They went south along the main street of the village, passed the museum where relics of the Pilgrims were kept and which they meant to visit later in the day; passed several big hotels and many stores till they came to the end of the village where the fishermen had headquarters. And there, at the shore end of a small wharf, they saw a stone monument. Not a big handsome one such as they had seen on the hill a few minutes before; a small stone monument with an open space in the center and an iron grating sort of a door shutting up the open space.
Alice and Mary Jane ran ahead to see what it was, and there Alice read the words, "Plymouth Rock." There under the monument, set in the arch made by the stone corners and protected from injury by the heavy iron grating, was the famous stone. It wasn't big as Mary Jane had expected it to be—it was just a common-looking boulder, and nobody would have thought of it twice if it hadn't been in a monument so folks would know it was something to look at.
"Well," said Mary Jane practically, after she had looked at it carefully for a minute or two, "I don't see how in the world they stepped clear from the ocean there at the end of the pier to here—I don't see!"
"But you must remember, dear," replied Mrs. Merrill, "there wasn't any pier then—just the ocean and the shore. No doubt the ocean was close to the rock then, for sometimes sand and rocks are washed around and the shore line changed in so many years as have passed since that day. Or, possibly, folks have moved the rock up here so it wouldn't get weatherbeaten by the winter's storms. I think that is most likely the reason why it is here."
As she was speaking, two men came up to the monument to make some repairs on the lock of one of the iron gates. As the gate swung open after they unlocked it, Mary Jane looked longingly in at the rock—if she could only touch it! What fun it would be to tell Betty and Frances that she, Mary Jane Merrill, had really touched Plymouth Rock!
One of the workmen seemed to guess what she wanted for he said to her, "Hello there, little girl! Did you come a long way to look at that rock?"
"All the way from Chicago," answered Mary Jane.
"Then I think you'd like to touch it, wouldn't you?" he said. Mary Jane nodded happily.
"Here goes then," he replied, and he stepped aside so she and Alice could stand inside the gate and actually lay their hands on the rock.
"I know something better than that," said the other workmen, much pleased with the girls' interest and joy. "We'll open the gate on the other side where the sun is shining and your mother can take your picture standing on the rock, just as the Pilgrims did."