Poor Chicken Little sadly needed Dick Harding for reinforcements during the next three minutes. The entire family turned astonished and accusing eyes upon her, and it was plain to be seen by her flushed and startled face that she was guilty.
But before either Dr. or Mrs. Morton could demand an explanation, Alice had dropped down beside her and was hugging her tight, half laughing, half crying.
“Oh, you darling, how did you ever happen to think of it? Oh, I’m so happy—I can go to school all I want to, he says. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me as long as I live, Chicken Little.”
When Alice quieted down, it took the combinedefforts of herself and Chicken Little to explain the situation to Dr. and Mrs. Morton.
Dick Harding had guessed off Uncle Joseph’s character pretty shrewdly. The latter’s pride had been touched at the idea of his brother’s child working out.
“I am sorry,” he wrote, “you had so little confidence in me that you would not write me of your difficulties! I was inexpressibly shocked to learn that your mother suffered want. I supposed her family would look out for you both—she had two brothers living the last I knew. At the time of your father’s death I was extremely hard up myself and thought they were better able to care for her than I was.”
“They were both killed during the war,” Alice stopped reading the letter to explain.
“I am sending you money for clothes and railroad fare, and I trust you will let the past be bygones and come at once to make your home with us. You shall go to school till you are thirty if you want to. Tell Chicken Little Katy was right. I am stuck up—too stuck up to want my only niece to suffer. Tell her, too, I owe her a debt of gratitude for her frank letter that I shall try to pay at some future time.”
“But Chicken Little Jane, how did you know where to send the letter, and what made you thinkof writing to Mr. Fletcher in the first place?” demanded Mrs. Morton, puzzled.
“Why Dick Harding said——” Chicken Little got no further.
“Dick Harding!” interrupted Dr. Morton. “Oh, I see,” and throwing back his head, he laughed uproariously.
Chicken Little’s silver-spangled tarlatan skirts stood out crisp and glittering. Her straight brown hair had been coaxed by dint of two rows of curl papers to hang in shining brown curls. A silver paper star shone above her forehead and slippers covered with more silver paper made her feet things of beauty even in Katy’s skeptical eyes.
She and Gertie fluttered in among eighteen other pink and white fairies in the improvised dressing-room at the front of the church.
A huge Christmas tree occupied the spot where the pulpit and the minister’s chair usually held sway. The tree was likewise adorned with silver paper and tinsel, and pink and white tarlatan in the shape of plump stockings filled with candy and nuts. Each of the little girls was to have one of these, and eachboy a candy cane. These also hung in red and white striped splendor on the tree.
The children sniffed the fragrance of the evergreen and eyed the candy longingly. The distribution of presents was not to come off until after the cantata. They peeped out at the sea of faces in front of the brown calico curtains separating the stage and dressing rooms from the audience.
“My, I just know I’ll be scared,” said Gertie with a little shiver.
“I sha’n’t,” declared Chicken Little stoutly. “Katy said I would and I won’t! I’m going to pretend we’re just playing ring-round-a-rosy on the school grounds and then I sha’n’t mind the people.”
The fairies had to circle round the despairing heroine while their queen promised her good gifts because she had been an astonishingly good little girl.
Sherm was to appear later when the good gifts began to arrive in visible packages borne by human messenger boys. The heroine and her Sunday School teacher, and her aged mother were supposed to weep for joy while the presents poured in, and ended by singing a hymn in which the messenger boys joined. Sherm came in and deposited his bundles with great eclat. Unfortunately he dropped one on the heroine’s toe startling her so that she said “Oh!” quite audibly. Sherm’s voice was a littleweak on the hymn till the last Halleluyah, when it came out strong and a little off the key.
It was ten-thirty P. M. before Ernest and Jane got home and settled themselves before the grate fire to munch candy and talk it over.
“I wish we could do it all again,” said Chicken Little regretfully. “Mrs. Dart said we made beautiful fairies and I guess Katy thought so too. She said she never thought I could look so nice.” She gave a little simper of satisfaction.
“You kids were all right, but I didn’t care for all that singing. I wish they’d have something lively like fencing. Carol said he saw a man over at Mattoon, the time he went with his father, who was a wonder. Wish I could learn.”
“I don’t believe Father would let you, but I’ll help tease if you want me to.”
“Frank knows how a little—he showed me.”
“Frank and Marian are coming over for breakfast in the morning, so we can have our presents all together. Say, let’s hang our stockings up.”
“Pshaw, we’re too old for that—we never get anything in them but candy or oranges—and I don’t think Mother wants us to any more.”
“I don’t care—it’s fun. Come on!”
Jane got one of Ernest’s socks and her own longest stocking. They were busy fastening them to the ends of the marble mantel when Alice came in.
Alice had not returned with the others, Dick Harding having undertaken to see her safely home.
“Oh, children,” she exclaimed, distressed, “I’ve lost one of my brown gloves. I wish you’d look for it for me first thing in the morning—it must be near the gate somewhere. And it’s time for you to go to bed now. I guess your mother didn’t hear you come in or she would have called you.”
