Before the driver had a chance to answer he spied something he wanted the girls to see and with a skid and a whirl he brought the car to a sudden stop right down by the edge of the waves.
“There,” he said, pointing to a lump of something that lay on the sand, “that’s what I mean. I’ll get it for you.” He jumped out of the car, picked up the messy looking thing and handed it to Alice. “It’s a jelly fish,” he explained; “there are lots of them washed up on the beach here. See, this is the way it sails on the water.”
The girls looked at the thing in open eyed amazement. They couldn’t realize that that queer looking mess that looked all the world like spoiled gelatine, could have been a creature sailing on the water.
“You just wait,” laughed the driver; “I’ll show you some out in the water before we turn off this beach.” He kept his word, too. About a half mile farther down the beach he spied a live jelly fish riding the waves. When the girls saw that they thought first he must be joking them for it looked quite a bit like a sail boat some child had made and which had tipped over and blown out to sea. But when he stopped the car they could see plainly that it was just such a creature as he had shown them before.
“They certainly do have queer folks down at this place,” said Mary Jane, “queerer folks than live up at my home, I’m sure of that!”
Soon they turned off of the beach and went back across a bridge to a great orange orchard Aunt Sue wanted Ellen to see. The owner of the orchard was expecting them and he himself took them out to where oranges were being picked and then to the packing room where the golden fruit was scrubbed and sorted and packed. Mary Jane like the sorting the best of all.
“It’s just like a marble game,” she exclaimed excitedly as she watched the fruit come rolling down the trough. “See! That little one goes in there and the middle sized one goes in there and the great big orange goes way down to the end. Let’s stay and watch some more.”
“Not this time,” replied Mrs. Merrill regretfully; “if we are to have a picnic we must be on our way because it’s nearly noon now.”
The orchard man loaded the girls with oranges and tangerines for their lunch and urged them to come again some time. They sped along the hard shell road, passed inlet after inlet where the water from the ocean, rising now with the turn of the tide, came close up to the road; and finally they turned in at a clean, pretty woods and the car came to a standstill.
“This is a nice place,” said Mrs. Merrill to Mrs. Berry, “and we’re certainly glad you brought us along to your party. Girls, I’ll race you to that oak tree!”