Alice and Mary Jane opened their eyes in amazement; lovelier flowers than these! Weren’t they lucky to be seeing so much? Mrs. Merrill continued the conversation with the table mates and asked where she could find about trains going to the beach.
“I really don’t know,” replied the lady, who proved to be Mrs. Wilkins of New York State, a friend of Mrs. Merrill’s cousin, “because we hadn’t thought of going there. We can see the beach when we are further south so we’re going to take a boat ride on the St. Johns River. That’s something you can’t do at the beach resorts.”
“That sounds good,” agreed Mrs. Merrill, “what do you girls think?”
Alice and Mary Jane were delighted with the idea of a boat ride and Mrs. Wilkins urged them to decide to go on “their” boat. They had decided to go on a comfortable, safe looking steamer of fair size that went up the river to Mandarin, the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe. There, so they had been promised, they might see the very nook in the trees where she did so much of the writing that made her famous.
So the lunch visit was cut short and the little party drove at once to the dock and settled themselves on the upper, front deck of the river boat. Mary Jane wasn’t in any particular hurry for the boat to start because from her safe deck she could look down on the wharves and see the bustle and hurry of shipping fruit and enjoy the fun of watching the dozens of gay, lazy, little negro boys who were supposed to be helping the work. They sang so well and helped themselves to fruit so generously and teased each other so comically that Mary Jane thought it was as good as watching a play to see them.
When the boat finally started away from the dock, Mr. Wilkins took the two girls down to the engine room and explained the workings of the boat to them. Mary Jane thought it very wonderful that the queer looking engine that went “Phis-s-s-sh, ping; Phis-s-s-sh, ping!” was the thing that sent so big a boat a-going through the water.
They must have stayed down stairs longer than they realized for when they came on deck again, the city of Jacksonville was way, way off and the boat was beginning to sidle up to the left bank of the river. Before long they were landed at a ricketty old dock that stuck its nose out into the river to greet them.
“Back in an hour!” the Captain called as the boat backed away, “plenty of time to see the homestead. It’s only five minutes walk down the river bank.”
The little party of tourists were quickly surrounded by a crowd of children who ran out onto the dock to greet them and beg them to buy bananas, grapefruit, oranges and flowers.
“Not till we come back,” said Mrs. Merrill firmly, “but if any of you can show us Mrs. Stowe’s home we may buy something before we leave.”