It was in a more chastened frame of mind, that Chicken Little joined the others in the back yard after her practice hour was over. She had spent so much of the hour wondering what her mother was going to do to her, that the hour had really slipped away rather quickly.
The three boys had the brick part of the furnace all done when she appeared. They were carefully fitting into place the rusty piece of stove-pipe which was the crowning glory of the structure. Katy and Gertie were seated on an old barrel turned over on its side, watching the process. They made room for Chicken Little between them.
Ernest got to his feet after the stove-pipe was snugly set with a grunt of satisfaction.
“Frank said we’d better wait for half an hourbefore we started a fire to let the mortar dry. The sun’s pretty hot. Maybe it won’t take quite so long today.”
“Let’s play tag while we wait,” suggested Katy.
“Bet I can roll you girls off that barrel,” said Sherm with mischief in his eye.
“Bet you can’t.”
“I’ll help you, Sherm.”
“No you don’t, Ernest—Sherm said he could—he’s got to do it alone.”
Chicken Little perked up at the prospect of a tussle. “I’ll sit the other way, Katy. You and Gertie brace your feet against the ground—just as hard. Move the barrel a little and I can put mine against the chopping logs; there that’s fine.”
Sherm was about fifteen feet away and he made a dash to stop these preparations. But the little girls were planted firmly before he could interfere.
He was a stout lad but he found the rolling process more difficult than he had imagined. The other boys hovered around eager to take a hand and offering unasked suggestions.
“Lift up one end—that’ll heave them off.”
“You said roll, Sherm Dart!” squealed Katy as she felt the barrel gently rising under her.
“That’s right, Sherm, you did,” put in Ernest who was usually fair.
Sherm disgustedly lowered the barrel, rubbing his hands together preparatory to another shove.
The little girls gloated.
“H-m-m—wasn’t so easy as you thought it would be—was it?” jeered Chicken Little.
“You can’t do it, Smarty,” Katy shied a chip at him.
Gertie kicked her heels against the barrel in glee and said nothing.
“Before I’d let the girls get ahead of me!” Carol and Ernest joined in the chorus of derision.
“Sherm Dart beaten by the girls!”
Sherm gritted his teeth and settled down to business. He pulled—he pushed—he jerked, but the little maids succeeded in maintaining some sort of balance. He couldn’t get the barrel over. Finally he had a happy thought. He also braced both feet against the chopping log and giving a sudden shove with all his strength sent the barrel over and the little girls sprawling in all directions at the same time.
There was a chorus of protests from Chicken Little and Katy, but Ernest and Carol acting as umpires declared that Sherm had kept his contract. Furthermore, the boys were eager to light the furnace, dry or not.
Wiping his eyes ... as the puffs came thicker.Wiping his eyes ... as the puffs came thicker.
To Chicken Little was granted the proud privilege of touching the match to the heaped-up fuel. It took five matches to do the work and when the paper and kindling finally caught, the smoke showed a disposition to pour out the door into their faces instead of puffing decorously up the chimney.
“I don’t see what ails the old thing,” said Sherman, wiping his eyes and backing off as the puffs came thicker.
“Bet there’s a crack some place near the top that spoils the draught.” Ernest was a student and strong on reasons.
“Holy smoke! I should say so,” reported Sherman, investigating. “Look at the top where the pipe goes in, you could put both hands down through the hole. Carol Brown, I thought you undertook to plaster this darned thing!”
“Well, I daubed on two bucketsful of the stuff—maybe you think it was fun to fill in all those cracks. I can’t help it if you fellows left half acre spaces between the bricks so it falls through!” complained Carol, who did not love work.
“Half acre nothing, your stuff was too thin and didn’t stick! Here—gimme your bucket.”
Sherm stalked off disgustedly and was soon back with a gloriously messy batch of clay which he dashed painstakingly into the crack and into sundry other cracks that his keen eyes discovered.
“When you’re doing a job, you might as well learn to do it right—it saves time in the long run,”he lectured with an absurd imitation of his father’s manner.
“Quit your preaching!” growled Carol.
“Alee samee, Sherm did the business, Carol,” retorted Ernest. “Gee, it’s going with a whoop!”
And the furnace certainly proved the force of Sherman’s words, for the fire crackled merrily.
The children watched it, fascinated, waiting till the embers should be ready for the apples and potatoes.
Katy had a bright idea. “Say, Jane, get your dishes and I’ll ask Mother if I can bring over our little table and we’ll have a sure enough tea party.”
“Oh, shucks, we don’t want any doll parties!” said Ernest.
“’Twon’t be a doll party—it’ll be a people’s party,” protested Jane.
“Maybe Mother’d give me some spice cakes. She’s making some,” suggested Gertie tactfully.
Carol, who was a bit of a glutton, pricked up his ears.
“Let the kids have their duds if they want them. It won’t spoil the goodies.”
“Oh, well, I don’t care what they have, but I’m not going to eat from their old doll things,” said Sherm, who prided himself upon being above childish things.
“Nobody wants you to, you old cross patch, butyou will, won’t you, Carol? And I bet Ernest and Sherm’ll want to when they see what we’ve got,” and Katy bustled off with fire in her eye, resolved to produce a spread that should make the boys’ mouths water.
She dispatched Chicken Little for the dishes with instructions to beg Alice for something for the feast, while she and Gertie foraged at home.
Mrs. Halford was a jolly little woman who readily entered into the child’s scheme.
The boys were set to tending the roasting apples and potatoes, and the little girls spread their tiny table daintily with a big towel for a tablecloth and rosebud china about as big as a minute.
One untoward accident occurred before the spread was ready and came near wrecking the whole plan. While the girls were off after more food a plate of tempting cookies disappeared bodily from the table, plate and all, and loud and wrathful were the laments.
“You mean things—you’ve got to put those cookies right back!”
“You sha’n’t have a single bite if you don’t!”
The boys grinned sheepishly. The cookies resting joyfully in their barbarian young stomachs could not very well be restored.
“I’ll tell Mother on you,” put in Chicken Little as a last threat.
“Tattle-tale, much good it’ll do you. Here’s your old plate, and we’ve eaten the cookies. Trot along for the rest of your stuff—we won’t take any more,” said Ernest.
“Well, you boys can’t have but one doughnut apiece, now.” Katy tossed her head indignantly.
