IT was with great reluctance that Alice and Mary Jane accompanied their mother into the bus that was to drive them to the station the next morning. They had had so much fun in the three full days they had spent at dear old St. Augustine that it simply didn’t seem possible there could be as good a time waiting any place else. It was a comfort though, to know that they might stop a day or two more at the old Spanish city on their way home. Mrs. Merrill was trying to plan it that way in the hope that Mr. Merrill could meet them there and have some of the fun with them. And that was the reason why they had saved the old fort till the next visit; Mrs. Merrill felt sure that Mr. Merrill could show the girls the wonders and traditions of the old place better than she could.

As the train sped southward through forests and fields Mary Jane forgot all about being sorry to leave St. Augustine and began to make plans for the new visit.

“What’s the name of the place we’re going to next, Mother,” she asked as they settled themselves cosily on the big observation platform, “and what we going to do when we get there?”

“We’re going to Daytona now, dear,” replied Mrs. Merrill, “and if this fine weather keeps up you’ll have a chance to swim in the really truly ocean to-morrow.”

“Couldn’t we do it to-day?” asked Alice who loved swimming.

“Not very well,” answered her mother. “You see, Daytona isn’t on the ocean. It’s on a river that runs in from the ocean—I call it a river though it really is more of a long, slim bay. The beach where you’ll go swimming is a long way from the hotel where we will stop and to-day I think we’d better get a bit acquainted with Daytona. You’ll like it I know.”

And Mary Jane did like it very much. She liked it from the first minute she stepped from the train into the bus that was waiting to take them to the small hotel where rooms were reserved for them. She loved the broad, modern streets—so different from the narrow foreign looking ones that had charmed them at St. Augustine, she loved the many, many beautiful flower beds and the great trees that made the streets look like huge caves of green.

The bus was a bit crowded so the girls sat up on the driver’s seat which they thought was a real lark. This driver was a nice northern boy of eighteen who by some chance had obtained the job of driving the bus for the winter. He told the girls that he had two sisters at home just their ages and that he wished they would ride on the bus with him that afternoon because he got so homesick for his sisters.

After they had their luncheon Alice asked her mother if they could ride. She explained all about what the boy had told them, of course, and said that he had promised they could see the whole of Daytona—every bit—if they went with him that afternoon, because his errands were so scattered. Mrs. Merrill talked with friends who had been some days at the hotel and all spoke so well of the driver that Mrs. Merrill gave her consent. And a very proud and gay pair of little girls perched up on the front seat and drove away about two o’clock.

“Be very careful, girlies,” said Mrs. Merrill, as the engine began to hum; “you know I’ll be right here if you want anything. And Mary Jane, you must do what Alice says for she’s always so good to you. Have a fine time!” Tom surely did take them all over the town. They went down south first, out into the edge of the country, where they got a man who was to take a two-thirty train. Then they went north to take some folks who came on the same train that took the man away. Then they went east across one of the long bridges and then north and home over another one. Mary Jane liked those bridges. They were so nice and low and long. But that wasn’t all. They were toll bridges and each time an auto went across the driver had to stop at the toll office and pay for the privilege of driving across. Mary Jane had never heard of such a thing before and she thought it awfully funny to pay to ride across a bridge.

By half past four, when Tom brought the girls back, they were old friends; they’d told him all about their trip so far and about their plans for swimming to-morrow. And they really felt very well acquainted with Daytona they had ridden around so much of it.

Bright and early the next morning the Merrills three were up and making ready for the trip to the beach. Mrs. Merrill planned to get their luncheon at the Casino by the bathing beach so there was little to attend to after breakfast. Bathing suits were tucked into a rubber bag and then, as soon as the postman had come with the morning mail, they set out for the beach. The girls were sure they could walk to the beach; it was only about two miles and they wanted to show their mother some of the sights they had seen the day before. And really, with seeing the great palm trees along the river and looking in the shop windows along Main Street and counting the planks on the bridge—Mary Jane was determined to count every board—the walk seemed no distance at all.

It was just about eleven when they reached the bath house and the crowd was already assembling. Such a jolly crowd it was too, very happy, and gay, and full of fun. There were no high waves that day; just nice low ones, actually made for girls who were not used to the big ocean, and Mary Jane and Alice could hardly wait till they got into the water. It wasn’t cold at all—of course it wouldn’t be in that fine, warm sun, and they could safely wade and swim and play on the sand for an hour or more.

After the girls and Mrs. Merrill had been in the water till they were a bit tired, they sat down on the beach, near the water’s edge, to rest awhile. Suddenly Mary Jane screamed. “Ugh! Mother! Look! See that funny bug!”

“Pooh!” exclaimed Alice laughingly, “it isn’t a bug! It’s a crawdad!”

“But look,” cried Mary Jane; “he’s gone!”

To be sure! Even as Mary Jane was watching him, the queer little crawdad had quickly dug himself a hole in the ground and hidden down in it.

