"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.