However Katy herself was the first to suggest dividing her second doughnut with the boys when the time came.
Ernest and Sherm had begun to treat the doll’s table idea with more respect as one after another tid-bit appeared. Quince preserves settled the matter for Sherm, and Ernest’s last objection to doll parties vanished when Alice appeared with a custard pie.
Alice, who had heard Chicken Little’s complaint about the way the boys were behaving, found time to linger till the little party was well started to the great improvement of the lads’ manners.
“It is customary, Carol, to serve the ladies first,” she admonished when Carol made a dive for a coveted dainty ahead of the others.
And when the sugar mysteriously disappeared into Ernest’s pocket, she picked up the pie without comment and started for the house. The sugar was immediately restored and order reigned during the rest of the meal. The boys appreciated the girls’ truck the more because their own cooking had hardlybeen a success. The potatoes were half done and the apples tasted alarmingly of ashes. The moment the last morsel had vanished the boys cleared out for the ball field and the little girls looked longingly after them, as they surveyed the messy dishes.
“Let’s leave them and go swing,” suggested Katy.
Chicken Little sighed.
“Mother’d never let me use them again if I didn’t clean them up and put them away.”
“Well,” said Katy, “I’ll take my things home, but I don’t think I ought to help you wash yours.”
“Why, Katy Halford, you asked me to use them!”
“Never mind, Jane, I’ll help you. Katy can just go off if she wants to. ’Twon’t take long and I love to wipe,” said peacemaker Gertie avoiding a storm.
Katy thought better of deserting and the work was soon done in their very best manner, which, however, did not include washing the inside of the very sticky sugar bowl or gathering up the remains of the impossible potatoes. But Alice saved the day by attending to these small details and Chicken Little was free to worry over the hated patchwork.
“Wisht I could stay out here in the sun for always,” she sighed.
“Huh, I don’t. There wouldn’t be any coasting or skating or candy pulls or——”
“Well, I wisht there wasn’t any sewing.”
“You don’t either. Where’d you get any dresses or hats, Jane Morton?” retorted practical Katy.
“Feathers might be nice,” put in Gertie, who loved birds.
“Well, I shouldn’t want my clothes fastened on so I couldn’t get them off at night,” announced Katy decidedly. “And if you were a bird you couldn’t read books or play dolls.”
“Well,” Chicken Little replied unwilling to concede the point entirely, “snakes can slip their skins right off—my father said so—and I don’t see why birds couldn’t—anyway, I wish little girls didn’t have to learn to sew, so there!”
“I don’t mind sewing but I hate arithmetic,” said Gertie.
“Pshaw, ’rithmetic’s easy.”
“Bet you wouldn’t say so if you saw our problems for Monday!”
“Let’s see them.”
“Say, Jane, I’ll help you with your patchwork if you’ll help me with my arithmetic.”
“I don’t know whether Mother’d let me.”
“Ask her if you can’t bring it over to our house.”
Chicken Little had reasons of her own for being dubious about asking further favors. She did not, however, wish to confide these reasons to her friends.
“I know she won’t let me.”
“Well, ask her.”
Chicken Little shook her head.
“Go on, Jane,” Katy insisted.
But Chicken Little was obstinate.
“Why won’t you?”
“’Cause she’s mad,” she confessed finally.
But the Fates favored her. When she went into the house in much fear of the promised punishment, she found her mother had gone out for the afternoon leaving some new patchwork cut out for her. Alice readily gave her permission to take it over to Halford’s.
Chicken Little joyfully gathered up her pieces and needle and thread, but instead of running back to the girls, she went to the window looking out into the tree tops thoughtfully. She stood there thinking for several minutes, her brown eyes sober and her forehead puckered into a firm little line. Finally she shook her head and exclaimed regretfully:
“I guess it wouldn’t be fair!”
Then she walked soberly back to the girls.
“Mother’s gone and Alice says I can, but—but—I guess I oughtn’t to, Gertie. I promised Mother I’d do it, you see. But I’ll help you with your examples.”
“You could do it over at our house yourself.”
“Yes, but I think Mother ’spected me to stay athome and she let me off this morning. I guess I won’t.”
And she was deaf to further argument.
The child squared herself sturdily as the other children climbed the back fence, then walked straight into the house, carefully washed her hands—which would greatly have astonished her mother could she have seen her—and settled herself doggedly down to the patchwork.
The stitches were pretty straggly when her mother came to examine them that evening, but they had been faithfully and painstakingly set with much pricking of awkward little fingers. Her mother conceded somewhat grudgingly that she had worked pretty well.
“I trust you realize how very naughty you have been to destroy your pretty silk pieces and your beautiful hair ribbons,” she added.
Chicken Little opened her mouth to retort, but thought better of it and closed it again. Many of the hair ribbons in question had been on the ragged edge and beautiful was a little strong—but discretion was sometimes the better part. She kept her big eyes intently on her mother’s face. Her fingers were picking nervously at her apron strings. Mrs. Morton felt that she was making an impression on the child and tried to live up to it.
“I want you to ask your Heavenly Father tonightto forgive you for being so naughty. I have decided to punish you by keeping you at home and not letting you play with Katy and Gertie for a week.”
Chicken Little had been perfectly willing to ask God to forgive her for she felt rather mean about spoiling the hair ribbons herself, but this awful sentence of separation from the girls decidedly lessened her penitence.... She didn’t think the hair ribbons were worth it. Her brown eyes flashed for an instant but she didn’t say anything. Presently, supposing her mother had finished, she started to walk away.
“Jane!”
“Yes ma-am.”
“Are you going to ask God to forgive you?”
The child studied a moment then replied shortly.
“No.”
“What—come here!”
Chicken Little turned and looked at her mother, then came slowly back.
“Did you understand my question?”
“Yes ma-am.”
“What did you mean by saying no?”
Chicken Little swallowed hard to keep up her courage.
“’Cause I ain’t.”
“Ain’t what?”
“Ain’t sorry I spoiled the hair ribbons—I don’tsee any use in being sorry if I’ve got to stay away from Katy and Gertie a whole week. I guess you wouldn’t be sorry if somebody shut you up for a week—you’d be mad!” And Chicken Little, despite several valiant swallows, burst into a flood of tears.
