Mary Jane - Her Visit | Page 9

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.
"Well, good morning," said Grandmother cheerfully. "That's nice to
dress in here! I was just wishing I had company."
"Does rain make you feel like you wanted somebody right close?"
asked Mary Jane.
"Every time," agreed Grandmother. "And sometimes, when your
grandfather's working out in the barn, and Bob's out there with him,

and I'm all alone in the house, I just wish and wish I had a little girl
about your size here to talk to. I'm so glad you're come, Mary Jane,
you're such good company!"
And immediately, would you believe it? Mary Jane forgot all about
being homesick and maybe going to cry, and began wondering what
she could do for her grandmother!
"What are we going to do to-day, Grandmother?" she asked as they
went down the stairs together.
"Let me see," said Grandmother thoughtfully, looking at the little girl.
"First, of course, we'll get breakfast--wouldn't you like fresh corn bread
and maple syrup?" Mary Jane nodded happily, for she liked
Grandmother's corn bread. "Then we'll do the dishes and make the
beds--but that won't take long with you helping me. Then we'll peel the
potatoes and start the meat cooking for dinner. Then we'll--by the way,
Mary Jane," she asked suddenly, "what have you in those two packages
in your trunk?"
Mary Jane stared at her grandmother a minute and tried to think
whatever she might mean. Then she remembered. "Those two bundles
wrapped up in brown paper and tied and everything?"
"Those are the ones," nodded Grandmother. "I saw them the other
morning when I unpacked your trunk but we were in a hurry to get-out
doors then so I didn't ask about them. What are they?"
"I don't know," said Mary Jane. "Mother put them in and she said you'd
understand. She said just let you see and you'd know what she meant."
"Then I guess I know," said Grandmother, laughing. "We have to look
at them!"
"Let's go now," said Mary Jane.
"Oh, my no," replied Grandmother, "before breakfast? I should say not!
We'll do all the things we planned to do, right straight through the plan.
Then we'll get those bundles and see if I can guess what your mother
meant."
Mary Jane liked the good breakfast Grandmother prepared and she
loved helping set the table and clear it off and help with the work like a
grown-up person, but she was glad when at last everything was done
and she and Grandmother went up the stairs to look at those mysterious
bundles.
"You get the bundles out of your trunk, Mary Jane," said Grandmother,

"and I'll get my glasses."
"Then shall we go down' to the sitting-room?" asked Mary Jane.
"No, we'll stay right up here," said Grandmother, smiling, "because
unless I miss my guess, we'll want to be up here before we're through
anyway."
That puzzled Mary Jane more than ever because, in all the three days
she had been there. Grandmother had never sat upstairs, but always in
her big rocker at the bay window in the room they called the
sitting-room. She hurried to her room, raised the cover of her little
trunk and turned it way back so it wouldn't fall on her. Then she
reached in and got out the two bundles, and hurried back to
Grandmother's room.
"There's some writing on them," she announced.
"Then I expect that will help us guess what we are to do with them,"
said Grandmother, and she adjusted her glasses. "Let's see what it
says." She read off the first one, "'This is the way Mary Jane learns to
sew.' Shall we open this first, Mary Jane?" she asked, "or shall we read
what the other one says?"
"Oh, I know, I know! I know!" cried Mary Jane, clapping her hands. "I
know what that is, Grandmother, only I came away in such a hurry that
I forgot all about it! It's a present for you--I made