"There," said the driver, "is the Concord bridge and you may get out and walk across if you like. There’s no hurry." "The Concord bridge?" exclaimed Alice, "why I thought it was a _big_ bridge—I’ve heard so much about it." "Size doesn’t count for everything," laughed the driver; "it’s what happens that counts." They climbed out of the automobile and walked across the tiny bridge. It was a low, wooden foot bridge, so narrow that one had to walk carefully to pass anybody coming from the other direction. On one side was a hand rail, on the other nothing but the clear water of the little creek so close below. The girls stood in the center of the bridge and Mrs. Merrill took their picture so Alice could show it to her teacher at school, then they sat down in the shade close by and Mrs. Merrill told Mary Jane the story that made that little bridge so famous; how the brave farmers stood there waiting—right there on the spot Mary Jane could see; how the Redcoats crept up through the darkness to the very tree (no doubt it was the very tree for its wide spreading branches and great trunk told of its old age), the very tree under which they were sitting, and then there was fired the shot "for freedom," the shot which the poet said was "heard ’round the world." Reluctantly leaving the interesting spot that charmed them so, the Merrills climbed back into the big auto and drove away; through Concord, through Sleepy Hollow and to the house where Louisa M. Alcott had lived. There Mary Jane felt at home immediately. She saw the lilac bushes, the old trees and the quaint old house she had heard about. They went through the rooms, upstairs and down, and saw the very books and dishes and kettles and clothes that the girls in Miss Alcott’s story had used and worn. "Why they were just regular girls like we are, weren’t they, Mother?" she exclaimed in surprise. "And they didn’t know they were going to be in a story and everybody read about them, did they?" "To be sure," said Mrs. Merrill, "and that’s what makes them so interesting. They did all the things that real folks do, and we like to hear about such things in books." "Wouldn’t it be funny if we’d get into a story book," said Mary Jane, laughing at the ridiculous idea, "and somebody’d read about how we came to see Miss Alcott’s house? I’d laugh if we did!" "Well, you never can tell what’ll happen," said Alice as they wandered out through the yard. "I expect Meg and Beth never thought of being in a book either. I wonder if they picked roses from this same old bush?" she added as she looked at a rose-bush that rambled high overhead, "it looks old enough to have been here then." It was hard to leave the quaint old house with its interesting associations, but the honking of a horn out in front warned them that they had lingered long enough, so they hurried out to finish the drive.