“Bet I beat you up in the morning,” teased Ernest as they started upstairs.
“Bet you don’t. Say, Ernest, please wake me up when you do. I’m awful tired and maybe I won’t wake up early. I want to help fix the presents.”
“All right, Sis, I will.” Ernest gave her a little pat. He was very fond of this only sister but didn’t care to show it in public.
But Ernest proved as sound a sleeper as Jane in the morning. Alice had breakfast almost ready and the family table bulged with numerous brown and white paper packages—this was before the epidemic of tissue paper and baby ribbon—when Dr. Morton’s cheery “Merry Christmas, Sleepy-heads!” routed them out.
A chorus of “Merry Christmases” responded. Ernest’s was vigorous and Chicken Little’s sleepy, but Frank and Marian, just coming in the side door, called lustily, and Mrs. Morton chimed in with one for each individual member of the family.
Chicken Little flew down the stairs in her nightgown to have a peep at the fascinating table. She entirely forgot her stocking, which was perhaps just as well, for when she did investigate it after breakfast, she found only a piece of kindling neatly wrapped inside.
“I told you Mother thought we were too old!” reminded Ernest.
But the table was all that could be desired. Chicken Little began cautiously feeling the packages at her place till her mother discovered her and sent her upstairs to dress.
“Oh, Ernest, there was one funny little flat box just like the one Katy’s bracelet came in. You don’t s’pose—do you?” And she gave one ecstatic jump in anticipation of the glorious possibility.
Chicken Little’s hair went back with a sweep under the round rubber comb, tangles and all. She really couldn’t take time to comb it—and her plaid dress had every other button carefully unfastened. Brother Frank remarked that the front elevation was more attractive than the rear, and Marian rushed her off upstairs to make her tidy.
Chicken Little’s own contributions to the pile of gifts were made triumphantly after she had driven every other member of the family out of the dining room. She tucked her packages clear down at the bottom of each pile with the exception of Ernest’spresent. It crowned the heap because she couldn’t wait to have him open it. Her father had given her the money for a pocket microscope which Ernest had been coveting for months.
Mrs. Morton made Alice set a place for herself and share their family festival. Dr. Morton could scarcely finish saying grace before there was a general falling to at the parcels. For some reason Dr. Morton had a prejudice against Christmas trees, and it was always the family custom to have the gifts at the breakfast table.
Chicken Little waited just long enough to see Ernest’s face light up over the microscope before she pounced joyously upon her biggest parcel which certainly looked like a doll.
The rest of the family suspended operations to watch her as she lifted the lid of the box, her face aglow with anticipation. She gave one long satisfied look at the contents in perfect silence then voiced her delight in a series of little shrieks.
“Oh Mother!—it is! Oh, the darling!—and it can talk! I didn’t know it could talk! And see those red shoes—and isn’t that the dearest dress? Oh—Mother!” Chicken Little jumped up from her chair to fling herself on her mother’s neck in a grateful hug.
But there were more joys. Onewasa gold bracelet—from Frank and Marian. Alice had made anightgown and a fascinating coat for Miss Dolly, and Ernest had bought a marvelous trunk for the young lady.
Ernest’s brackets proved to be really charming and the young workman was well repaid for his hours of toil by the general admiration. Mother and Father declared themselves delighted with Jane’s painfully wrought book-mark and penwiper, and Alice was more than happy over the substantial coat and the family’s gift to her in anticipation of her journey. For Alice was to go to Uncle Joseph’s. It had been arranged that she should leave soon after New Year’s.
Alice had another surprise later in the morning. A box of gloves arrived on top of which reposed the brown glove she had lost the preceding evening. No card was enclosed, but evidently none was needed for Alice blushed rosy red at sight of the brown glove and hugged the package close as she carried it upstairs.
“I wish Christmas came every day,” sighed Chicken Little happily as she tumbled into bed that night almost too tired to undress.
But no one wished it the next day. Everybody was tired and cross and found it hard to settle down to common daily duties after the prolonged Christmas excitement.
Chicken Little went over to see Katy and Gertie inthe morning but promptly quarreled with Katy over the respective merits of their Christmas presents. Katy had some new coral beads with a gold clasp that she considered put Chicken Little’s bracelet entirely in the shade so Chicken Little gathered up her playthings and went home in high dudgeon, and had to nurse her wrath in lonely state till evening.
Ernest went skating with the boys in the morning. The three cronies distinguished themselves by promptly getting into trouble with a crowd of Irish boys, who lived beyond the railroad in the new addition.
The Irish boys resented a certain irritating air of superiority that Ernest and his friends assumed and began a series of petty annoyances, bumping into them or crossing from the side just in front while they were racing. The boys contented themselves at first with warning off their tormentors by highhanded threats but the other lads outnumbering them grew more and more daring, till finally a boy named Pat Casey, deliberately tripped Carol, sending him sprawling on the ice. He was pretty badly shaken up and broke a skate strap. The trio considered this insult past endurance and a free-for-all fight ensued.
