Mary Jane—Her Visit

by Clara Ingram Judson

Grandmother straightened up and counted the rings of her telephone bell.

"Yes, that's our ring. You take this basket back to your grandfather while I answer it."

But before Mary Jane got out to the chicken house Grandmother was back at the kitchen steps calling, "Father! Father!" And then as she got no answer she called to Mary Jane, "Mary Jane! Tell your grandfather it's long distance and he should come quick!"

Mary Jane hurried in to tell her grandfather the message and then she waited, wonderingly, till he should come back. Had anything happened?

COUSIN JOHN'S VISIT

But the minute Mary Jane saw her grandfather smile as he came back into the chicken house, she knew that if something had happened it was a nice something—for he was smiling a nice sort of a smile.

"Good news for us, Pussy," he said. "Now you're going to have some one to play with."

"Another Bob?" asked Mary Jane.

"Another fiddlesticks!" laughed Grandfather. "Haven't you enough animal friends as it is? What would you do with more? No, sir! This is a real playmate."