At five-thirty they went to the diner for dinner, and Mary Jane had some good chicken and hashed-brown potatoes and apple dumplings with ice cream, before she went back to finish playing with her dolls.
"I think paper dolls are the nicest dolls for on a train, I do," she told her mother, as together they neatly tucked the dolls away for a night's rest in the handbag, "'cause they don't break and they don't take up a lot of room, and I can have them all along—every one of them."
Mr. Merrill met his family at the station the next day, and there was a happy reunion and a lot of talk about the fun they had had since they last saw him.
"But nobody asks me what I've been doing?" he exclaimed with mock grief at the first pause in the conversation.
"Oh, Daddah," cried Mary Jane, "I'm so sorry! But you see we had so much to do—graduating Uncle Hal and seeing everything, we did. Now you talk—it's your turn."
Then Mr. Merrill told his surprise. The builder who was to do their house in the woods had been able to get to work sooner than he had promised, and the house, while it wouldn't be finished for some little time yet, was well on the way.
"The roof's on," he told them, "and that's a lot, for it means we can go out there and picnic and not worry about rain. And if all goes well, we can pack our trunks and move into the shack in a very few days."
"Oh, goody!" cried Mary Jane clapping her hands gleefully, "and I'm going to make garden and keep house and hunt flowers and everything!"
* * * * * * * *
THE MARY JANE SERIES