Tea on the Terrace
Questions and answers flew thick and fast as, one after another, the many bathers at Rye Beach learned that a little girl was lost.
“Are you sure she didn’t follow you and go into the water?” asked one.
“Awful undertow,” whispered another, “if she lost her footing even near the shore—” but Mrs. Merrill turned away so as not to hear any more.
“Maybe she went up the beach a way,” suggested another.
“We looked up there first thing,” was the reply.
“I don’t know what to think,” cried Mrs. Merrill in distraction as the police officer questioned her. “Mary Jane never ran away and I feel sure she wouldn’t now. I don’t think she would disobey me and go into the water—and yet, where is she?”
Alice, poor child, forgot about being wet, and ran up and down the beach, hunting and calling her sister.
At last, when there seemed nothing else to do, the officer said, “I am sorry to say, madam, that it looks very much as though—” but he never finished his sentence. For at that minute Mary Jane’s voice close by her mother said, “Look, Mother, what I got for you! And there are a lot more too so Alice can pick some.”
There stood Mary Jane, rosy and dry from the warm sun, her hand full of wild flowers she had picked—somewhere.
Mrs. Merrill gathered her up in her arms and hugged her so tight Mary Jane thought she never would get her breath again, then, when she could talk, she asked, “My dear child! Where were you? We’ve hunted and hunted!”
“Why I was right there,” answered Mary Jane, much surprised that they should have been anxious. “I stood up to shake off the sand and I saw some wild flowers back there—see ’em?” she added, pointing to the end of the bath-houses where some sand flowers bloomed on a low lying sand hill back of the beach. “And I thought, ‘now I’ll just get some of those and see if Alice wants ’em for her collection.’ So I ran up there and there were so many—see how many kinds? And—that’s all! I just picked ’em and then here I am!”
Mrs. Merrill thanked all the kind people who had helped hunt for Mary Jane and made a firm resolve (which she likely as not wouldn’t keep) that next time Mary Jane was “lost” she would sit still and wait for the child to come back by herself.
For an hour Mary Jane played on the sand. They dug ditches, they “buried” each other and their mother, and finally they shook off the sand and ran to the beach for a final plunge before leaving. After they were dressed, Mary Jane led them up to the sand hill where she had found the flowers, and Alice picked a bloom or two of each kind to press and add to her collection.
Dinner never did taste so good as it did that day—surf bathing certainly makes girls hungry and they both enjoyed every bite of the good food Mrs. Bryan set before them.
“Now I think we’ll all take a rest for an hour,” suggested Mrs. Merrill, “and then, with some folks I met before you girlies woke up this morning, we’ll drive to Portsmouth so you can see the harbor and the beautiful drive along the shore.”
Promptly at three o’clock they set out, and Mary Jane thought it would take a whole book to tell all the beautiful and wonderful things they saw on that drive. The pine woods that smelled so sweet and good, the rolling golf links here and there, the glimpses of the Isle of Shoals that seemed no distance away, so clear was the air in the afternoon sunshine.
“I ’most could reach out and touch ’em!” exclaimed Mary Jane once, and it was hard to believe that the picturesque group of islands were miles away, out in the ocean.
The river at Portsmouth, dotted with boats, big and little, the view across into the state of Maine, and the beautiful grounds of a great hotel set high on the bluff overlooking the ocean, all seemed very wonderful. Everywhere were lovely gardens brilliant with bloom and grass so green and fresh, Mary Jane declared it made her want to get out and feel it, for it looked like soft velvet.
At Portsmouth they stopped at an old curiosity shop and bought an old-fashioned “knocker” for a souvenir of the drive.
“We’ll put it on the door to your room,” said Mrs. Merrill, “and then, when you shut the door, folks can knock before they come in. And every time you look at it, you will think of your trip to Rye Beach and to Portsmouth.”
The next morning the Merrills took their ocean dip early, as they had decided to get to Boston in the afternoon instead of evening. The water was “freezing” cold, but the sun was good and warm and the dip was most refreshing as well as lots of fun.
It wasn’t easy to leave Rye Beach. There was so much to do that would be fun, and so many nice people to meet and such good things to eat, that Mary Jane had to think hard about her father off home alone to make herself willing to leave so soon. But once away, she was quite happy, especially when she found that they could have their luncheon in a diner—Mary Jane would go anywhere—almost—to eat on a train!
Uncle Hal met them at the station in Boston and his smiling face assured them a surprise was in store.
“Too tired riding to do a little more?” he asked, as they walked out of the great station.
“Well,” asked Mary Jane determined not to be tricked into anything, “is it a nice thing we would do, if we weren’t too tired to do it?”
“Very nice, I’d say, my young lady,” replied Uncle Hal.
