Mary Jane - Her Visit | Page 7

sure you'll see it easily, you'll find a little, covered basket. It's the very one your mother and your Aunt Cornelia used to carry egg-hunting. If it's too dusty, bring it here, and I'll clean it for you. Now run along, Pet," added Grandmother with a kiss for the up-turned face, "and don't be long. I'll miss my little girl."
Just as Mary Jane opened the screen door to go out, a beautiful big black and brown dog came running up to the door.
"Well, Bob!" exclaimed Grandmother, "where have you been all morning? I wanted Mary Jane to get acquainted with you right away and you weren't anywhere around! Mary Jane, this is Bob, our good dog, and he's the best creature friend a little girl can make." She stepped out of the door with Mary Jane and they both sat down on the steps and talked to Bob. Mary Jane liked him from the first. He had such a pretty face and such friendly, kind eyes and he looked as though he would be good to little girls.
"May he go with me to the barn?" she asked.
"Indeed, yes," replied Grandmother. "You just start along and watch him follow you! He'll go wherever you go from now on. You won't even have to call him!"
Mary Jane jumped up and, just as Grandmother said, Bob jumped up from the steps too and together they started off to the barn.
"Can you climb up a ladder?" asked Mary Jane gayly, as she skipped along by Bob. "I can climb a ladder all by myself! I did it one day when Mother hung curtains."
But dear me! When Mary Jane saw the steep ladder that went up to the barn loft she wasn't so sure she could climb a ladder after, all! She had been thinking of a nice little step-ladder such as her mother had and this was a steep, narrow ladder made of funny little pieces of wood nailed on to narrow strips that were fastened to the barn. Not a bit like any ladder Mary Jane had ever seen before.
"But the basket's up there, Bob," said Mary Jane, glad of some one to think aloud to, "and my grandmother she wouldn't tell me to go up if I couldn't, so I guess I'll try."
She put one foot on the ladder and then the other. "Why, it's just like climbing a gate only it isn't a gate," she announced proudly, "and I'm way up a'ready!"
It was easy to step from the ladder to the loft because the sides of the ladder went on up high and she simply held tight to them and stepped off onto the floor Of the loft.
And that was the funniest place Mary Jane had ever seen! Hay everywhere, and a pleasant, fragrant smell that pleased Mary Jane even though she hadn't an idea why. She looked around a minute and then hunted for the basket.
Over in the corner, under a funny little, cobwebby window she found it, half hidden by the tossed up hay.
She recognized it at once because of the curious little cover Grandmother had spoken of. But, dear me, Grandmother would surely have to clean it before it was used for cobwebs and scraps of hay were all over the top!
"I wonder if the cover comes off, or just opens like a door," thought Mary Jane as she bent over it. "I guess I'd better see."
She moved the cover the tiniest bit and found it was fastened to one side. "It's like a box," she said aloud, "and it opens easy, I know!"
She opened it out and what do you suppose she saw down in the bottom of that basket? You'd never guess!
Four of the cunningest little gray mice! All snuggled down together into a little ball of fur--Mary Jane would never have guessed there were four, they were so tiny, only she saw the four little black noses and four pairs of beady black eyes.
"You darlingest!" she exclaimed happily, and sat right down in the hay beside the basket to watch them. She reached her finger in and touched their silky little backs; she watched them snuggle down tight and tighter together and she altogether forgot about Bob and egg-hunting and Grandmother and everything, she was so delighted. But Bob didn't forget about her, not he.
For a while he waited patiently at the bottom of the ladder. He seemed to know that she might have to hunt a while for the basket. But as the minutes went by and she didn't come and didn't come, he grew more and more restless. He whined, and he walked around the barn and he looked out the door. Then he came back to the foot of the ladder and put his front feet on the highest step he could