Mary Jane: Her Book

by Clara Ingram Judson

"Will she have anything for a little girl?" asked Mary Jane in surprise.

"If she hasn't, you come right back home," laughed father, "but I don't worry about that. I think she has more than you'll need."

So after lunch Mary Jane took all the playthings and the dolls out of the trunk and put them neatly into the closet and that was much better for then there was plenty of room in the trunk for clothes and for two mysterious packages which Mary Jane saw her mother put in the very bottom. And it was a good thing that she put everything away so nicely for at three o'clock Dr. Smith telephoned that he was unexpectedly called home and could Mary Jane go home with him that very night?

Mr. Merrill was phoned to and he said he would tend to the ticket and the trunk check. Mrs. Merrill packed the trunk and Alice, who happened home from school in just the nick of time, bathed and dressed Mary Jane for the train. So that by the time Dr. Smith came out to dine with them the trunk was packed and gone, the little traveler was dressed and everything about the house was back in apple pie order.

Mary Jane was so excited she could hardly eat a bit of dinner but Dr. Smith said it wouldn't matter so much because she could have some good fresh eggs and two glasses of milk and some of Grandmother Hodges' corn bread for breakfast.

It's pretty exciting to go off on the train at night and leave your father and mother and sister. Mary Jane found that out; and she got a queer lump in her throat on the way to the station. A lump that for some reason or other grew bigger and bigger when father held her snugly as he lifted her out of the car and that nearly made her cry when mother held tight onto her hand as they went through the station.

But fortunately the train came in just then and with the seeing that the trunk was really put on and kissing folks good-by and sending a message to Doris and meeting the big jolly conductor and giving her hand bag to the porter and laughing at Dr. Smith's funny jokes and all that—the lump didn't get as troublesome as Mary Jane had feared it would. She got into her section in time to wave good-by to the three on the platform as the train pulled out and then, before she had a chance to feel lonesome, Dr. Smith said, "Did you ever see them work a bed on a train?"

"Work a bed?" asked Mary Jane. "What's that?"

"Make up a bed, I mean," laughed Dr. Smith. "Did you ever see how the bed works when it is made up? Here, Sambo," and the doctor held his hand high and motioned to the porter, "this little girl wants to know how she's going to sleep, she doesn't see any bed."

"She'll see in a minute, sir, jest a littl' minute," said the good natured porter and he slipped off his blue coat; put on a white one; took down part of the ceiling and, right before Mary Jane's astonished eyes, made up a bed. Mary Jane thought it was most amazing. She watched every move he made and decided that when she grew up she was going to be a bed maker on a train because it was so much more fun than making beds at home.