“That’s what we’ll have to discover,” laughed Mr. Merrill. “And we’ll begin this very Saturday afternoon if the weather is fine. We’ll take a suburban train and ride till we see a place that looks homey and there we’ll get off and hunt.”
The next Saturday was warm and sunny, the kind of a day for bringing flowers into bloom and for making little girls want to play out of doors. Mrs. Merrill and the girls met Mr. Merrill at his office so as not to lose a minute’s time, and they hurried right over to the station, and got aboard the first suburban train they could find.
“I think this is lots of fun,” said Mary Jane as they found their seats, “we don’t know where we’re going—we’re just going!” And the train was off.
For some time the girls were really discouraged. They passed factories, and tenements, and more factories till Mary Jane was sure they were never coming to country—real country. But suddenly, when she was about to give up, the factories were gone and from the window the girls could see wide fields and strips of woods and an occasional brook. Two or three little stations were passed and then the train ran through a beautiful stretch of woods—rolling woods all leafy and budding and flower decked. The ground was fairly covered with early blossoms and trees of wild crab were just bursting into pink bloom.
Mary Jane grabbed her coat and started down the aisle.
“Make ’em stop the train, Dadah,” she said, “this is where we want to live!”
Fortunately at that minute the train really did stop at a small station and the Merrills got off and looked around. It didn’t take long to explore into the woods far enough to find that they had come to the very place they were looking for—a spot not too far from the city for Mr. Merrill’s daily trip and yet wild enough to give the girls some real woods. The girls picked flowers as they explored and had such a happy time that it was hard work to persuade them to go back to the city when the twilight came. But they had found the very place!
Three weeks later Mr. Merrill bought a lot in the heart of the woods, and the summer home was no longer a mere dream—it was to be really truly.
“Now,” announced Alice, “we’ll draw the kind of a house we want. I love to draw plans of a house!” She cleared off the dining table, sharpened pencils, brought two tablets and insisted that everybody come out and help.
And just then the door bell rang.