The Willow Tree Cottage
Mary Jane thought she never could wake up the next morning. She heard her mother and Cousin Louise talking in the next room, she heard John calling, “Mary Jane! Mary Jane! When you coming to breakfast?” But she simply couldn’t make herself wake up and answer. She dozed off again and again, she was so very sleepy.
Finally she heard Cousin Louise say, “Your mother says you must get up, dear, so if you’ll jump into the bath that is all ready for you, I’ll have breakfast waiting when you come back.” Mary Jane heard John and Alice laughing and playing under her window, so she hopped out of bed in a hurry and ran in to take her bath.
When she came back, she found that Cousin Louise had pulled a little table up to the window overlooking the garden and barnyard, and that on the table was spread out the nicest breakfast any girl could ask for.
“There now,” said Cousin Louise as she laid a bathrobe around her little guest, “while you eat we’re going to visit, because when there are so many other folks around, we don’t get a chance to say a word.” Mary Jane liked that breakfast ever so much. She told Cousin Louise all about Class Day and the game and the lobster salad and commencement and dancing with one of Uncle Hal’s grown-up friends and the shoes that slipped up and down and made a blister—and everything. And as she talked she ate and ate—till all the fresh strawberries and all the egg and potatoes and coffee cake and milk and cereal that Cousin Louise had carried upstairs on the tray had vanished.
“Well,” laughed Cousin Louise, “see how stupid I sit here without getting you one single bit of breakfast!” And she laughed at the tray of empty dishes.
“Never mind about any breakfast,” replied Mary Jane continuing the joke, “I don’t somehow seem hungry for anything this morning Anything more you might say!”
“Then you slip into your clothes as fast as ever you can,” said Cousin Louise, “and run out to the barn. John’s been watching his favorite hens since he first got up in hopes there would be eggs for you to gather before train time.”
It didn’t take Mary Jane long to dress and as Mrs. Merrill came in just at the right time to brush her hair and put on her hair bow, she was soon out in the barn lot with Alice and John.
With diligent hunting the three children discovered four eggs by the time that John’s father called to them that it was time to go to the train.
“You take ’em with you in your pocket,” said John hospitably giving his little cousin all four eggs. “You take ’em ’cause they’re good and I’ll let you have ’em.”
Mary Jane took them gratefully. She had never been particularly fond of eggs but John’s eggs, like grandpa’s eggs, tasted awfully good and she was quite willing to carry four home. She promised faithfully to carry them all the way to Chicago so her father could taste one. “That’ll make one for each of us, ’cause there’s four of us,” she told John as she put the fourth one in her second pocket.
But when the children got back to the house Mrs. Merrill inquired into the cause of the bulging pockets and out came the eggs—to stay in Marshfield.
“Why Mary Jane,” said her mother, “you’ve stones, all those white stones you gathered on the beach last night, you know, and stones and eggs don’t mix very well, you’d find. Then we’re going ’way up to Rye Beach for Sunday, and you’ll have lots to carry as it is. And there’s no use taking the eggs away from John just to run the risk of breaking them, is there?”
Mary Jane agreed that there was no use of that. And with John’s promise that next time she came she could have four eggs—not necessarily these same eggs however—for her very own, she was satisfied to put the eggs in the ice-box and wash her hands ready to go to the train.
The little cousins hated to leave each other; they were just getting well acquainted and were planning all sorts of fun they could do together. But Mrs. Merrill thought that Mary Jane, and Alice too, had had such a very busy week that they had better have a very quiet week-end. So as Uncle Hal had friends outside of Boston he wanted to see before leaving for his home in the middle west, it was decided that Mrs. Merrill and the girls go up to a quiet little hotel at Rye Beach and spend Sunday resting and loafing, and that they meet in Boston again on Monday to finish up the sightseeing and visiting.
“You come and see me again,” shouted John, as the girls climbed aboard their train half an hour later. “Don’t you forget to come to see me and get your eggs!”
“I won’t forget,” called back Mary Jane, and then, much to the surprise of the brakeman who was giving the signal to go ahead, she stepped half down the steps of her car and shouted back to John, “Next time I come I’m going to stay all day and get a lot of eggs—all the eggs you’ve got!” Then she hurried into the car to wave to John out of the window as the train moved away.
It was a very dusty morning, as there hadn’t been rain for more than two weeks; so Mrs. Merrill shut the window by which they sat. Mary Jane liked that, for then she had a window sill where she could spread out her precious stones without danger of losing any out of the window.
“Now that’s the father stone,” she whispered to herself, as she hunted out the biggest stone and put it in the left hand corner of the sill, “and that’s the mother stone,” she added as she chose the next biggest, a round white stone that was her favorite, “and this is the big sister stone and this the big brother stone and here’s all the little stones.” She pulled them out of her pocket, every one and made a long row of stone children that filled the whole window sill.
