When they reached the park Mary Jane realized, for the first time, how close it was getting to really truly summer. The sun shone with real summer warmth, the lake was blue and beautiful and flowers bloomed on every corner.
"Oh, I'd just like to live in a park all the time," she exclaimed as she looked around her, "it seems just like home!"
"Yes, it does," said Mrs. Merrill, with a wee bit of a sigh, "I'm afraid I know some folks who are going to miss their gardens and flower bed this summer."
"How stupid of me not to have thought of that!" exclaimed Mrs. Holden. "You know it will be just two weeks now till we go up to the lake for all the summer. Why didn't I think to have you plant stuff in our back garden? Then you could have all the garden you liked right there handy--we always do hate to leave the ground idle."
"Perhaps we might plant something even yet," suggested Mrs. Merrill, much delighted with the idea, "we'd love to try."
But there was no time for further planning just then--John Holden demanded his lunch; Betty made a lively second and in a minute or two a clean grassy place was picked out, the individual lunch boxes were passed out and then, for a few minutes, everybody was quiet.
"I'm going to feed the black bear," announced Betty, as she paused to pick out another sandwich, "I'm going to feed him peanuts--I saved up enough money for two bagsful."
"But aren't you afraid of him?" asked Mary Jane breathlessly.
"Never you mind, Mary Jane," said Linn comfortingly, "she was afraid the first time she saw him and I remember all about it. But now she's learned that he can't get out the cage."
But John interrupted. "There!" he said, "I'm through. Come on, let's gather up the boxes and papers and stick 'em in the trash box on the way to get the peanuts." So the children all helped and in a jiffy the pretty, grassy spot where they had eaten lunch was as clean and tidy as when they came. And then away they scampered after the peanuts.
Such an afternoon as it was! Mary Jane tried to remember each thing they did so she could tell her father when he met them after three o'clock. But she couldn't remember half what they had done. She knew they saw the little foxes--such pretty, dainty white and tan colored foxes that played together like little pet kittens and made her want to hold them in her lap and pet them. She knew they saw the bears--great big bears and middle sized bears and little bit o' bears just like in the story book, and she fed them peanuts which they caught very deftly in their soft cushioned paws. But all the rest, she really couldn't remember in the right order--there were kangaroos and buffaloes and a giraffe who stuck his long neck over the top of a great high fence and made Mary Jane think of nothing so much as a funny paper picture. And then of course the monkeys--dozens of them and queer birds with curious colored feathers and funny bills and feet. Really, she had seen in that one afternoon, more animals than she had guessed lived in the whole world, oh, many more!