"Mother, may I go over and get Doris this morning?" asked Mary Jane as she finished her breakfast. "I want her to come see my garden right away!"

"Not to-day," answered Mrs. Merrill. "Doris has the chicken pox so you will have to stay home for a while," And then she was called to the telephone so she didn't notice that Mary Jane ran straight for the window that looked out over Doris's yard.

"I think that's funny that I can't go over and see Doris's chickens," she said to herself rebelliously as she peered through the window. "I'm going to look, and look and look till I see them anyway, so there! And then I'll telephone to Doris." She curled up on the window seat and watched and watched her neighbor's yard but not a sign of a chicken did she see. "I should think she would have to feed them now," she said to her big sister who was hurrying off to school.

Sister Alice didn't quite understand what Mary Jane said and was in too big a hurry to stop and inquire so she merely replied hastily, "Maybe you're too late for breakfast," and ran on to school. So Mary Jane still sat at that window and still watched for chickens. Finally when her legs were beginning to get pricky and she was about ready to give up, her mother came into the room.

"Where does she keep it?" asked Mary Jane.

"Where does who keep what?" replied Mrs. Merrill, "and what is my little girl doing all this time?"

"I'm watching to see Doris's box of chickens," said Mary Jane, "do you know where it is?"

"Box of chickens!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill in amazement, and then she suddenly realized how Mary Jane had misunderstood her. "Doris has no box of chickens, dear, she has chicken POX—it's a sickness and Doris will have to stay in the house for a few days."

"Oh-h-h," said Mary Jane slowly, "so that's why I can't play with her."

"That's why," agreed Mrs. Merrill, "and now what are you going to do?"

"I guess I'll play on the porch."

"I guess not" laughed mother, "because it's beginning to rain. I'm afraid you'll have to play in the nursery. Why not play school?"

"I'm going to," replied Mary Jane, who always made up her mind very quickly. "I'm going to right now because Alice showed me how." And she skipped off gayly to the nursery.

There she pulled out every doll she had and set them in a long row on the floor.

"Marie Georgiannamore, you shall be lady-come-to-visit because you're the biggest and you are clean and new. I'll be teacher because I know the most. My sailor boy and Mary Jane, Jr., shall be the graduating class like Alice is and all the rest shall be the baby room."

Such a bustle and a hurry as there was after that! Mary Jane got out all her doll chairs, every one, and set them in two rows—one for the graduating class (a very short row of two chairs) and one for the baby room (a very long row of many chairs). She dragged out her little piano to play the songs on and got out fresh chalk for the blackboard.

"There, now, I guess we're ready to begin!" she said and she sat down in the teacher's chair up front.

For a while everything went splendidly. The sailor boy must have known his lessons well for he received very good marks—right up on the blackboard where everybody could see they were, too—and the teddy bears sat up straight and minded the rule about no whispering. But the straighter the teddy bears sat, the more particular their teacher became about the others.

"Tommy!" she announced suddenly (Tommy was the sailor doll), "I should think you would be ashamed to sit so slouchy when this good little bear sits so straight—sit up nice now!" She picked up Tommy and sat him straight in his chair, oh, so very straight—that he couldn't sit still that way, he just tumbled off onto the floor!

"Tommy! I'm ashamed of you!" she said firmly. "Sit up!" And again Tommy was pulled up straight. But evidently Tommy didn't have as much back bone as a sailor boy should have, for he tumbled right down again.

"Tommy Merrill!" cried Mary Jane, now all out of patience, "I should think you'd be ashamed to have a teddy bear sit straighter than you do! I think I'll sit you up on" (Mary Jane looked around the room to see where he had better be put) "on this radiator till you learn to behave." So, without giving Tommy a chance to explain that his back was made differently from the teddy bear's back and that he was sitting just as straight as ever he could, Mary Jane put him up on the radiator.

"There, now, you sit there for a while, Tommy, and if you're good I'll let you come down at recess time."

