Mary Jane: Her Book | Page 6

tell you about it but was in such a hurry to get away I forgot."
"Oh, did you see his nest?" exclaimed Mary Jane excitedly; "his really truly for sure nest, Daddah?"
"That I did," replied her father, "and I'll show it to you."
"Let's go now," cried Mary Jane. "Won't you please excuse us, mother?" And she slipped down from her chair.
"Too late now," said her father, "might as well climb back and finish your dinner. You can't find a bird's nest after dark--and you can see that it's almost dark now. You wait till morning and I'll show you that nest first thing."
"As soon as I'm dressed, Daddah?" asked Mary Jane.
"Before you're dressed," promised her father, with a twinkle in his eye, "you just see!"
Mary Jane was so excited she could hardly go to sleep that night and Mrs. Merrill laughingly said that her dreams would likely be a circus of ants and robins. But she must have been mistaken, because little girls who wake up as bright and early as Mary Jane did that next day, don't waste their nights a-dreaming.
"Daddah!" she called to her father in a loud whisper, "are you waked up? Daddah!"
"Um-m," said her father sleepily, "what is it?'
"Did you forget the nest," asked the little girl, "it's light now."
"To be sure," replied her father, who by now was wide awake; "put on your slippers and come over by my bed and look."
Mary Jane reached down from her bed, picked up her dainty slippers and put them on; then she threw back the covers and hurried over to her father's bed.
At the back of the Merrill home, upstairs, was a broad sleeping porch, sheltered by wide eaves and completely screened. There, each in his or her own little bed, father and mother and Alice and Mary Jane slept every night. Of course each had their own room in the house, with a comfortable bed for daytime rests, and stormy nights and the like; but almost every night in the year all four of them slept out of doors. Just behind the sleeping porch was an old apple tree and it was to this tree that Mr. Merrill now pointed.
Mary Jane looked and looked and then, suddenly, she saw the nest! Set way back among the leaves it was and on it was sitting the mother bird.
"I expect the father bird is getting breakfast for the family," said Mr. Merrill, "and the mother is keeping the babies warm till they have something to eat. You better get dressed now, little girl," he added, "but you may come up here after breakfast and I guess that, if you watch quietly, you can get a glimpse of the babies."
As quickly as breakfast was over, Mary Jane hurried back up the stairs to the sleeping porch and, sure enough, the mother bird and the father bird were both gone and those cunning baby robins--four of them--were stretching way out of the nest! Mary Jane almost gasped at first she was that surprised; but she didn't call out, no, indeed! She kept very still and watched--and watched. And the longer she looked the more certain she became that something was wrong.
"They do open their mouths so funny," she thought to herself. "I know, I just know they wouldn't open their mouths so wide if something wasn't wrong."
She thought a few minutes and then an idea occurred to her. The robin babies were thirsty--of course!
"I know how I felt that time we took too long a ride and I got thirsty," she thought, "and their mother don't know and their father isn't here either. I'll just have to get them a drink!"
But how to get a drink to four baby robins in the old apple tree--that was a problem that Mary Jane couldn't figure out all at once. But she didn't give up, no, sir! She thought and thought, and then she spied the hose lying in the back yard.
The very thing!
Quick as a minute, she ran down the stairs, out the kitchen door and over to the hose. Yes, just as she had hoped, it was attached and ready for use. She ran up to the house wall, turned on the water (it took all her strength, but she didn't mind that), took one good look up at the apple tree to see just where the nest was, and then turned the hose that way.
But something didn't seem just right. Instead of liking it, and being very still because they were getting a good cold drink, those stupid robin babies chirped and cried and acted far from pleased.
"I know," thought Mary Jane, "they want it like rain," and she turned the hose nozzle high and straight so that the water would come down on the top of the nest.
But that wasn't any