Chicago (Ill.) -- Juvenile fiction; Family life -- Juvenile fiction; Girls -- Juvenile fiction
But the ride on the train (and how Mary Jane did love to ride on the
train); and the nice luncheon on the diner (and how Mary Jane did _adore_
eating on a diner--hashed brown potatoes, a whole order by herself and ice
cream and everything!); and then father's nice talk about all the fun they
were going to have, made the lump vanish and in its place there developed
an eager desire to see the new city and to begin all the promised fun. It
was then that Mr. Merrill showed them the big map of the city and pointed
out the part of the city where they would likely live.
As the girls watched, the great factories and foundries slipped away into
the distance, and in their place the girls could see houses and occasional
stores and here and there a station, past which their train dashed as
though it wasn't looking for stations to-day, thank you.
"Don't we stop anywhere?" asked Mary Jane after she had counted three of
these little stations.
"Those are suburban stations," explained Mr. Merrill, "and a big through
train like ours hasn't time to stop at every one. Pretty soon another
train will come along and stop at each one of those we are now passing so
don't you worry about folks getting left. _This_ train we are on has got
to get us into Chicago in time for dinner."
And just at that minute, when the big three story apartment buildings that
looked so very queer and strange to Mary Jane, began to fill every block,
the porter came to brush her off and to help her on with her coat.
"I'm going to live here in Chicago," she said to him as he held the coat
for her, "and it's a big place with lots of lake and parks and--houses, I
guess, and most everything."
"'Deed it is big, missy," replied the porter, "and I hope you's going to
like it a lot, I do."
"I'm a-going to," answered Mary Jane confidently, as she picked up
Georgiannamore and Georgiannamore's suit case which at the last moment
couldn't possibly be packed in the trunk, and followed her father and
mother down the aisle, "'cause mother and Dadah and Alice are going to
live here too and we always have fun."
Mr. and Mrs. Merrill had decided to get off at one of the larger suburban
stations and spend a few days in a near-by hotel; they thought the
comparative quiet of a residence hotel would be better for their girls
than the flurry and hurry of a big down town hotel. But to Mary Jane,
accustomed to the sights and sounds of a small city where street cars went
dignifiedly past every fifteen minutes and where traffic "cops" would have
very few duties, the confusion she found herself in was quite enough to be
very interesting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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