THE very first minute Mary Jane opened her eyes the next morning she peeked out of the window to see if the Southern flowers she had read about and seen pictures of, were in sight. She didn’t see flowers but she did see palm trees—lots of them.

“Mother! Mother!” she called, peeking around into the next berth to speak to her mother, “you ought to get up quick! They’re here, they are, those funny trees with the trimming on the top just like the pictures you showed us. Mother! May I get up and look at them from the back porch?”

Mrs. Merrill looked at her watch and told Mary Jane it was high time they were both getting up if they were to have time to dress and eat breakfast before the train got into Jacksonville.

“Then I’ll beat you dressed, I will,” said Mary Jane gayly and she set to work at the job of dressing. First she took down her stockings that had hung all night over the little hammock by the window, and put those on; then the shoes that had been in the hammock went on next. After that she rolled up the covers clear to the bottom of the bed to get them out of the way, took down her clothes that had been hanging all night on a coat rack by the big curtains and put those on. She stopped just long enough to call, “Didn’t I beat?” to her mother before she hurried off to the wash room. She thought it so much fun to brush her teeth in the funny little bowl made for that purpose that she wanted to have plenty of time to enjoy the job.

But Alice was there before her, as excited as Mary Jane could possibly be about the palm trees and the few very fierce looking razor-back hogs she had seen grunting and snorting at the train, and so it was a rather sketchy scrubbing they gave themselves. Mrs. Merrill joined them in a minute to say that the diner was taken off in the night and that breakfast would be served in the observation car.

“Then I may go back there now, mayn’t I, Mother?” asked Mary Jane, “and I know the way all by myself. I’ll stay right on the back porch and not go near the gate till you come.” The train was exactly the same as the one on which the Merrills had come down to Birmingham two days before and Mary Jane felt so at home after her whole day and two nights of travel she almost thought the train was her own.

“Yes, you may if Alice is ready and if you promise to stay right together,” said Mrs. Merrill; “it will be fine to have some fresh air before breakfast.” The girls hurried back through the train so as not to lose a minute. The country looked entirely different from what they had seen before; the hills and mountains were all gone; many different sorts of trees made up the woods and even the grasses looked different from what the girls were used to seeing. And the roads! Such queer muddy things they were, with only an occasional brick paved road fit for automobile travel.

All too soon Mr. Merrill came out and announced, “You can’t have a regular breakfast this morning, girls, just fruit and a bite of something the steward says, so you’d better come and get what there is right away.”

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Mary Jane in great distress, “won’t they have hashed brown potatoes?”

“Haven’t you had enough of those yet?” laughed Mr. Merrill. But Mary Jane’s fright proved to be a false alarm; there was plenty of breakfast for folks who were used to simple food—hashed brown potatoes for Mary Jane, eggs for Alice and her father and toast for Mrs. Merrill.

The train was running about forty minutes late the conductor reported so there was time to go back onto the back platform a while before Jacksonville was reached.

When Mary Jane got off the train at Jacksonville she had expected to step right out to flower beds and summer beauties. Instead of that, such a sight as met her eyes she never would have dreamed of! Smoke, and dirt, and dripping water, and slush under foot, and the horrid smell of burned wood and leather. And such confusion that Mary Jane felt sure they must have fallen into a cyclone or something.

“What’s the trouble?” called Mr. Merrill to an usher who was trying to get through the crowd to carry their bags, “what’s happened? Never saw so much going on in this station before in all my life.”

“Fire, sir!” replied the usher, “pretty bad fire, sir. The station, she took a-fire last night and dey jes got her out ’bout an hour ago. Got any luggage here, sir?”

“Not a bit, it’s on this train we came on,” answered Mr. Merrill.

“You’s lucky, sir, you is,” laughed the darky and he piloted them out into the street.

They walked about a half a block away from the confusion of the station and then Mrs. Merrill said, “Now look, girls!” And the girls looked away from the burned roof of the pretty station and out toward the city. And there they saw the summerland they had hoped for!—palm trees and flowers growing in the parkways, summer dresses on the passersby and a warmth and glow in the air.

“Oh, Mother!” exclaimed Alice happily, “it’s true, isn’t it? Summer is here—and please may we take off our coats?”

“Not so fast,” replied Mrs. Merrill, “you’ll find them none too warm when you’re riding.” And sure enough, when they got into the taxi Mr. Merrill signaled and started swiftly up the street, they weren’t a bit too warm.

All too soon their hotel was reached, the girls would have liked to ride all day.

“Never you mind,” said Mr. Merrill consolingly, “you shall ride again in about a half an hour. But come in first and leave your bags, and me.”

“Leave you, Dadah?” asked Mary Jane, “you’re not going away from here, are you?”

“I’m not, but you will be,” said Mr. Merrill. “I mean that my business begins here this morning and that you and mother will have to get around by yourselves while I work. But mother knows the way about just as well as I do and she’ll see that you poke into every corner you want to see.”

