Then one day Grandfather took Mary Jane to see Frances and Mary Jane had fun every minute of the two hours she was there.  The Westlands kept many cows and Mary Jane saw twenty little calves—­such gentle, soft-eyed little creatures that were so tame the girls could pet them and feed them all they wanted to.  And chickens!  Mary Jane had thought her grandmother had a good many but the Westlands had more!

“May we feed them all?” asked Mary Jane eagerly as she saw them.

“I guess Frances would be glad to have you,” laughed Mrs. Westland kindly; “she has to do it so much that I’m sure she’ll be glad for help at the job.”

So the girls went to the bins and gathered great handfuls of corn and oats for the feast.  Frances gave a peculiar call which the chickens seemed to know and immediately they came a-running, hundreds of them, so fast that Mary Jane dropped the corn she held and tried to run away.

“They won’t hurt you,” laughed Frances, “see?  I can let them eat right out of my hand!”

Mary Jane looked and thought that if Frances was safe she would be too.  So she took some of the grain Frances handed over to her and bent down for them to eat out of her hand too.  It wasn’t more than a minute before she had lost every trace of fear and could let the biggest rooster gobble up his grain right out of her hand.  The girls tried dropping kernels of corn on their shoes and then holding up one foot for the chickens to reach for the grain.  And they tossed occasional kernels way to the outside of the feeding group and then giggled to see how quickly the greedy ones whirled around to get all they could.

Then, before it was time to go, Mrs. Westland called them in and gave them each a big glass of rich milk and a plate of fat sugar cookies to eat on the porch.  Altogether Mary Jane thought she had the most fun during that visit of any visit she had ever made!  And before the little girls separated, Frances had promised to come over to Mary Jane’s house very soon.

The day after the call at the Westlands the postman brought a letter from Mrs. Merrill which said that Alice could come to her grandfather’s in two days if that would be convenient.  Grandfather was very fond of Alice; she had visited there before and he was hoping she would have a nice long stay there this summer.  So, as soon as he read the letter he got out his car, took Mary Jane with him and went into the village to telegraph that Alice should come at once.

The next morning Mary Jane helped her grandmother clean the room that Alice was to have—­it was just across the hall from Mary Jane’s and was so quaint and cozy with its old-fashioned furniture and ruffled white curtains.  Then the next day Grandmother made a great jar full of cookies; Mary Jane loved that because Grandmother let her cut out some.  They made stars and crescents and squares and some just plain round ones; and Mary Jane put the sugar and nuts over the top, too.  Then they made apple pies and berry pies and a tart of each kind for Mary Jane’s dinner and supper that day.  Mary Jane decided then and there that she was going to be a good cook when she grew up because cooking was about the most fun of anything she had ever tried.