Chicken Little scarcely saw her mother for the next three weeks. Mrs. Morton seemed to be always shopping or calling or doing something so important that she could not be interrupted. She held long conferences with Dr. Morton and Frank. On these occasions Chicken Little was sure to be sent out of the room, and the child began to wonder what was going on. She consoled herself by talking it over with Alice.
“What do you suppose they’re all fussing about, Alice?”
Alice smiled.
“Secrets, of course.”
“Do you know, Alice?”
“A little.”
“Please tell me.”
“I can’t, but your mother will pretty soon. It’ssomething very nice and exciting, and you’re going to be in it.”
“Oh, Alice, I just can’t wait! Pretty please tell me.”
“Promised your mother I wouldn’t tell a soul. You won’t have to wait long, dear, so be a good child and don’t tease. Here’s a cooky for you.”
Alice patted the rough brown head lovingly.
During the next week excitement lurked around every corner in the Morton home. Mrs. Morton was having a wonderful ashes-of-roses silk dress made. Chicken Little found Alice concocting a huge fruit cake with a perfect marvel of white frosting, and this was promptly stowed away in the big tin cake box and labelled “Hands Off.” Not so much as a bite was permitted to any member of the family.
Jane came into the room unnoticed one day in time to hear her mother say to Frank: “Of course, the house is from both of us, but I want to give you something all by myself, and I think I will make it a silver water set.”
This was too much for Chicken Little. Why should her father be giving brother Frank a house? Wasn’t he going to live with them any more? She decided to go and talk the mystery over with Katy, but her mother saw her and called her back.
“I’ve something very nice to tell you, little daughter,but we want to keep it a secret for a week or two yet, so you must promise Mother not to tell anybody till Mother gives you permission.”
Chicken Little nodded eagerly.
“Your brother Frank is going to be married, dear, early in November, to lovely Marian Gates—they are going to live near us over on Front Street. Your father has given them that pretty cottage next to Darts’. You have always wanted a sister—now you will have one. Won’t that be nice?”
Chicken Little was too astonished to answer and her mother continued: “I am going to take you over to see Marian tomorrow afternoon and you must be a little lady so brother Frank will be proud of his little sister.”
Chicken Little was so absorbed with the main idea that the hated “little lady” passed unnoticed. When her mother had finished telling her some of the details about the wedding, which was to be a quiet one at Marian’s home, she went off to school in a maze of wonderment. She had never seen a wedding. She knew vaguely that people always got new clothes for such occasions and that the minister always seemed to be present.
Her lessons suffered sadly from her excitement. She got wrong answers to four of her ten examples. When her teacher asked her for the second time where New York was situated, she answered confusedly,“Over on Front Street,” and was soundly, scolded for her lack of attention.
She relieved her mind of a few questions at noon.
Was the wedding going to be at night? Could she sit up till it was all over? Was Alice going? Were Katy and Gertie going?
General conversation at the dinner table had to be largely suspended till her curiosity was satisfied.
“Well, Miss Interrogation Point,” laughed her father when she had finally subsided for a moment, “any other little matters you’d like to know about?”
Chicken Little was too intent on her own ideas to notice his pleasantry.
“Why isn’t Alice going?”
“Because she won’t be invited, my dear,” responded Mrs. Morton shortly.
“Why won’t you invite her, Mother?”
“My dear, I do not do the inviting. Marian and her mother will attend to that part. Besides, my child, it is hardly customary to send wedding cards to hired girls. I may offer Alice’s services to Mrs. Gates to help in the kitchen.”
Chicken Little finished her apple dumpling in silence and her mother supposed she was satisfied.
She took up the question with Alice when she came home from school that afternoon.
“I wisht you were going, Alice.”
“I wish I were, Chicken Little. Your mothersuggested that I might go and help, but I used to play with Marian Gates when I was a little girl and I couldn’t bear to go there as a servant. I would like to see your brother married—and Marian, too.”
After her talk with Alice, Chicken Little started over to Halford’s feeling very important but vowed to silence. Alice cautioned her as she went out the back door, “Don’t tell Katy and Gertie, Chicken Little.”
She rather resented this. She was resolved to die rather than tell anyone—as if she couldn’t keep a secret!
But her reception was certainly disconcerting. Katy and Gertie met her at the gate, bubbling with information and determined to get all the facts they didn’t know.
“Say, Jane, your brother’s going to be married isn’t he?” questioned Katy, and Gertie added:
“The wedding’s in November isn’t it? And he’s going to marry Marian Gates and she’s to have a white silk dress. I heard your mother tell Mamma this afternoon when I came home from school.”
How could a ten year old maiden already full to bursting with a secret withstand such an attack?
Jane hesitated, got red in the face and tried to pretend not to know anything about it, but sharplittle Katy had it all out of her in no time, and the deed once done Jane joyfully volunteered a few facts on her own account.
“I’m going, and I’m going to have some white shoes and a pale blue silk poplin dress with lots of little ruffles all up and down in hills—you know,” and Jane danced about on her tip-toes boastfully to be recalled promptly to earth by Katy.
“Your mother didn’t want you to tell, did she? Gee, I bet she’ll be mad!”
“Oh!” exclaimed Chicken Little conscience-stricken, “you mustn’t ever tell!”
“Well, I just guess I knew it before you told me, Jane Morton, and I guess I didn’t promise anybody I wouldn’t tell. ’Sides, everybody that’s got eyes knows it. I’ve seen your brother out riding with her heaps of times.”
“She’s got be-utiful clothes,” said Gertie, “and her sister May says her hair reaches most down to her knees and it’s just as thick as——”
“Yes,” interrupted Katy, “and I guess you’ll have to like Jennie Gates whether you want to or not ’cause she’ll be a kind of a sister, too.”
“She won’t either!” denied Chicken Little hotly. “Mother said just Marian, and she’s lovely—so there!”
“Isn’t it funny her name will be Marian Morton now instead of Marian Gates,” replied Katy, satisfiedwith the commotion she had caused and wishing to give a new turn to the conversation.
This was a new thought to Chicken Little and she paused to ponder over it. Of course her mother’s name was Morton the same as her father’s, but then she supposed it had always been Morton. That night when she went home she astounded her mother by asking why Frank’s name wouldn’t be Frank Gates if Marian was to be Marian Morton. She also made her big brother’s face flush by asking if Marian’s red hair really truly came below her knees.
“Why, little Sis, I don’t know. It looks as if it did.”