“It’s like magic!” cried Mary Jane; “look! There goes another one!”“Mary Jane, I’ll tell you what let’s us do!” exclaimed Alice, “let’s find crawdads on the beach and then watch ’em dig in.”

“What’ll we put ’em in when we find ’em?” asked Mary Jane excitedly.

“Oh,” Alice hesitated and looked around, “I know. Put them in here.” She whisked off her rubber bathing cap and made it into a bag shape and ran down nearer the water to find the tiny crabs.

It wasn’t hard to do. Each wave that rolled upon the beach left two or three of the queer little creatures, but one had to grab very quickly for the instant the water receded and left them stranded on the sand, they began to dig themselves in. Mary Jane grabbed at the sand and as fast as she caught a crab she dropped it into Alice’s cap.

“Don’t they make your hands feel funny?” she asked as she held one a second more than she needed to. “I don’t know if I like them and I don’t know if I don’t.”

“Ugh!” exclaimed Alice. “I know I don’t like to hold them but I do like to watch them dig. Come on, sis, we’ve a lot. Let’s go back to mother and let ’em hide.”

They raced back to where Mrs. Merrill had been sitting and dumped their trophies on the sand one at a time. And it really was funny to see those wiggling little crawdads squirm themselves out of sight in the sand in such a jiffy! Just a wiggle, wiggle, wiggle and they were gone—the sand closed up over them as though they had never been there. Mary Jane tried to poke her finger down into the sand and dig them up; but the crawdads were too smart for her and not a one did she find!

“Why don’t you collect some shells to take home,” suggested Mrs. Merrill after awhile; “there are many pretty kinds here.”

“I know it, Mother,” answered Alice, “and I was just going to ask you if we could take any home when Mary Jane found these crawdads. Let’s start now.”

But just at that minute the whistle on the bath house blew for one o’clock—the girls hadn’t guessed it was nearly that late and of course the minute they knew the time they were starving hungry.

“Then let’s take one more dip to get the sand off,” suggested Mrs. Merrill, “before we dress and have lunch. And while our suits dry, you may collect all the shells you are willing to carry.”

Down into the water they ran and just in time too for when they heard a noise they looked up from the water and there, coming quickly to the earth, was a great aeroplane that landed right at the very spot where they had been sitting. “I do think this is the excitingest beach,” said Mary Jane in an awestruck voice; “first there’s the ocean and then there’s crawdads and then an airship. What do you suppose they’ll have next?”

“Lunch, I hope,” said Alice laughingly, “and I’ll beat you to the bath house to dress for it.”

Later when they had had their good luncheon and were sitting on the veranda of the Casino where they could watch the airship take on a passenger and sail away toward the north for a long flight, Mary Jane remembered about the shells.

“Of course we want to get some,” said Alice; “let’s go now.”

“You girls start while I see about the bath locker,” suggested Mrs. Merrill. “Maybe we can arrange to leave our things here till we come again; then we could carry more shells.”

When she got down to the beach a little later she found that the girls had already collected a great pile of shells from the many there were to be found on the beach.

“You wouldn’t want to take any but perfect ones home, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Merrill; “suppose we spread every shell out where it can be seen. Then we’ll throw all the ones that are not perfect back into the ocean. The others we’ll take home.”

Alice and Mary Jane set to work examining the shells and they found that in their eagerness for collecting they had picked up a good many that were not worth carrying home. So it was quite a respectable sized pile they finally decided they wanted to take.

“There,” said Mary Jane with a sigh of content, when the sorting was finished, “there they are and if it wasn’t ten miles home, I’d be glad we had them.”

“You’ll be glad anyway, dear,” said Mrs. Merrill, “because we’re going to ride home. I ordered a taxi when I was up at the bath house. Here it comes now.”

And sure enough! There it was coming right down by the water to meet them. Mary Jane was sure the wheels would get stuck in the sand; but they didn’t; they didn’t even sink in. They just acted as though that beach was a regular road—which it wasn’t.

It seemed fine to spin home over the beach, across the bridge and down the river street, and by the time home was reached Mary Jane was rested enough to play again. That was a good thing for who should she see on the hotel porch but Ellen, her little friend from St. Augustine.

“Why, Ellen!” she exclaimed as she ran from the taxi to greet her; “how did you get here?”

“On the train and the bus,” said Ellen happily. “And mother’s here too.”

“We came down unexpectedly for two days,” explained Mrs. Berry, “because I found that a dear old friend of mine was here. Can’t we all plan a picnic for to-morrow?” she added. “The girls will like it and I know a beautiful place to go—way down the beach and back into the woods.”

“Oh, goody! Let’s!” exclaimed Mary Jane, dancing happily; “let’s have a picnic or something every day.”

“Seems to me that’s about what you are doing,” laughed Mrs. Merrill, “but I’m ready for more fun.” While the mothers planned the party, the three girls went off to find some fun of their own and to talk of what they would do at the picnic.