But as it turned out, there wasn't any recess in school that morning. Tommy had no more than been set up on the radiator before Mrs. Merrill called up the stairs to Mary Jane, who quickly dropped her piece of chalk and ran to the top of the stairs.

"Did you call, mother dear?" she asked.

"Yes, Mary Jane," replied Mrs. Merrill, "come downstairs at once. Somebody is here to see you."

Mary Jane dropped the book and chalk at the top of the stairs and ran down as fast as ever she could—somebody to see her often meant a very good time and she didn't want to miss a minute.

"Dr. Smith," said Mrs. Merrill as Mary Jane stepped into the room, "this is my little girl, Mary Jane."

"I'm glad to know you, Mary Jane," said Dr. Smith.

Mary Jane made her very best courtesy; held out her hand and then looked up into the stranger's face and asked, "Why does she call you a doctor?"

"Why shouldn't she?" asked the visitor curiously.

"Because you're not a doctor," answered Mary Jane positively. "Doctors wear funny white coats and rub their hands together and say, 'Well, little girl, what can I do for you to-day?' doctors do."

Dr. Smith and Mrs. Merrill laughed and the doctor sat down in the big
Morris chair and took Mary Jane in his lap.

"I'm sorry to disappoint any little girl," he said pleasantly, "but, you see, I'm on a vacation so I don't have to wear a white coat and ask questions. I can sit down in this comfortable chair and have a good time."

"Can you make Tommy behave while you are having a good time?" asked Mary
Jane.

"Who is Tommy?" inquired the doctor.

Mary Jane told him all about the school and Tommy who had trouble sitting up as straight as the teddy bears did.

"I'm afraid I can't do much for Tommy this morning," said the doctor when she had finished, "for I'm only here between trains. But I'll tell you what you might do. You might pack Tommy and all the bears into a trunk and visit your great-grandmother. Then I could help you."

"My great-grandmother!" exclaimed Mary Jane; "she lives way off in the country!"

"To be sure!" nodded Dr. Smith, "and so do I—I live next door to her. That's the reason I came to see you. Now ask your mother to let you go home with me and then we'll have plenty of time to attend to Tommy."

"Oh, no, we couldn't think of that!" exclaimed Mrs. Merrill, before Mary Jane had a chance to say a word. "Mary Jane is much too young to go so far from home without me and I can not possibly leave home just now."

Mary Jane looked from one to the other. A new idea, a brand new idea, was growing in her mind; the idea of making a visit—it had never occurred to her before.

"Does my grandmother live in a big house?" she asked.

"In a great, big, white farm house," replied Dr. Smith, "and she has lots of chickens and pigs and cows and strawberry patches and milk and—well, about everything a little girl could possibly want. And now she wishes a little girl named Mary Jane Merrill to come and visit her."

"And could I have really truly chickens of my own—not Doris's kind of chickens?" asked Mary Jane.

Mrs. Merrill laughed. "I guess you could, dear, but you mustn't think about it because you are not going. I'm afraid you have made trouble," she added laughingly to Dr. Smith, "because when Mary Jane starts thinking about something, she doesn't easily forget."

"Never you mind, Mary Jane," said Dr. Smith confidently, as he set her down and prepared to go, "you talk about visiting your great-grandmother all you want to, and some day you'll get there—you just see!"

"Will I really?" asked Mary Jane after the guest had gone.

"Really what?" said Mrs. Merrill.

"Really go to my great-grandmother's where the chickens and strawberries are?"

"Dear me, I don't know," replied Mrs. Merrill. "I know you'll not go till you are way, ever so much bigger girl than you are now—that's settled. Now run along with your school. I think Tommy needs you."

So Mary Jane went back to the nursery and played school. And being the kind of a little girl who knew it was not polite to tease, she didn't talk about the country—much. But she didn't forget—indeed, no! Not even when she was having a good time with the surprise that came a few days later.