THE WILLOW TREE COTTAGE
Mary Jane thought she never could wake up the next morning. She heard her mother and Cousin Louise talking in the next room, she heard John calling, "Mary Jane! Mary Jane! When you coming to breakfast?" But she simply couldn't make herself wake up and answer. She dozed off again and again, she was so very sleepy.
Finally she heard Cousin Louise say, "Your mother says you must get up, dear, so if you'll jump into the bath that is all ready for you, I'll have breakfast waiting when you come back." Mary Jane heard John and Alice laughing and playing under her window, so she hopped out of bed in a hurry and ran in to take her bath.
When she came back, she found that Cousin Louise had pulled a little table up to the window overlooking the garden and barnyard, and that on the table was spread out the nicest breakfast any girl could ask for.
"There now," said Cousin Louise as she laid a bathrobe around her little guest, "while you eat we're going to visit, because when there are so many other folks around, we don't get a chance to say a word." Mary Jane liked that breakfast ever so much. She told Cousin Louise all about Class Day and the game and the lobster salad and commencement and dancing with one of Uncle Hal's grown-up friends and the shoes that slipped up and down and made a blister—and everything. And as she talked she ate and ate—till all the fresh strawberries and all the egg and potatoes and coffee cake and milk and cereal that Cousin Louise had carried upstairs on the tray had vanished.
"Well," laughed Cousin Louise, "see how stupid I sit here without getting you one single bit of breakfast!" And she laughed at the tray of empty dishes.
"Never mind about any breakfast," replied Mary Jane continuing the joke, "I don't somehow seem hungry for anything this morning Anything more you might say!"
"Then you slip into your clothes as fast as ever you can," said Cousin Louise, "and run out to the barn. John's been watching his favorite hens since he first got up in hopes there would be eggs for you to gather before train time."
It didn't take Mary Jane long to dress and as Mrs. Merrill came in just at the right time to brush her hair and put on her hair bow, she was soon out in the barn lot with Alice and John.
With diligent hunting the three children discovered four eggs by the time that John's father called to them that it was time to go to the train.