Jane looked forward to the call on the new sister with mingled dread and delight. She drove off in state beside her mother proudly arrayed in her best red merino dress and little brown furs, and firmly resolved to put prejudice aside for once and be a little lady.
Her awe of this new sister was so great that she followed her mother into the Gates’ parlor in such a condition of stage fright that she resembled a jointed doll more than an active child. She extended her small hand stiffly to the tall girl in blue who bent to greet her. But the new sister had heard too much of Chicken Little to stand on ceremony, and putting both arms around her, kissed her twice, oncebetween the wondering eyes and once on her prim little mouth.
The child’s heart was captured immediately and she joyfully cuddled up close to this new relative, who drew her with her to a big chair relieving her own nervousness, at this interview with dignified Mrs. Morton, by petting Chicken Little.
Marian Gates soon noticed that Jane seemed specially interested in her hair. She detected small fingers feeling it cautiously and saw Mrs. Morton shake her head. Finally, Chicken Little reached up and whispered something. Marian laughed and nodded, then turning to Mrs. Morton explained: “She wants me to take my hair down.”
Mrs. Morton protested but Marian bent her head and told Jane to pull out the pins. The child’s fingers trembled and she touched the soft dark masses almost reverently.
When the last pin was out and the hair tumbled a shimmering cloud over Marian’s shoulders, over the chair arms, and on down to the floor, Mrs. Morton exclaimed in admiration and Chicken Little stood spellbound. Marian, blushing, got to her feet.
“There’s really too much,” she apologized. “It’s hard to do anything with.”
Chicken Little stepped forward fascinated, slipping her fingers among the shining strands.
“It is”—she gasped finally, “it is—clear below your knees—and it’s real!”
She could hardly wait to get home and assure brother Frank of the miraculous fact. He seemed deeply interested. When he went to see Marian that evening he remarked:
“Why thisunfair discrimination? Don’t you love me as well as you do Jane?”
And blushing Marian displayed her wealth of hair to a second audience no less admiring than the first.
It seemed to Chicken Little that the day of the wedding would never come. She bubbled about it till each individual member of the Morton family, including the sympathetic Alice, wished she hadn’t been told. Ernest, who was secretly almost as excited as Jane, though he considered it the manly thing to pretend that he wasn’t, listened eagerly to all her facts, but got tired of her questions.
“Girls and women are always fussing about clothes. Mother says I’ve got to wear a stiff collar,” he complained. “Anyway, I hope they’ll have a lot to eat.”
“Oh, I know they will,” said Chicken Little. “Jennie Gates said they were cooking and packing all the time at her house this week. She says Frank gave her a quarter. I wish he’d give me a quarter.”
“Ah, he’s just makin’ up with Marian’s family.You don’t have to be paid to like Marian—you think she’s the only person on the earth now.”
As the wedding day approached, Chicken Little became more and more concerned about Alice’s being left at home. She broached the subject to her mother again but was dismissed with a curt:
“It is impossible, my dear. I gave Alice the opportunity to be present and she refused. I fear she is getting notions very much above her position.”
The child was not content. She decided to tackle her brother Frank. She met him at the front gate one evening about three days before the wedding, and poured out her tale of woe. Frank considered, then patted her on the head and promised to talk it over with Marian.
The next day Miss Alice Fletcher received an engraved card requesting the pleasure of her company at the Gates-Morton nuptials. The tears stood in Alice’s eyes as she read it. “How dear of Marian!” she exclaimed.
Mrs. Morton had felt distinctly displeased at the arrival of the card, but the sight of the girl’s tears disarmed her. Instead of discouraging Alice from attending the wedding as she at first intended, she turned in and helped her arrange a dress for the occasion. She did, however, ask Chicken Little somewhat sternly if she had teased Marian to invite Alice.
The long parlors of the Gates home were fragrant with evergreen and hot-house flowers that wedding night when the Morton family arrived. Chicken Little had seen her brother’s trunk start for the station, and had admired his silk hat and white gloves as the hack called for him before the rest of the family were ready. She had promised Katy and Gertie to bring them a lot of wedding cake and to remember every single thing to tell them, but especially to find out whether Marian was dressed properly as a bride should be in “something old and something new, something borrowed and something blue.” Katy had discovered that this was absolutely necessary to a bride’s future happiness.
The something new was very apparent as Marian and Frank walked slowly down the long room between the lines of friends and relatives to the little bower where the minister stood waiting for them. Marian was all in shimmering silken white, but she wore no veil, and her glorious hair crowned a very sweet and earnest face. She carried a quaint little bouquet of pale tea roses and heliotrope framed formally in lacy white paper, and an exquisite lace handkerchief, whose slightly yellowed border betrayed that it was something old, even to Chicken Little’s childish eyes.
Frank held his head high and clasped Marian’s arm close as if he were a little afraid she mightvanish at the last moment. Jane noticed that there were tears in her mother’s eyes and in Marian’s father’s and she felt worried lest it was because Marian had forgotten the “something borrowed” and “something blue.” She inspected her carefully the whole length of the parlors, but no hint of anything blue could she detect unless it was the heliotrope in the bouquet, and that she thought was surely lavender. Her mother wore a great deal of lavender. Perhaps, though, the handkerchief had been borrowed.
She forgot her anxiety for a few moments during the hush that attended the solemn rendering of the marriage service. She slipped clear out in front of everybody to see better, but Ernest pulled her back impatiently. When the last words were uttered and the minister extended his hand in congratulation, she slipped quietly around behind the bridal pair, to look Marian over at close range. Her brother caught sight of her.
“Come on, Chicken Little, and kiss your new sister. Why, what a solemn face!”
Marian hugged her up tight and Jane found courage to whisper, “You haven’t got anything blue on.”
Marian looked puzzled for an instant, then laughed heartily.
“Yes, I have, little sister, but don’t you tell—it’s a blue garter. And my handkerchief is old and borrowedfrom my mother. It was her wedding handkerchief—so you see it’s all right. I’m glad you wished me to be just right.”
“Katy said brides wouldn’t be happy if they didn’t,” explained the child.
“And you wanted me to be happy—bless your heart! I’m going to be the happiest girl in the world and I’m going to love my little new sister very dearly.”
The child’s heart was rather divided for the remainder of the evening between the desire to stay close to the new sister, and her allegiance to Alice. A glimpse of the latter standing off by herself near a window, decided her. With her usual impetuous movement she made a dash in her direction, bumping smartly into a tall young man who chanced to be in the way.