“Then I’m not a bit tired,” Mary Jane assured him.
It was a good thing that was her answer, for the surprise was ready and waiting at the station door.
“This is my sister and her two daughters, Miss Burn,” said Hal as he stepped up to a waiting car, “and they say they will enjoy the ride you so kindly planned for them.” Miss Burn was a charming young lady with whom Mary Jane and Alice promptly made friends, and her car was a beautiful big touring car in which the Merrills were whisked away before they quite realized what had happened to them.
Through the parks of Boston they went, out the boulevards along the north shore where the roadway borders the ocean for miles and miles. Beautiful homes flashed passed them, parks, suburbs, playgrounds, amusement places—all like a wonderful living moving picture show. Mary Jane was interested in the great shoe factories they passed in Lynn and she tried to peek into the windows and see which factory made shoes for little girls her age. Rows and rows of red brick buildings—all shoe factories Uncle Hal told her—seemed enough to make shoes for everybody in the whole country!
On they went till they could see the houses on Marblehead and the famous Marblehead lighthouse that can be seen from such a distance at night, then, back they went, mostly over a different route, toward Boston.
“Couldn’t you stop at our house for a cup of tea?” invited Miss Burn, “mother would love to meet you but she didn’t feel up to a ride to-day.”
Mrs. Merrill said they had nothing to hurry them, so Miss Burn drove them to her pretty home on one of the tree-covered streets in Winchester.
“We’ll go through the house,” said Miss Burn as they left the car, “but I want you two girls to go to the garden. You’ll like to see my pet goldfishes.”
“Pet goldfishes!” exclaimed Mary Jane, “do you keep ’em in a bowl?”
“Wait a minute, and I’ll show you where I keep them,” replied Miss Burn, and she led them through the hallway of her beautiful home and out, through French doors, into the loveliest garden the girls had ever seen. It was in the middle of the house—almost—for the house went around three sides. French doors opened from the hallway, on the north, from the dining-room on the east, and from a long, low library living-room on the west, while on the south side a rose covered pergola connected the ends of the house making the garden appear to be surrounded with the house. The edge of the garden, near the house, was filled with bay trees, privet and vining roses, next, on a lower terrace, were flowers with brilliant bloom, hollyhocks, delphiniums and marigolds, while around the fountain in the center was a great bed of gorgeous roses making a mass of fragrant bloom.
“Oh!” cried Alice, “think of living here!”
“It’s like a palace!” echoed Mary Jane.
“I thought you’d like it,” said Miss Burn, much pleased with their frank enjoyment, “we love it. I do a lot of the work in the garden myself. I love the flowers so, and mother and I would rather be out here than anywhere else in the world.”
She led them over dainty gravel paths to the center of the garden where, peering into the white fountain, the girls saw dozens of goldfish swimming about in the sunshine.
“See?” said Miss Burn, pointing into the water, “I have one silver fish—that’s for luck they say,” she added laughingly. “Don’t you think it’s better to have fish here than in a bowl on a table?”
“I think everything’s better here—if you have a ‘here’ like this,” agreed Alice. “I suppose Mary Jane feels like a princess again, now. She always feels that way when she sees something wonderful.”
“‘Deed I do,” admitted Mary Jane who had been too busy looking around and pretending that all this was her own private palace, to talk with mere folks! “I love it here!”
“Let’s go over and meet mother,” suggested Miss Burn, “and see if tea is ready. Then you may walk around the garden all you like and pick as many flowers as you want to.”
They found Mrs. Burn waiting for them under the rose-covered terrace, and tea was all ready but the hot water which came in a few minutes. Mary Jane was very glad that the grown folks were too busy talking to count the number of lobster salad sandwiches she ate—they were so good—even better than the nut sandwiches which were usually her favorites. After tea, the girls wandered up and down the little paths in the garden and picked a few flowers; not many, for the flowers looked so lovely there that it seemed a shame to take them away.
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Mary Jane later as she saw her mother rise to go, “now it’s going to be late and we’ll have to go and—and I’d just love to stay in this garden forever and ever! I would!”
“I wish you could, dear,” said Mrs. Burn, “because I like to have little girls around me—especially little girls who love flowers as you two do. But I’ll tell you,” she added comfortingly, “you’ve found the way out here now and the next time you come to Boston, which will be some time soon, let’s hope, you come and see me the very first day and stay as long as ever you can.”
Mary Jane promised and then she took a last glimpse at the fountain of goldfish before Miss Burn took them back to Boston and their hotel.
“When I have a house,” she said as she dropped off to sleep that evening, “I’m going to have a garden just like Miss Burn’s with goldfish and one silver fish and tea and lobster salad sandwiches and everything!”