As a result, at breakfast table the next morning Mr. Merrill said, “How would you girls like to have a summer home of your own? A place in the woods where we could go as soon as school closes and where you could wear bloomers and play in the sand and gather flowers and make garden and all the things you love to do but can’t do in the city. How would you like that?”
Mary Jane and Alice stared at him. Would they like it? anybody could see by their faces that they would love it!
“But we wouldn’t want to leave you here in Chicago, all summer,” objected Alice.
“And I wouldn’t want to be left,” Mr. Merrill assured them. “But I am sure, somewhere in the suburbs around Chicago there must be some place we could get a summer home. And we’ll make it our business to find that place.”
“I thought,” began Mrs. Merrill, and then she hesitated.
“Something nice?” asked Alice, encouragingly.
“It would have been nice,” admitted Mrs. Merrill, “but likely we couldn’t do it. I’d been thinking how pleasant it would be to take another trip this summer. You know how you girls enjoyed going to Florida. And you remember Uncle Hal graduates from Harvard this June. I had been wondering if we could go east in time to be there when the festivities are going on.”
“Oh, mother!” cried Mary Jane, “what fun! I do want to ride on a train, a big train with a sleeper and a diner! But then I want to dig, too,” she added, insistently.
“Then we’ll take one thing at a time,” suggested Mr. Merrill. “We’ll look into the question of a summer home—we know we’d all like that. And you folks don’t know that a very popular uncle would want a grown up sister and two small nieces hanging around at commencement time,” he added teasingly.
“How do you find a summer home?” asked Alice thoughtfully.