Mr. Richard Harding looked down at her with a smile.
“Hello, small craft, where are you heading for at such speed?”
Chicken Little returned the smile, rubbing her cheek where it had grazed against his coat button.
“I was just a going to Alice.”
“Alice, eh?—You are Frank Morton’s little sister aren’t you?”
Jane nodded.
“I’m Chicken Little.”
“I see, well, Chicken Little, you’ll have hard work getting through this crowd—let me help you. Where is Alice?”
Chicken Little pointed.
Alice’s simple white swiss dress was outlined very distinctly against a dark red curtain. She looked very lovely as Mr. Harding immediately observed. Her dark hair was coiled low on her neck with two long curls hanging down over one shoulder. Her gray eyes were sweet and wistful as she watched the gay company in which she had so little part. She had tucked a spray of red berries in her hair and another was fastened at her throat with a handsome old cameo brooch.
“So that is Alice. Well, I think I should like to go to Alice myself. Suppose you take me over and introduce me. I’m Dick Harding.”
The introduction was adequate if not conventional. One of Chicken Little’s hands was slipped confidingly into Dick Harding’s by this time, and she promptly tucked the other into Alice’s when she reached her. This brought the two very close together indeed and made them laugh.
“Here, Chicken Little, what about that introduction?”
Jane glanced from one face to the other with shy embarrassment.
“This is Alice,” she said, looking up at Dick Harding, “and this is Dick Harding, Alice.”
“I am delighted to meet you, Miss Alice,” Dick said, smiling again.
“Alice Fletcher, Mr. Harding.”
Mr. Harding suggested that he should find them seats and bring them some supper. He found an empty sofa and Chicken Little settled down cozily between them. Here she rejoiced in unlimited sandwiches and cake and ice-cream until she suddenly remembered her promise to take Katy some wedding cake and started off on a foraging expedition.
Apparently Dick Harding and Alice did not miss her. They seemed to be having a very jolly half hour together. When Alice rose on the plea of helping Mrs. Morton, Dick Harding detained her to ask if he might come to see her. He was astonished at the confusion his simple request caused. Alice’s face flushed, then turned pale, and her hands trembled as she toyed with her handkerchief. It was a full minute before she replied.
“I—I am afraid you don’t understand, Mr. Harding. I am Mrs. Morton’s hired girl.”
Dick Harding had not understood and he was very much surprised, but he was too entirely a gentleman to hurt her by revealing it.
“I should like to come, Miss Fletcher,—if it would not embarrass you,” he said warmly.
Alice seemed troubled. She looked up at him, as he stood there regarding her with friendly eyes.
“I’m afraid it would,” she answered. “I should love to have you—but—it wouldn’t be best—you understand.”
“Yes, Miss Fletcher, I do understand, and I honor you for your frankness, but I warn you I don’t intend to let our acquaintance drop. Good-night.”
Chicken Little’s foraging was most successful. She secured enough wedding cake to furnish indigestion and dreams for a family of twelve, not to mention samples of other edibles, but she was horribly afraid her mother would see the bulging package in her coat pocket. It relieved her mind to catch Ernest filling his pockets, too.
“I am just taking a little something to the boys,” he apologized rather shame-facedly.
Ernest freed his mind on the subject of weddings the following morning at the breakfast table.
“I shouldn’t mind the wedding,” he said thoughtfully between mouthfuls of buckwheat cakes and syrup, “but what a man wants a girl tagging round all the time for, I can’t see.”
Mrs. Morton looked horrified, and the doctor looked up from his paper long enough to ejaculate “What?” Chicken Little took up the cudgels: “I’d like to have Marian round every single minute. I wish she was going to live with us.”
“Oh, Marian’s all right, but I don’t want any girl dearyin’ me!” And Ernest relapsed into the buckwheats again.
“Jane,” called Mrs. Morton as the child was starting back to school one noon a few days after the wedding, “go by the postoffice on your way home and ask for the mail. There will probably be a letter from Frank or Marian on the afternoon train.”
“I will, Mother.” Chicken Little called back, but she came near forgetting it because she had something else on her mind. She never could keep two things on her mind at the same time successfully.
Alice had been very sober ever since the wedding. The night before Chicken Little had found her crying.
“It’s nothing, dear. I’m just silly enough to be worrying because I can’t be somebody,” she told Chicken Little. “If I could only find a way to go toschool two years so I could teach! I have been thinking of trying to work for my board, but Mary Miller did that and she had to work so hard she didn’t have time to study and she got sick. I don’t see how I could pay for my books and clothes either. Perhaps Uncle Joseph would lend me the money if I’d write to him—I could pay it back when I got to teaching. But I can’t bear to, after the way he treated Mother. She wrote to him when Father died asking him to help settle up Father’s affairs. He sent her $500 and said that was all he could do for her—that he couldn’t spare the time to come here—she could hire a lawyer. Mother never wrote to him again and we never heard from him afterwards. I’ve been told he still lives in Cincinnati and is very rich. Oh, dear, if I only could get that bank stock money—I wish Mr. Gasset would hurry up and do something.”
Alice poured out her troubles to the child for want of an older listener and Chicken Little sympathized acutely.
She wanted to talk it over with her father but Dr. Morton had been called away some distance into the country to see a patient and had not returned. She relieved her mind to Katy and Gertie on the way to school that morning and they were satisfyingly indignant over Alice’s troubles, but had no suggestions to offer.
“Her uncle’s an old skinflint—that’s what he is. He’s awful rich and owns a big stove factory all by himself. Father orders stoves from there. He and Mamma say it’s a shame he doesn’t do something for Alice when she’s his only brother’s child.”
The matter troubled Jane all day and she was still thinking about it when she started home from school. She was half way home before she remembered about going to the postoffice.
There was a letter from Frank and she was just starting homeward again with it clasped tight in her hand, when someone hailed her.
“Hello, Chicken Little Jane, are you postman today?”
It was Dick Harding.
“Going straight home? I’m going your way then. Here, let me carry your books.”
They passed a greenhouse en route and Dick asked Jane if she thought her mother would mind her going in with him a moment.
Chicken Little adored going through the greenhouse. She often stopped outside on her way to school to look at the flowers, but children were not encouraged inside. She wondered what Mr. Harding was going to do with the heliotrope and verbena he was selecting so lavishly. He was having the flowers made into two bouquets, one big and one little. Her curiosity was soon satisfied.
