Mary Jane's City Home

by Clara Ingram Judson

“Then you come with me,” said Mr. Merrill, “and we’ll see if we can find them.”

So Mr. Merrill and Mary Jane went down the stairs, and that took some time because folks were coming and going and getting settled for the trip, and there, huddled close together and crying as hard as they could cry, were the two little waifs!

Mary Jane with real motherliness began talking to the little girl; Mr. Merrill picked up the boy and together the whole party went in search of the captain. By the time he was found though, the boat was still farther on its journey toward the city and the dock they started from was farther and farther behind.

“Well, that is a time we were wrong,” admitted the captain when he had listened to all Mary Jane had to say and talked with the man who had put the children aboard. “But even though we were wrong, we can’t go back now. We’ll have to make the children comfortable and take them back to their mother on the return trip.”

So Mr. Merrill and Mary Jane went back to the deck, only this time they took with them the two little strangers. Mrs. Merrill was told the story and she and Alice and Mary Jane, with help from grandma, grandpa and Mr. Merrill, set themselves to the task of making the little children happy. At first it was hard work, because they cried all the time for their mother. But erelong they understood the friendliness around them and they stopped crying and began to have a good time. Grandpa discovered some crackerjack and everybody knows what a help that is; Mrs. Merrill told some funny stories and Mr. Merrill took them all over the boat—to see the great engine and everything. Then there were the sights to watch from the deck and the big buildings to count and the boats they passed to watch—oh, there surely was a lot to do that made that trip interesting and so very short.

As the boat pulled up near the down town pier, the Merrills saw a taxi dash up near where the boat was to land: saw a woman get out and, followed by a policeman, hurry up to the side where the boat would pull in.

“Look!” exclaimed Mary Jane excitedly. “Look!”

The little girl, whose name was Ann, looked along with the others, and then she gave a happy cry.

“Mother!” she shouted, so loudly that her mother, waiting on the pier could hear and was so very relieved!

When the boat pulled into the dock, the captain was the first one to step off; he met the mother and the officer and brought them aboard at once. Mary Jane was called upon to explain all that she had seen and the officer, as well as the mother, was satisfied that the whole thing was an accident and not an attempt to steal the children.