“You don’t need to sit by me if you want to talk to mother,” she said to her father.
“Humph!” said her father teasingly, “how do I know you’re not going to tumble overboard! You know you have a way of mixing up picnics and water, Mary Jane, so I don’t think I’ll take any chances.” But when Mary Jane promised that she would sit very still and not walk around a step and not lean over the edge, he went to speak to grandpa a few minutes. And while he was gone, Mary Jane leaned up against the side of the boat and watched the folks down on the pier.
She thought it must surely be about time for the boat to start because there was hurrying on the pier, and men were busy taking ropes off of the big wooden posts along the side nearest the water. While she was watching, a woman came along the dock toward the boat and with her were two little children, a girl about Mary Jane’s own age and a little boy some two years younger. Just as they reached the gang plank, ready to step onto the boat, the little boy began to cry.
“I left my boat! I left my boat! I left my boat!” he cried. Mary Jane could hear him very plainly even though she sat so far up above him.
She couldn’t hear what the mother said, but evidently she promised to get the missing boat for him, because she left both children by the side of the gang plank, and hurrying as fast as possible she ran back toward the shore. And right at that minute, the big bell overhead rang three times and the engine aboard the boat began to throb—it was time to go.
The men on the dock noticed the two children and one said to the little girl, “Were you going?” and she nodded yes. So he picked up the boy and hurried the two children aboard just as the gang plank was hauled in and the boat made away from the pier.
Mary Jane was so thrilled and excited she could hardly sit still. She tried to call her father but he was on the other side of the boat and she had promised to sit still—perfectly still—till he came back. What in the world was a little girl to do? And back on the shore that was so rapidly getting farther and farther way, Mary Jane could see the mother of the children, running frantically toward the dock which the boat had left. Surely the captain would see her, Mary Jane thought. But if he did, he likely thought she was merely somebody who had missed the boat and that he had no time for turning back. And so the boat continued out into the lake.
Finally after what seemed the longest time (though it really was hardly more than five minutes), Mr. Merrill came back and then, such a story as he heard!
“Are you sure, Mary Jane?” he asked, “certain sure? The men wouldn’t put children on a boat without grown folks along!”
“But they did, Dadah!” insisted Mary Jane, “I saw ’em!”