“Will you do something for me, Chicken Little?” he asked, after the stems had been securely wrapped in tinfoil and the bouquets adorned with their circlets of lace paper. “Will you give this to Miss Fletcher with Dick Harding’s compliments?” handing her the big one. “And will you please beg Miss Jane Morton to accept this with my best love?” Dick grinned as he presented the tiny cluster with an elaborate bow.
Chicken Little was in raptures but the commission to Alice recalled the latter’s troubles. Childlike she unburdened herself to Dick Harding.
She found him a most sympathetic listener.
“Come over here and sit down and tell me all about Alice. I heard something the other day about Gassett and the stock certificates, but I didn’t know Miss Fletcher was the heroine.”
Chicken Little’s account was a trifle disconnected and liberally interspersed with “Alice says” and “Father says,” but Dick Harding being a lawyer had no difficulty in arriving at the facts. He was vastly interested and asked many questions.
“This uncle’s name is Joseph Fletcher and he owns a factory in Cincinnati? That must be the Fletcher Iron Works.”
Dick Harding pondered awhile, whistling softly to himself.
“You say Alice is too proud to write to heruncle because he didn’t treat her mother right?”
“Yes, but she wants to go to school awfully—so she can be like other folks.” This phrase of Alice’s had made a deep impression upon Jane.
“Poor little girl—she’s certainly had a rough row to hoe—and all alone in the world, too.” Dick was talking to himself rather than to Chicken Little.
He turned to her again presently after another period of meditation.
“Alice certainly deserves better things of the Fates, Jane, and I’ve been wondering if you and I couldn’t find a way to help her out. How would it do for you to write a letter to this Uncle Joseph and tell him about Alice just as you have told me. I expect it would be pretty hard work for a ten year old, but I could help you. What do you say?”
Chicken Little was overawed at the prospect of writing to a strange man, but she was very eager to help Alice.
“Could I write it with a pencil? Mother doesn’t like me to use ink ’cause I most always spill it.”
“A pencil is just the thing—it will be easier to erase if you get something wrong. But, Chicken Little, I guess this would better be a little secret just between you and me for the present. I’ll tell your mother all about it myself some of these days. Do you thinkyou could write the letter and have it ready by tomorrow afternoon? I’ll see you after school and take it and mail it—if it’s all right.”
Chicken Little thought she could. Dick Harding gave her as explicit directions as he dared as to what she should say and what she should not say.
“Remember,” he added, “not a word of this to anybody—especially to Alice.”
“I’ve probably got the youngster all mixed up with my fool directions, but I believe she might make an impression on the uncle, if she can only write as she talks. Bless her tender heart. Alice has one loyal friend if she is small,” he said to himself, unconsciously echoing Dr. Morton’s words.
Jane left Alice’s flowers in the entry while she delivered the letter to her mother, but she displayed her own tiny bouquet proudly.
“See what Mr. Harding gave me!”
“Mr. Harding is very kind. Was that what made you so late?”
“Yes, we stopped at the greenhouse to get them only I didn’t know he was going to get them—he just asked me did I think you would mind if I went in there with him?”
“Well, that was very nice—run along—I want to read my letter.”
Chicken Little hurried away to take Alice her flowers.
“For me—really?” demanded Alice: “Who sent them?”
“He asked me would I give them to you with Dick Harding’s compliments.”
The telltale “he” brought a flush to Alice’s face and the “Dick Harding” deepened it. Alice buried her face in the fragrant posy to hide her embarrassment.
“Did he say anything else, Jane?”
“Yes, he said a lot. He asked me how you were and how Mamma was and if we’d heard from Frank and Marian. He asked a lot about you——” Chicken Little caught herself just in time. “I think he’s just beautiful—don’t you, Alice? He walked most home with me and carried my books just like I was grown up.”
Alice hugged her by way of reply.
“I told him how you always saved the cookies for us and how Ernest said you were a brick and he said Ernest evidently had good taste.”
Alice’s face took on several expressions during this recital. When the child had finished, she said gravely:
“Jane, will you do me a favor?”
Chicken Little was all attention.
“Please don’t say anything to the other children about what Mr. Harding said or about his sending me the flowers—will you?”
Chicken Little readily promised though she looked disappointed. Secrets certainly had their drawbacks.
She put her own flowers in water in one of her mother’s best vases, a white hand holding a snowy tulip, and stood off to admire the effect. Then she soberly hunted up a box of tiny, vivid pink note paper, a much treasured possession, and set to work on the fateful letter. She selected the front parlor as the most secluded spot she could find, the front parlor being reserved for visitors and holidays exclusively.
Its quiet this evening was almost oppressive. Jane stared about the room seeking inspiration in vain. The old mahogany chairs upholstered in hair cloth were shinily forbidding. The globes of wax flowers and fruit that adorned two small marble-topped tables, were equally cold. The silver water set suggested ice water, and the “Death of Wesley” which monopolized one wall could hardly be considered cheering. Chicken Little shivered, and taking an ottoman, ensconced herself between the lace curtains at a west window where the late autumn sunshine was still streaming in.
She sucked the end of the lead pencil meditatively.
“Dear Mister Fletcher,” she wrote, then paused for ideas. Writing to Uncle Joseph she found was a very different matter from talking to Dick Harding. She was picturing Mr. Fletcher in her mind as a cross between a minister and a tame bear. ButJane had a bulldog grit that carried her over hard places, and she finally achieved a letter.
“I guess you’ll be surprised to hear from me but I want you to know bout Alice. Katy says your too stuck up is why you wont do anything for Alice. But I thought mebbe you didn’t know how bad she wants to go to school. Alice says if she could go to school for two years she could teach and pay you back. She wants to go to school so she can be like other people stead of being a hired girl. Shes an awful nice hired girl. Mother says so and shes prittiern anybody cept Marian. I love her heaps. Alice says mebbe you would lend her the money only she wont ask you cause you weren’t nice to her mother and she got awful hungry sometimes. Please Mister Fletcher let Alice go to school cause she cries when she thinks nobody’s looking. She thought mebbe she could get some money for the cestificuts but Mr. Gassett wont do anything.
“Respeckfully,
“Jane Morton.