When the girls went around to the front of the hotel and saw the beautiful park of palms and flowers that filled a whole block, they were not anxious to leave it.

“Let’s not ride,” suggested Mary Jane, “let’s stay and play under those trees.”

“I don’t know about that,” replied Mrs. Merrill, “you see, I know what there is to see on our ride and you don’t. Better ride while you can and play in the park this noon.”

So a few minutes later Mr. Merrill put them all three into a big car and started off toward the business part of the city for his work.

The girls had never ridden in a sight seeing car before and they begged a place right by the driver so they would be sure to see and hear everything. Mrs. Merrill sat just behind them where they could speak to her and also could have the comfortable feeling that she was very near. First they drove down the river and saw glimpses of the broad St. Johns River and enjoyed the pretty trees and gardens and homes that nestled along its low banks. Then they turned back through the city and out on the other side.

“Where we going now?” asked Mary Jane when she noticed that the houses were getting smaller and fewer and further apart.

“Out to the Farm,” replied the driver.

“A regular farm where they grow chickens and things like my Grandmother does?” asked the little girl.

“It’s a regular farm all right, Miss,” said the driver, “but they don’t grow anything your Grandmother does. They grow alligators and ostriches.”

“My gracious!” exclaimed Mary Jane, her eyes open wide with amazement, “do they plant ’em?”

The driver laughed and answered, “You just wait and see—we’re most there now. See that white fence and those buildings? There we are!”

With a flourish he stopped by the big white gate and Mrs. Merrill and the girls got out of the car. “You’ll wait for us?” she asked the driver.

“Long as you like,” he replied, so without a bit of worry about time they went into the “Farm.”

At first Mary Jane was disappointed for there seemed to be nothing in the whole place but fences! But when they walked closer they easily found the Alligator Farm and there the girls were so interested that they forgot all about such creatures as ostriches. They saw big alligators and little alligators and tiny, tiny little alligators that would have easily been hidden in Mary Jane’s small hand. They saw the great big fellow, more than a hundred years old, get his food and such gleaming teeth as he had made Mary Jane glad he was inside an iron fence—there she liked to watch him, but she didn’t think he was quite the creature one would like to meet walking along a road. They saw alligators flop their tails to music—or at least the keepers said they flopped to music so it must be so!—and most wonderful of all, they saw alligators “shoot the shoots” into a small lake. There was no pretend about that; the ’gators climbed slowly and careful up the steps of the shoot, crawled over the top and then with a loud “thud” dropped their clumsy bodies onto the shoot and slid down into the water.

Mary Jane and Alice would have been glad to stay there all morning watching these strange creatures and Mrs. Merrill had to remind them twice about the ostriches and about lunch and more riding before they could tear themselves away.

They wandered over to the ostrich section of the “Farm” and found the queer looking birds poking their noses outside the wire fence begging as plain as could be for food.

“You and Mary Jane feed them, Mother,” suggested Alice, “and I’ll take your picture.”

Mrs. Merrill bought some food and she and Mary Jane stood close to the fence and handed it in. The birds reached their long necks out and nearly helped themselves out of the bags, so tame were they. One big bird seemed to take a fancy to Mary Jane and he was determined to get his food from her. Just as Alice was ready to take the picture he reached out and made a grab.

“Owh!” screamed the little girl, “he got it! Make him give it back quick, Mother!”

“What did he get?” said Mrs. Merrill coming close.

“My pocket book!” screamed Mary Jane who was fairly dancing she was so excited, “he just reached his bill out and grabbed it out of my hand, he did.” And sure enough, the great bird was making off to his nest just as fast as he could go (which was pretty fast) and from his bill hung Mary Jane’s pretty new pocket book in which she had two best kerchiefs and twenty-five cents of spending money.

The keeper heard Mary Jane’s screams (and so did lots of other folks by the way) and he came running to see what had happened.

“Is that all!” he exclaimed, when Mrs. Merrill pointed out what the ostrich had done, “we’ll have that bag in no time—I was afraid he’d hurt the little girl though I did think he was too tame for doing harm.”

He unlocked the gate and hurried over to where the big bird stood. As soon as the ostrich saw his keeper coming he dropped the bag and raced off with his long funny stride just as though he knew he had done wrong and wanted to get away. Mary Jane couldn’t help but laugh at him he looked so afraid and so very comical. She got her pocket book back undamaged and as the man handed it to her he said, “Too bad, Missy, too bad. But you come again and I’ll make him behave. Wouldn’t you like a little ’gator for a present, ’count of your scare?”

“Oh,” replied Mary Jane, her eyes shining with delight, “I don’t need one myself ’cause I’m here to see ’em. But I want one for my little chum—she’s home.”

“All right, Missy,” said the man, “I’d like to send her one if your mother will allow me to.” And he pulled out his book and took down the address.

So that’s how it happened that a week later the expressman delivered a box containing two live alligators to the amazed Dana family.