Mary Jane's City Home Part 9

At that minute, yes, things really do happen this way sometimes, who should go by the house but the big friendly policeman who always stood at the street corner nearest the school to guard the children from swiftly moving autos. Betty spied him and ran down the walk to speak to him.

"So the cart's gone, is it?" he said as he and Betty came up toward the house. "Well, if you'll let me use your 'phone, I'll tell them down at the station just what kind of a cart it is and maybe we can get a trace of it--anyway, we can try."

Mrs. Holden went indoors with him and the others stood around on the porch hardly knowing what to do. Losing her cart was a real calamity to poor Mary Jane--she very well knew that her father couldn't afford to get her another one and she had hard work, awfully hard work, to keep back the tears that came to her eyes and to swallow the lump that filled her throat. She didn't want to be a crybaby, but--and the lump got bigger and bigger--

Mrs. Merrill noticed that Mary Jane was trying so very hard to be brave so she did her best to help.

"Wasn't it lucky that officer came by just then!" she said cheerfully. "I can't for the life of me see why anybody would be mean enough to steal a little girl's doll cart and I keep thinking we'll find it somewhere. Come on, Mary Jane, let's sit down on this settee here till Mrs. Holden comes out. Then perhaps some of you girls will be good enough to go up to the candy shop with me and get some more taffy apples--I suppose those went with the cart!"

Mary Jane stepped over toward her mother, who had already seated herself on the settee at the end of the porch. But before she sat down she just happened to look down toward the ground. The Holden porch had no railing around the side and as Mary Jane was always a little timid about falling she kept a close watch on the end of the porch every time she went near it. She glanced down at the ground and then--her face changed! The sorrowful look vanished and smiles spread like sunshine over her face.

"Look!" she exclaimed, as she pointed to the ground. "Look there!"

A TRIP TO THE ZOO

It wasn't hard to guess what Mary Jane had found; nothing but her precious doll cart could have made her feel and look so happy. They all ran to the end of the porch, looked over the edge, and there, sure enough, was the birthday cart all tumbled down in a heap. Alice and Frances jumped down, set it up straight and then, with Mrs. Merrill's help from above, lifted it up to the porch just as the policeman and Mrs. Holden came out of the house.

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the officer. "Another cart?"

"No, it's mine!" cried Mary Jane happily. She ran her hands over the hood, the body part and then the wheels to make sure nothing was broken.

Everything seemed all right, even the bag of taffy apples was still tucked under the carriage robe that had come loose but had not fallen clear out.

"Yours?" asked the officer. "But I thought yours was lost!"

"It was," admitted Mary Jane, "but it isn't any more."

Mrs. Merrill hastened to explain that the cart had just then been discovered on the ground at the end of the porch.

"I know what was the trouble," said Frances, "she didn't fasten the brake--did you, Mary Jane?"

Mary Jane and the policeman bent down to inspect the brake. No, it wasn't fastened.

"It wouldn't take much of a breeze to blow that cart off the porch, young lady," said the officer, laughingly, "and so I suggest that if you ever want to leave your doll in the cart, you'd better be sure the brake is locked. You might have a smashed doll instead of a lost cart to report and then things wouldn't be so easy to straighten out!" And with a pleasant good-by he went on about his business.

Left alone the two mothers looked at each other and laughed--such an easy ending to disappointment didn't often come! The four girls made a dive for the bag of apples and settled themselves on the broad front steps for a few minutes of real enjoyment. Mary Jane found that taffy apples were a lot of fun to eat. The hard, slick surface was delicious to "lick" and then, when a small part was licked thin, it was fun to bite right straight through to the apple.

"If you think they're good now," said Frances, "you should taste them in the fall when the fresh apples are in--yummy-um!"

"These are good enough for me," said Betty contentedly and she bit off a big chunk of apple.

"Betty Holden!" exclaimed Frances with big sisterly chagrin, "you look like a monkey with that apple all over your face!"

"Oh, fiddle!" replied Betty indifferently, "I like monkeys."

"Did you ever see one?" asked Mary Jane, "a really truly live one?"

Betty stared. "Why of course!" she answered, "haven't you?"

Mary Jane shook her head.

"Well then you ought to go up to the Zoo," she said positively, "let's all go." She jumped up and ran over to her mother. "Mother!" she announced, "Mary Jane's never seen a monkey--never! Can't we take her up to the Zoo and show 'em to her?"