“P. S. Most everybody calls me Chicken Little. P’r’aps you’d better put it on the letter.
“J. M.”
It took two entire sheets of the pink note paper to hold this communication. Chicken Little opened and shut her cramped hand regarding it with mingled satisfaction and distrust. She had never writtenso long a letter before. She went back to the beginning and painstakingly dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s, a detail she had omitted in the first writing. She deliberated for some time over the spelling. The lines, too, ran up and down hill in an undignified manner. But Chicken Little with a regretful sigh over these deficiencies, folded the sheets and put them into the tiny envelope, copying carefully the address Dick Harding had written out for her. Then she consigned the precious missive to the depths of her Geography so she wouldn’t forget it on the morrow.
It was duly delivered into Dick Harding’s hands, inspected and approved.
“Bravo, Chicken Little, I couldn’t have done better myself.”
Jane’s brown eyes had been fixed wistfully on his face while he read and she wriggled painfully when he smiled once or twice during the perusal.
“I’m ’fraid it’s pretty crooked—p’raps I could change the spelling if you’d tell me. I didn’t like to ask anybody ’cause they’d want to know what for.”
“We won’t change a single thing, Chicken Little. See, we are going to seal it right up—and pop—here goes the stamp. This letter shall be on board that seven-thirty train for Cincinnati or my name isn’t Dick Harding. And if it doesn’t make Mr. JosephFletcher do some thinking, why he is a little meaner than most men—that’s all.”
Affairs in the Morton family went on uneventfully for the next ten days. Chicken Little was busy in school and Mrs. Morton much occupied with preparations for Christmas.
Ernest was full of certain Christmas schemes of his own to the decided detriment of his lessons. He had purchased a scroll saw and patterns, and was firmly resolved to present each individual member of the family with his handiwork. Some of the designs he had selected were exceedingly intricate and hard on the eyes, but he was not to be dissuaded from using them and he toiled away all his spare moments at the fancy brackets and towel rack. He had great difficulty in concealing the various pieces from the persons for whom they were intended. He got so cross about it that it soon became a family habit to cough loudly, before approaching his room on any errand whatsoever.
The little girls soon caught the Christmas fever also. Alice helped Jane with her mother’s present, a book-mark on perforated cardboard done in shades of green silk, which Chicken Little regarded as a great work of art. She fussed away happily over it, tormenting Alice all the while with guesses as to what her mother was to give her. She had exploded the Santa Claus fiction two years before.
“Alice, do you s’pose she will get me that wax doll? There’s a perfect dear down at Wolf’s. It has blue eyes that shut—and real hair—oh, it’s just as yellow. I never saw such yellow hair, but Mr. Wolf said it was really hair. Oh, do you think she’ll get that for me? Alice, I wish you’d just tell her that’s what I want.”
A few days later she rushed in pink with excitement.
“Alice, it’s gone! Do you s’pose Mother got it? Katy says she thinks Grace Dart’s mother bought it for her. I’m going to ask Sherm. Maybe he’d know. Oh, I do hope Mother got it!”
Another source of excitement was the Sunday School cantata to be given Christmas eve, in which Jane and Gertie were both to have the parts of fairies and Sherm a small role. The little girls trotted obediently back and forth to rehearsals, proud to be in it, but Sherm was in open rebellion, the said rehearsals taking away most of his time with the boys. Katy scoffed openly at the fairies, not having been asked to be one herself.
“Pooh, you won’t look like fairies if you do have a lot of spangled tarlatan. Fairies are just as tiny and they have weenty mites of feet!” and Katy pointed this last remark by a withering glance at Chicken Little’s feet which were beginning to be much too big for the rest of her, and were encasedin stout boots with tiny copper rims on the toes which she heartily loathed. Dr. Morton had insisted upon these as being the only proper foot-gear for children in winter, and many were the jibes Jane suffered from her schoolmates because of them. Katy and Gertie wore lovely button boots, shapely if not sensible.
“You don’t need to talk, Katy Halford, my feet aren’t much bigger than yours, and I’m going to wear my white shoes and Miss Gray said I’d look lovely, so there!”
Katy, who was swinging on the gate looking down on her small sister and Chicken Little on the sidewalk outside, took three entrancing swings before replying:
“Well, maybe, but Miss Gray don’t look so awful nice herself and your hair isn’t a speck curly and I never did see a fairy with straight hair.”
Jane was sure she had, and Gertie said pretend fairies didn’t have to be exactly like really fairies, but Jane was troubled and resolved to consult Alice immediately.
Alice guessed Katy had been up to mischief purposely.
“Nonsense, Katy’s just talking about the little flower fairies. Get your Grimm and I’ll show you all sorts. Of course, fairies are not all alike any more than little girls. I’m sure you and Gertiewill make darling fairies, so don’t you worry.”
But Alice decided to give Katy a lesson, that young lady boasting a year and a half’s advantage over Chicken Little and Gertie was rather too fond of lording it over them. She bided her time and did not have long to wait. Katy came over a few days later proud as a peacock over a minute pair of kid gloves, the first she had owned. Jane and Gertie followed, admiring and not a little envious.
“See, Alice,” Katy struck an attitude with both hands spread out ostentatiously.
Alice saw and hardened her heart.
“What’s the matter with your hands, Katy?”
Katy’s face lost its satisfied smirk, but she held her hands for a closer inspection.
“Kid gloves, aren’t they scrumptious? Don’t you wish you had some, girls? I’d a lot rather have kid gloves than be in your old cantata.”
Chicken Little started to protest, but Alice anticipated her.
“They make your hands look awfully big, Katy!”
Katy’s face fell. She had lovely tiny hands and was proud of them. She looked anxiously at the gloves then took one off and put the bare hand beside the gloved one, surveying them critically.
“I don’t think so,” she said pluckily after a moment gulping down her disappointment.
Alice couldn’t bear that hurt look in the child’sface even in a good cause and speedily relented.
“Neither do I, Katy, those gloves are fine! I was only teasing. But, Katy, that’s the way you talked to Jane and Gertie about being fairies. ’Twasn’t real kind was it, Katy? You know how it feels yourself now.”
Katy didn’t say anything but she understood and she remembered. She was a shrewd child and a generous one when her sympathies were aroused.
One morning, a few days later, Alice was dusting the sitting room and talking with Mrs. Morton who was seated by the window sewing. Suddenly Mrs. Morton, glancing up, saw a man entering the front gate.
