ill--perfectly still--till he came back. What in the
world was a little girl to do? And back on the shore that was so rapidly
getting farther and farther way, Mary Jane could see the mother of the
children, running frantically toward the dock which the boat had left.
Surely the captain would see her, Mary Jane thought. But if he did, he
likely thought she was merely somebody who had missed the boat and that he
had no time for turning back. And so the boat continued out into the
lake.

Finally after what seemed the _longest_ time (though it really was hardly
more than five minutes), Mr. Merrill came back and then, such a story as
he heard!

"Are you sure, Mary Jane?" he asked, "certain sure? The men wouldn't put
children on a boat without grown folks along!"

"But they did, Dadah!" insisted Mary Jane, "I saw 'em!"

"Then you come with me," said Mr. Merrill, "and we'll see if we can find
them."

So Mr. Merrill and Mary Jane went down the stairs, and that took some time
because folks were coming and going and getting settled for the trip, and
there, huddled close together and crying as hard as they could cry, were
the two little waifs!

Mary Jane with real motherliness began talking to the little girl; Mr.
Merrill picked up the boy and together the whole party went in search of
the captain. By the time he was found though, the boat was still farther
on its journey toward the city and the dock they started from was farther
and farther behind.

"Well, that is a time we were wrong," admitted the captain when he had
listened to all Mary Jane had to say and talked with the man who had put
the children aboard. "But even though we were wrong, we can't go back now.
We'll have to make the children comfortable and take them back to their
mother on the return trip."

So Mr. Merrill and Mary Jane went back to the deck, only this time they
took with them the two little strangers. Mrs. Merrill was told the story
and she and Alice and Mary Jane, with help from grandma, grandpa and Mr.
Merrill, set themselves to the task of making the little children happy.
At first it was hard work, because they cried all the time for their
mother. But erelong they understood the friendliness around them and they
stopped crying and began to have a good time. Grandpa discovered some
crackerjack and everybody knows what a help _that_ is; Mrs. Merrill told
some funny stories and Mr. Merrill took them all over the boat--to see the
great engine and