"Never seen a monkey!" exclaimed Mrs. Holden and she was as surprised as Betty had been, "are you sure?"

"Yes, Betty's right," said Mrs. Merrill. "Mary Jane has seen a great many things for a little girl who has just had her sixth birthday. But she hasn't seen a monkey. Her father and I were saying only last night that we must take the girls up to the Zoo as soon as possible."

"Let's all go next Sat.u.r.day," suggested Mrs. Holden, "no, we can't go next Sat.u.r.day because the girls and I have some shopping to do. Let's go a week from Sat.u.r.day. By that time the restaurant in Lincoln Park will be open.

The way we do," she explained to the Merrills, "is to take our lunch, a picnic lunch, with us. We start up about eleven, eat over by the lake and then have the whole afternoon for watching the animals; we eat dinner in that nice restaurant, before dark, and then come home in the early evening. Can you all go on that day?"

Mrs. Merrill said she was sure they could, so plans were made right then and there.

Mary Jane and Alice thought those two weeks, or nearly two weeks, never would pa.s.s. Of course there was the doll cart to play with and Mary Jane loved it exactly as much as ever. But she did want to see the monkeys, and the foxes (Betty told her she would love the foxes!) and all the creatures that Betty seemed to know so much about and which she had never even seen.

But at last the morning came, warm and sunny and clear and the lunch boxes were packed, the apartment locked up and everybody started toward Lincoln Park feeling happy and ready for fun. The fathers couldn't come for lunch, but really when all the Holden girls and boys were added to the three Merrills, there was such a crowd that, for the time at least, fathers weren't so very much missed.

When they reached the park Mary Jane realized, for the first time, how close it was getting to really truly summer. The sun shone with real summer warmth, the lake was blue and beautiful and flowers bloomed on every corner.

"Oh, I'd just like to live in a park all the time," she exclaimed as she looked around her, "it seems just like home!"

"Yes, it does," said Mrs. Merrill, with a wee bit of a sigh, "I'm afraid I know some folks who are going to miss their gardens and flower bed this summer."

"How stupid of me not to have thought of that!" exclaimed Mrs. Holden.

"You know it will be just two weeks now till we go up to the lake for all the summer. Why didn't I think to have you plant stuff in our back garden?

Then you could have all the garden you liked right there handy--we always do hate to leave the ground idle."

"Perhaps we might plant something even yet," suggested Mrs. Merrill, much delighted with the idea, "we'd love to try."

But there was no time for further planning just then--John Holden demanded his lunch; Betty made a lively second and in a minute or two a clean gra.s.sy place was picked out, the individual lunch boxes were pa.s.sed out and then, for a few minutes, everybody was quiet.

"I'm going to feed the black bear," announced Betty, as she paused to pick out another sandwich, "I'm going to feed him peanuts--I saved up enough money for two bagsful."

"But aren't you afraid of him?" asked Mary Jane breathlessly.

"Afraid? Pooh!" grunted Betty.

"Never you mind, Mary Jane," said Linn comfortingly, "she was afraid the first time she saw him and I remember all about it. But now she's learned that he can't get out the cage."

"Now, Linn, I never--" began Betty.

But John interrupted. "There!" he said, "I'm through. Come on, let's gather up the boxes and papers and stick 'em in the trash box on the way to get the peanuts." So the children all helped and in a jiffy the pretty, gra.s.sy spot where they had eaten lunch was as clean and tidy as when they came. And then away they scampered after the peanuts.

Such an afternoon as it was! Mary Jane tried to remember each thing they did so she could tell her father when he met them after three o'clock. But she couldn't remember half what they had done. She knew they saw the little foxes--such pretty, dainty white and tan colored foxes that played together like little pet kittens and made her want to hold them in her lap and pet them. She knew they saw the bears--great big bears and middle sized bears and little bit o' bears just like in the story book, and she fed them peanuts which they caught very deftly in their soft cushioned paws. But all the rest, she really couldn't remember in the right order--there were kangaroos and buffaloes and a giraffe who stuck his long neck over the top of a great high fence and made Mary Jane think of nothing so much as a funny paper picture. And then of course the monkeys--dozens of them and queer birds with curious colored feathers and funny bills and feet. Really, she had seen in that one afternoon, more animals than she had guessed lived in the whole world, oh, many more!

"But have you seen the seals?" asked Mr. Merrill who met them at the bird house.