“Why, I do believe it’s Mr. Gassett.”
Alice came to the window to verify the fact.
There was no room for doubt. It was Mr. Gassett ponderously climbing the steps of the terrace.
“Dear me,” said Mrs. Morton, “I suppose he has come about those papers. I do wish Dr. Morton were here. I never could understand business matters. Go to the door, Alice; he is ringing.”
Alice felt a little shaky as she opened the door to confront the family enemy. She was a trifle reassured to discover that Mr. Gassett also looked embarrassed.
“Ah, Alice, how fortunate—you are the very person I wished to see.”
“Will you step into the sitting room, Mr. Gassett?”
“Ah—umm, it is hardly worth while. I can explain my errand here.”
Mr. Gassett was not eager to encounter any member of the Morton family. But Alice was shrewd enough to realize that it would be just as well to have someone else present at this interview so she politely insisted.
At sight of Mrs. Morton, Mr. Gassett removed his hat, which he seemed previously to have forgotten.
“How do you do, Madam, a beautiful winter day. I am sorry to disturb you—I just had a little matter of business with your servant.”
Alice’s eyes flashed at the word servant and Mrs. Morton looked annoyed. Despite her firm belief in class distinctions, she had grown fond of Alice and “servant” seemed unnecessarily offensive. She drew herself up coldly.
“Yes, Mr. Gassett?”
Mr. Gassett opened his errand rather haltingly. Mrs. Morton’s dignity oppressed him.
He had been told, he said, that some stolen stock certificates had been found with the silver, which he understood Alice was keeping under the mistakenidea that she had some claim to them because her father had not endorsed them over to Mr. Gassett personally. The bank had waited some weeks hoping she would find out her mistake and return them to their rightful owner, himself. She had not done so and it was his painful duty to come and demand his property.
Mr. Gassett shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked at Mrs. Morton.
Alice also looked as Mrs. Morton, who motioned her to answer for herself.
“Mr. Gassett, I shall not give up those certificates till you have proved your right to them.”
“But, my girl, don’t you understand those certificates were stolen from my house? I should think my word would be sufficient,” said Mr. Gassett pompously.
“I am not denying they were stolen from your house, Mr. Gassett, but I wish you to explain how my father’s certificates came to be in your possession.”
“Explain nothing!” Mr. Gassett’s temper was rising. “If you knew anything about business you could see that your father had signed away his claim to them by putting his name on the back.”
“There is nothing to show that he signed them over to you, Mr. Gassett. My father died believing he owned that stock—he told my mother so. Afterhis death we hunted high and low for it, but it could not be found. My mother asked you if the certificates were in the store safe, but you denied all knowledge of them—yet you had them all the time and they did not appear in the settlement of Father’s estate. It looks very queer if they were yours that you did not say so to my mother at the time. No, I shall not give them up until you prove your right to them.”
Mr. Gassett’s face was a very expressive one. It was red with wrath by the time Alice had finished her little speech.
“Hoighty-toighty, my girl, you’d better think twice before you go to insulting your betters. Your mother’s dead and what you remember as a half-grown girl won’t go very far in a court of law. Your father made over those certificates to me as security for a debt. It was none of your mother’s business whether I had them or not. They were endorsed in blank because he hoped to pay the debt and get them back, I suppose.”
“You mean he had paid the debt, but carelessly left those valuable papers in the store safe supposing you were an honest man!”
Alice spoke hastily, scarcely daring to hope herself that she had hit the truth.
If Mr. Gassett’s face had been red before, it was purple now. He fairly glared at Alice.
“You shall answer for this, you minx. You’ll not find it so pleasant being dragged into court. I’ll give you one more chance to hand over those papers peaceably—and if you don’t, I’ll have the law on you. As for you,” including Mrs. Morton in his rage, “I’m surprised that you should encourage your servant to insult a gentleman in your own home.”
“This is Alice’s affair, Mr. Gassett,” replied Mrs. Morton coldly. “She has a perfect right to say what she thinks. I did not arrange to have this interview take place here you will remember.”
It was plain to the others that Mrs. Morton was on Alice’s side.
This unspoken sympathy acted like a tonic on the girl. She drew herself up in a remarkably good imitation of Mrs. Morton’s grand manner.
“I’ve nothing more to say, Mr. Gassett.”
Mr. Gassett did not take the trouble to say good-by. He clapped his hat on his head and banged out the front door.
Mrs. Morton seemed paralyzed with astonishment.
“And he is a member of our church! Alice, I believe you are right—I believe he did steal them. He didn’t act like an honest man.”
So Alice won one more friend in the Morton family.
They poured the tale into Dr. Morton’s ears when he came home to dinner.
“Well, Alice, I’m afraid you have a law suit on your hands. Have you kept your father’s papers?”
“Yes, I’ve got a box full of old letters and papers.”
“She’ll have to have a lawyer, won’t she?” asked Mrs. Morton anxiously.
“Oh, dear, how can I ever pay one?” Alice clasped her hands in despair at this new thought.
“You might get someone to take the case on a contingent fee. You don’t understand—do you? Lawyers often take cases for poor clients with the understanding that they are to have part of the money if they win the case, but get no pay if they lose it.”
“Oh, that would be fine! Do you suppose I could get somebody that way?”
Chicken Little and Ernest had been interested listeners.
“Dick Harding’s a lawyer,” observed Ernest.
“He is—and a mighty good one for a young chap,” replied his father.
“Yes, and he’s awful sorry for Alice, too. He said she was a plucky girl,” Chicken Little broke in.
Alice blushed and Dr. Morton laughed.
“Here’s a lawyer ready to your hand, Alice. But Gassett may think better of his threat when he cools off, though I think you may look for trouble.”
The following evening Dr. Morton handed a letter to Alice.
“O dear me,” she said, “do you suppose it’s from Mr. Gassett? No, it’s from Cincinnati. Why it has ‘Fletcher Iron Works’ in the corner—I wonder—you don’t suppose it could be from Uncle Joseph, do you?”
“Maybe he’s dead and has left you something, Alice,” suggested Dr. Morton.
Alice hurriedly opened the envelope, her amazement increasing as she read.
“Why, I can’t understand—why how strange! Chicken Little Jane, did you write to Uncle Joseph?” she demanded, turning suddenly to Jane.