“I guess I’ll call them Mr. and Mrs. Stone,” she laughed softly to herself, and then I’ll name the Stone children. “You’re Patricia,” she announced to the biggest stone sister, “and you’re William Stone and you’re Edward and you’re Margaret and you’re Ellen and you’re—you’re—dear me! How in the world do people name their families? I should think it would be hard work! I should think it would be as hard as naming rivers.”
The thought of rivers made Mary Jane remember that she was thirsty, so, with her mother’s permission, she went up to the front end of the car where the case of paper drinking cups and the water fountain was. The drinking cup case didn’t work very well, and Alice had to come and give her assistance before two cups were dropped out of the slot so that the little girls could get a cool drink. Then Boston was so near that Mary Jane had time only to pick up her Stone family and stow them safely in her pocket—and it was time to get off. There hadn’t been a minute to wonder what she would do—the time just went that quickly.
They took a taxi up to their hotel, packed bags with things they would need for over Sunday, ate a bit of lunch and hurried back to the station to catch the train for Rye Beach.
“Did you ever see so many pretty flowers!” exclaimed Alice as their train went past station after station made beautiful with flowers—late irises, early roses, bridal wreath and snowballs, to say nothing of the gay geraniums in formal beds along by the tracks. “Wouldn’t you love to have somebody say, ‘just pick all you want to, Alice Merrill?’”
“We wouldn’t have time to pick ’em, ’cause the train doesn’t stop; it’s taking us to Rye Beach where Mother went a long time ago. Tell us about it, Mother dear,” Mary Jane added. So Mrs. Merrill snuggled the tired little girl close up and told her about the time she and her brothers went to Rye Beach so long ago and how they all went in bathing in the surf when the whistle blew the temperature of the water; and what good things they had to eat at the Willow Tree Cottage and how—but there wasn’t any use talking any more, for Mary Jane was fast asleep.
Mrs. Merrill glanced over at Alice who was reading a favorite book Cousin Louise had given her, then she too picked up a magazine and read as the train sped northward toward New Hampshire.
It was a good thing Mary Jane had a long nap that afternoon, for when they got off at their station they found they were still a long way from Willow Tree Cottage and that there was a lot to see on the way. Several passengers got off, and the bus which met the train was filled to the last seat.
First they drove along by some pretty golf links where many folks were enjoying an afternoon game; then they turned into a handsome big hotel. Mary Jane saw children running up and down the broad verandas and caught a glimpse of the ocean through the trees.
“I’d like that place to live,” she said to herself, “I wonder if that’s where we’re going?” But it wasn’t.
Next they drove down a street where there were many private houses, in front of some of which the bus stopped to drop passengers. Mary Jane saw children playing in the grassy yards and everything looking so homelike and restful that she couldn’t help but think, “I wonder if that’s where we’re going. I’d like to have that our place.” But it wasn’t.
Then they drove around a corner with a flourish that almost sent Mary Jane from her seat and out through the opposite window, and drove up in front of a grand-looking hotel right close to the ocean. Folks in pretty light dresses were walking on the broad porches. Children were playing in the great sand-pile out under the trees, and young folks were having a croquet match over near the beach.
“Now that must be where we’re going,” thought Mary Jane. But it wasn’t.
At last, when everyone but Mary Jane and her mother and sister were out of the bus, the driver whipped up his horses and drove away down the beach and then turned down a short road and stopped in front of a rambling, old New England farmhouse. It was painted white, with green shutters; the porch had comfortable chairs enough for a big, big family and rambled around the front and sides of the house as though it was in search of the kitchen door. But out in front, close by where the bus stopped, was the most interesting sight of all—a great willow tree. It had half a dozen trunks all grown partly together and each big enough to make a tree of itself; it had wide spreading branches that arched over the roadway, over the house and over a wide, grassy yard. And under the tree, just past the porch steps was a swing, a big sand pile and a small merry-go-round and a slide place so that little folks who slid down it would tumble gently into the clean white sand.
Was Mary Jane glad that they hadn’t stopped at the other places? You should have seen her happy face!
“Oh, Mother,” she cried, “let’s not just stay here over Sunday! Let’s send for Daddah and stay and stay and stay ’cause I know I’m going to have a good time here.”
But before Mrs. Merrill had time to answer, Mrs. Bryan, the hospitable lady who owned the cottage, came out to greet them and to say to Mary Jane, “Oh, my dear! I’m so glad you’re here! Because I have the nicest surprise for you! Come right into the house and see. I know you’ll like it because it’s just what your mother and your Uncle Hal always liked to see.”
And Mary Jane, followed by Alice, both wondering what in the world the surprise might be, hurried out of the bus and into the house.