“Is she up there yet, Bob?” asked Grandmother
wonderingly. Then she called, “Mary Jane!
Mary Jane! Mary Jane!”
“Oh, Grandmother!” replied the little
girl, hearing for the first time, “they’re
the cunningest! Do come see!”
“Whatever has the child found!” she exclaimed,
but she went up the ladder just the same to make sure
Mary Jane was happy.
It wasn’t more than a minute before Grandmother,
too, was down in the hay, admiring the little mice
till even Mary Jane was satisfied. “You’re
a good one,” she said, “to find such a
nice family right away. This old basket’s
been here for years, but that looks like a brand new
nest and a brand new family. You’ll have
something to tell your sister about when she comes
now, won’t you?”
“And may I take them down to the house?”
asked Mary Jane.
“Look behind you and see if you want to,”
answered Grandmother.
Mary Jane turned and looked as she was told and she
saw, peeping out from behind the hay, the distressed
face of mother mouse. Poor thing! She was
so afraid something terrible was happening to
her babies!
“No, I don’t want to,” said Mary
Jane promptly. “I want to keep them right
here and come up and see them whenever I want to.”
“That’s best,” agreed Grandmother.
“You come with me and I’ll find you another
basket and then you and Bob and I will hunt eggs.”
So that is the way Mary Jane happened to have a pretty,
brand new, pink basket for hunting eggs: and
that’s why they were so late getting the eggs
that it was almost supper time before they were through.
For three days after Mary Jane came to visit her grandparents,
the sun shone bright and warm and the little girl
spent all the time out of doors. She raced around
the yard with Bob; she played with the lamb in the
wood across the road; she watched her grandfather feed
the little pigs; she fed the chickens and hunted eggs.
And, the most fun of all, she watched the baby mice
in the dusky, sweet-smelling hay loft. Till,
really, by the time she had had her supper of bread
and milk, Mary Jane was ready to tumble into bed and
sleep straight through the night without ever a thought
of being homesick.
But the minute she awakened on the morning of the
fourth day, Mary Jane knew that something was different.
The sun wasn’t shining across her coverlet
as it had before; and from the window came the sound
of dripping, dripping, dripping rain. The kind
of rain that you love if everybody’s indoors
and can stay in and the fire’s going brightly
and Mother’s near to talk to. And also
the kind of rain that makes you feel very queer if
you know Mother’s hundreds of miles away and
you aren’t going to see her for a good many
weeks.
Mary Jane felt a queer feeling in her throat.
Suddenly she tossed the covers back, picked up her
clothes so quickly she didn’t even stop to see
if she had both stockings, and ran into her grandmother’s
room. “I’m not going to cry,
so there!” she said to herself hastily.
