Mary Jane: Her Book | Page 8

quite take an interest in his affairs; she was too busy thinking about her own secret and how disappointed Daddah would be when he saw that old dress.
And then, just as she was going to ask the time, she spied him coming around the corner. And she forgot all about dresses and remembered only the secret. Down the steps, along the walk and out to the street she ran, reaching the curbstone just as he pulled the car alongside.
"Hop in and ride around," he said, gayly. And then, as she climbed in he added, "Lucky you put that dress on. I forgot to tell you to be ready with something old. Now that you are we won't have to waste time changing."
Mary Jane stared. But seeing he seemed pleased, she said nothing about all her worries over the old dress.
"Do we have the secret in the car?" she asked.
"Dear me, no!" laughed father, "it's plain to see that you haven't guessed what it is. We'll put the car in the garage and then, while I slip on some old clothes to match yours, you may open that bundle in the back, there. It's part of the secret."
Mary Jane peered over the back of her seat at the queer looking bundle in the car. It was about as tall as she was, she decided, and bigger around than her two hands could reach and wrapped in brown paper and tied three times with very heavy twine. Now what could that be?
Father set her down in the garage and handed her the package and then hurried off into the house.
She tried to pull the strings off but they wouldn't pull; there seemed to be a bunch of the wrapping paper at one end and a hump inside the parcel at the other. So she decided to run in for mother's scissors.
But just as she got to the back steps, she met father coming out--it hadn't taken him long to get into old clothes, that was certain.
"Never mind about the scissors, Blunderbuss," said he laughingly, using a name he sometimes called her, "I'll take my knife."
Just three slashes of the sharp knife and the strings were off. Mary Jane opened the paper with shaking fingers, she was that excited. And what do you suppose she found?
A garden set--a spade and a hoe and a rake all just the right size for a little girl to work with and so pretty and clean and new that Mary Jane knew that they had been purchased on purpose for her.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands and dancing around, "it's a garden! I know the secret now! It's a garden! That's what mother was trying to make me guess and I never thought! May I have one all my very ownest own?"
"That's the secret," admitted Mr. Merrill, "and the garden is for you only--just as long as you take care of it. Now you take your tools and I'll take mine and we'll see where this garden is to be."
They paraded out of the garage and over to where the last summer's garden had been. "I've been meaning to get at this for a week," said Mr. Merrill, "but I hate to work alone. If you'll help me, we can have the finest garden ever. Now where do you want yours to be?"
Mary Jane looked around thoughtfully. There was the rose bed--she surely couldn't have that, it belonged to mother. And the asparagus bed, it was already showing shoots of green. "I guess I'll take next door to the rose bed," she decided promptly, "because I like roses. Can I dig it all myself?"
"Pretty soon," said father. "I dig first with the big spade. Then you dig with yours. Then I hoe it--I'll show you how when we're ready; and you hoe with your hoe." And he set to work.
"Then do the things just grow?" asked Mary Jane as she watched him.
"Not till we plant them," answered her father. "What are you going to have?"
"Worms for the robin so he won't have to work so hard," said Mary Jane promptly, "and a lot of flowers."
"I guess you won't have to worry about the worms," laughed Mr. Merrill as he turned over a big spadeful of earth, "Mr. Robin will find plenty--see? I'll make a guess that he's watching us from the apple tree this very minute! Suppose you run into the garage and look on the table there. You'll find packages of seeds. Bring them out here and we'll see which you want in your bed."
While Mr. Merrill gave the earth its heavy spading, Mary Jane got the bright colored seed packages and spread them out on the sidewalk. Then as she spelled out the letters, her father told her what each package contained. Lettuce and radishes