Turning to the left they went up a steep grade to another street and there, right in plain sight, was a beautiful drinking fountain. Without stopping to read the inscription she and Mary Jane had a good drink. Then Alice read aloud the tablet that said this water was piped up the hill from the very spring where the Pilgrim fathers first got their water.
"I think we're doing a lot of interesting things to-day," said Mary Jane happily. "We stood on Plymouth Rock and we ate lunch where the Pilgrims didn't have anything to eat, and now we're drinking out of their own spring! Now what do we do next?"
"I think we'd better walk up these steps to the old cemetery," said Mrs. Merrill.
Mary Jane thought it was awfully funny to walk up stairs on a street, but it was the only way to get up so steep a hill. Mrs. Merrill and Alice were much interested in the quaint, old inscriptions on the queer, flat tombstones, but Mary Jane was much more thrilled by the sight of the old funeral carriage which she saw in an old barn as they came down from the other entrance. It didn't seem possible that real folks had ever made such a funny, fancy carriage—it seemed more as though it was "made up" for a show!
The afternoon was flying along and they had to hurry if there was to be time to stop and see the wonders of the historic museum they had passed before. And, indeed, that was the hardest place of all to leave, for there the girls saw old spinning-wheels and looms, old-fashioned chairs, dishes and toys such as little folks used to play with—though goodness knows, children in those old days had very few toys of even home-made sorts!—and boats, models of real boats of those early days and oh, so many things, Mary Jane thought they would have to stay there a week to see all she wanted to see.
But they wouldn't stay a week, nor even an hour more, for at four they must take a train to Marshfield Hills where they were to visit Cousin Louise. If Mary Jane hadn't wanted to visit there very much she might have suggested to wait till another train; but she had so often heard her mother tell about this dear cousin and her little boy, that not even the curious boats and wonders of the museum could make her want to miss that train.
"Now you tell us all about 'em," she said to her mother, when, a little after four, they were seated in the train and speeding toward Marshfield Hills. "Is he big as me or is he a baby? And how do I talk to him?"
"Oh, you must play with him very nicely," said Mrs. Merrill, "for he's only a little bit of a boy—oh, lots younger than you are."
But when Mary Jane stepped off the train at Marshfield Hills she certainly was surprised, for the little fellow who sat in the front seat of the waiting auto didn't look as though he needed taking care of a bit!
VISITING COUSIN LOUISE