“I do believe,” said Alice thoughtfully, “that I’ll always notice more about coal now that I can guess better how hard it is to work down in the ground.”
As long as the daylight lasted, the girls strained their eyes to see all that might be seen of the coal country. And just after the sun set behind the iron mountains leaving the darkness of a winter evening behind, they noticed flashes of light off to the south-east.
“The steel furnaces of Birmingham,” said Mr. Merrill, “and you shall see them close too, to-morrow. But now it’s time to get our things on to meet Uncle Will.”
They hustled back to their own car to find that the porter had carefully picked up their things and that everything was ready for them to slip into their wraps and get off the train. So there was still time to watch out into the darkness and see more of those brilliant flashes of light that made the sky glow so mysteriously.
Mrs. Merrill’s uncle was at the station and hurried them into a big “boulevard bus” which would quickly take them home where aunt and cousins and a good dinner were waiting.
“There’s just one thing I don’t like about this city,” said Mary Jane later in the evening.
“So?” exclaimed Uncle Will, “why we think it’s a pretty nice sort of a place.”
“I ’spect it is,” agreed Mary Jane politely, “but what I don’t like is the dark--I can’t see anything!”
“We’ll soon fix that,” said Mrs. Merrill, “I’ll put my little girl to bed and then the time till daylight will vanish.”
And sure enough it did. It wasn’t any time at all till Mary Jane sat up in her sleeping porch couch and looked across the hills of the beautiful city.
“Oh!” she exclaimed delightedly, “I like having houses on hills, ’cause you can see so many of them!” Then she looked down at the street nearby and saw a little negro boy, not so very much bigger than herself, who was carrying on his head a great, big, heavy basket of washing.
“Boy! Boy! I don’t know your name but please wait a minute!” she called. “My sister wants to take a picture of a boy like you--she said she did!”
Fortunately Alice, who was in the house making the closer acquaintance of her cousins, was dressed so it didn’t take but a minute to get her camera and take the picture Mary Jane so hastily arranged for her. The poor little boy didn’t quite know what had happened to him, but he _did_ understand the quarter Mr. Merrill handed him. He went on his way with such a broad smile on his face that Alice wished she had another picture just to get that smile in.