Mary Jane slept late on the morning after the party. By the time she was awake enough to realize that another day had come, she discovered that she was alone upstairs. She ran to the top of the stairs and looked over the railing. No one was in the hall and sounds from the dining room told her that the family was at breakfast.

"I'll just surprise them," she said to herself, "and show them how much a big girl like me can do." She ran back into her room and put on her slippers and her kimono; she went into the bathroom and washed her hands and face and brushed her teeth and then she slipped soundlessly down the stairs. At the door of the dining room she stopped to get a good breath with which to say "Boo-o-o-o!" and as she took her breath she heard her father say, "Well, if you really think it's all right for her to go—five years old seems pretty young to me for such a trip."

"Of course it would be if she went alone—I wouldn't even think of that!" answered Mrs. Merrill's voice, "but with Dr. Smith to look after her and Alice coming as soon as school is out—I believe it will do the child good."

"So do I," exclaimed Mary Jane, darting into the room, the "booo" quite forgotten.

"Now, you'll have to tell her," laughed father, "and of course she won't want to go.

"Of course I will," laughed Mary Jane gayly. "Where am I going, mother?"

"Do you think you are old enough to go visit your great-grandmother Hodges all by yourself?" asked mother.

"With my own trunk and my own ticket, and my own pocket book and my own conductor?" demanded Mary Jane, who could hardly believe what she heard.

"With your own trunk and pocket book," said Mrs. Merrill, "but I don't know about the ticket and the conductor because Dr. Smith is coming again and he will take you back with him if we will let you go and trust him to look after you on the journey. Do you think you'd like to go?"

"I don't think it, I know it!" cried Mary Jane, and she danced around the table with her kimono flying out behind her. "Can I go to-day?"

"Hardly!" laughed Mrs. Merrill. "We have to buy you some strong shoes for the country and make you some rompers to play with the chickens in and pack your trunk and, oh, a lot of things before you can go."

"Well, a lot of things won't take very long because I'll help," said Mary Jane eagerly, "see? I'll climb right up and eat my oatmeal without you telling me to—that's how I'll help."

Mr. and Mrs. Merrill both laughed and Mr. Merrill, as he rose from the table, said, "If you will eat your breakfast, just as you know you should, every morning while you are gone, I really think I'll let you go." (For, you see, Mary Jane hadn't ever liked her oatmeal.) And when Mary Jane promised solemnly that she would, he said it was all settled.

Such fun as there was after that! Alice and Mrs. Merrill sat at the table long after father left for work and they planned out just how many weeks it was till Alice could go to the country too, and how many weeks there were after that till Mr. and Mrs. Merrill could come for his vacation and how many rompers Mary Jane ought to have and how many pairs of shoes and rubbers and how big a sun hat Mary Jane needed. And then, after Alice had gone to school, Mary Jane helped her mother with the morning work so they got off very early for down town and the shopping.

And that evening, when father got home, he carried the steamer trunk down from the attic and Mary Jane began packing.

By noon of the next day, she had the trunk so full of dolls and doll clothes and teddy bears and books that it couldn't possibly shut and she hadn't put in it one single thing to wear—not a single thing!

"You seem to think that there isn't going to be anything to play with in the country," said Mr. Merrill when Mary Jane showed him her morning's work. "Must you take all your city things? I should think you would leave those here and play with grandmother's things while you are at her house."

"Will she have anything for a little girl?" asked Mary Jane in surprise.

"If she hasn't, you come right back home," laughed father, "but I don't worry about that. I think she has more than you'll need."

So after lunch Mary Jane took all the playthings and the dolls out of the trunk and put them neatly into the closet and that was much better for then there was plenty of room in the trunk for clothes and for two mysterious packages which Mary Jane saw her mother put in the very bottom. And it was a good thing that she put everything away so nicely for at three o'clock Dr. Smith telephoned that he was unexpectedly called home and could Mary Jane go home with him that very night?

Mr. Merrill was phoned to and he said he would tend to the ticket and the trunk check. Mrs. Merrill packed the trunk and Alice, who happened home from school in just the nick of time, bathed and dressed Mary Jane for the train. So that by the time Dr. Smith came out to dine with them the trunk was packed and gone, the little traveler was dressed and everything about the house was back in apple pie order.

Mary Jane was so excited she could hardly eat a bit of dinner but Dr. Smith said it wouldn't matter so much because she could have some good fresh eggs and two glasses of milk and some of Grandmother Hodges' corn bread for breakfast.

It's pretty exciting to go off on the train at night and leave your father and mother and sister. Mary Jane found that out; and she got a queer lump in her throat on the way to the station. A lump that for some reason or other grew bigger and bigger when father held her snugly as he lifted her out of the car and that nearly made her cry when mother held tight onto her hand as they went through the station.

But fortunately the train came in just then and with the seeing that the trunk was really put on and kissing folks good-by and sending a message to Doris and meeting the big jolly conductor and giving her hand bag to the porter and laughing at Dr. Smith's funny jokes and all that—the lump didn't get as troublesome as Mary Jane had feared it would. She got into her section in time to wave good-by to the three on the platform as the train pulled out and then, before she had a chance to feel lonesome, Dr. Smith said, "Did you ever see them work a bed on a train?"

"Work a bed?" asked Mary Jane. "What's that?"

"Make up a bed, I mean," laughed Dr. Smith. "Did you ever see how the bed works when it is made up? Here, Sambo," and the doctor held his hand high and motioned to the porter, "this little girl wants to know how she's going to sleep, she doesn't see any bed."

"She'll see in a minute, sir, jest a littl' minute," said the good natured porter and he slipped off his blue coat; put on a white one; took down part of the ceiling and, right before Mary Jane's astonished eyes, made up a bed. Mary Jane thought it was most amazing. She watched every move he made and decided that when she grew up she was going to be a bed maker on a train because it was so much more fun than making beds at home.

When the bed was all ready, Dr. Smith helped her take off her shoes and tuck them into a little hammock that hung over the window; then he unbuttoned her dress and helped her climb into her berth bed. Mary Jane took off her dress, hung it on the rack just as her mother had told her to do and settled herself comfy for the night. But suddenly she remembered that she hadn't told the kind Dr. Smith "good night." She fumbled with the curtains till she got a crack open and through that she stuck her curly head.

"Good night, Dr. Smith," she said when she spied him sitting close by, across the aisle, "I'm glad I'm going with you and I like sleeping on a train and I'm very glad that you live next door to my dear great-grandmother."

"I'm glad too," replied the doctor. "Now you go straight to sleep, little lady, so you will have roses in your cheeks when you get to grandmother's in the morning."

And if you want to know of all the fun and good times that Mary Jane had with the pigs and horses and chickens and strawberries she found at her great-grandmother's house, you'll have to read—

"MARY JANE—HER VISIT."

*****

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