everything_!"

And if you want to hear all about Mary Jane's beautiful trip to Boston and the White Mountains, the fun she had sight-seeing and the jolly party on "Class Day," you must read--

"MARY JANE IN NEW ENGLAND"

THE MARY JANE SERIES BY CLARA INGRAM JUDSON Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated. With picture inlay and wrapper.