The trio were game, but they were outnumbered and would have fared badly if two older boys hadn’t come to the rescue and driven the other gang off thepond. The Irish boys vowed vengeance and Ernest and his friends deciding that caution was the better part of valor, started for home. Ernest’s nose had bled freely and Sherm had a black eye, while Carol plaintively declared that every inch of his fat anatomy was black and blue.
They slipped into the kitchen at Morton’s and got Alice to patch them up. After a good dinner their courage rose. Ernest had been ordered to split wood for an hour in the afternoon and the other boys took turns with him at the axe, while the three planned vengeance on their enemies.
“I saw Pat and Mike Dolan slinking past your house when I came over,” reported Sherm excitedly. “I bet they’re up to some devilment, I just wish they’d show their ugly mugs here—I guess we’d fix ’em!”
Sherm’s wish was answered with startling promptness for at that moment the “ugly mugs” just mentioned appeared over the alley fence, and their owners uttered hoots of derision. The boys bolted with one accord for the fence, but their enemies were half-way down the alley, delivering a volley of cat calls and yells as they ran. The trio vaulted the fence and pursued in vain. The others were too quick for them.
They took turns acting as sentinel at the fence for the next hour, but there was no further disturbance.Late in the afternoon as Ernest and Carol were nearing the Morton home after an errand downtown, they were met by a broadside of snow balls as they were passing an alley. It was growing dusk and the alley was shadowy, but they had no doubt as to the perpetrators of this fresh insult, and grabbing handfuls of snow, they promptly charged the offenders. They proved to be the same Pat and Mike.
“Here take this!—and this!” yelled Carol as he stuffed an icy mass down Pat’s neck and administered a stout kick in the shins as nearly simultaneously as he could manage.
Ernest was equally successful in accounting for Mike and the enemy went away spitting and threatening.
“You dassen’t show your faces out of doors tonight—allee samee!” was their parting taunt as they retreated.
As a matter of fact neither Ernest nor Carol were allowed to do much showing of their faces out of doors after dark unless they had some business, their parents being firm in the belief that thirteen and fourteen year old boys should be at home after night. But this slur on their courage was not to be borne.
“I’ll ask Mother if we can’t make some hickory-nut candy tonight, then we can slip out and watch forthem,” suggested Ernest after a few moments study.
“Bully, that’ll work! Mother will be glad to have me out of the way because Susy’s having a party.”
It took some tact on Ernest’s part before he secured the necessary permission, for Mrs. Morton felt that early to bed after Christmas dissipation would be wiser for all the children.
Chicken Little promptly demanded that Katy and Gertie be included, but Ernest was obdurate, threatening to shut her out if she teased.
Sherm and Carol arrived before the Mortons had finished tea; they shot in the side door with a swiftness that looked as if they were glad to be inside. Their words, however, belied any lack of courage. Sherm was armed with a baseball bat.
“I came round by Front Street,” he said, “I just thought I’d see if any of the gang were hanging round. I knew they wouldn’t dare tackle me when I had this.” He caressed his weapon lovingly.
Carol had a bag of the hardest snow balls he had been able to manufacture.
“I’d liked to put a rock in every one of them,” he declared bloodthirstily. “But Father said he’d lick me, if I ever did such a trick again, that time I hit Jimmy Smith. ’Twan’t nothing but a bit of gravel either. I didn’t suppose it would hurt him. ButFather said it was lucky I didn’t kill him ’cause it struck right square above the eye.”
“’Tisn’t safe, I guess, Father would never let me put anything in a snow ball,” Ernest replied.
“Do you s’pose they’ll come round?”
“Don’t know—but say, boys, don’t let on before Mother that any thing’s up. And see that you keep mighty still, Jane Morton!” he admonished.
Chicken Little who had followed the boys upstairs unperceived and stood listening, round-eyed, was indignant.
“I don’t know what you are talking about so how can I tell?”
“So much the better—now run along, don’t bother, we’re busy.”
“But Mother said I could help you make candy and——”
“Hush,” said Sherm, “I believe I heard somebody outside on the gravel.”
The boys turned out the gas and tiptoeing to the window, peered cautiously out.
“It is—sure’s you’re born. I bet it’s Mike and Pat!” said Carol.
“There’s somebody else over by that tree!”
“Who—where—where?” Jane crowded up excitedly to the window.
“You might as well tell her,” said Carol.
So Chicken Little was initiated into the mysteriesof the feud and found it both interesting and terrifying.
“Do you s’pose they’ll try to get in?” she quavered.
“Oh—Oh—there he goes!” she shrieked.
“Shut up,” Sherm’s hand was clapped firmly over her mouth.
“If you can’t keep still you go straight to Mother. Do you hear?” added Ernest sternly.
But at this juncture “Mother’s” voice was heard calling:
“Alice is ready for you now, boys. Try not to make too much muss.”
“Well, let’s go and make the candy now and we can slip out after a while.”
“Gee, I’d like to take a shot at them from the window,” and Carol fingered one of his snow balls.
“Here none of that! They’d fire back and break the window and we’d have the dickens to pay with Father and Mother!” Ernest remonstrated sharply.
After one parting look from the window, the boys filed reluctantly downstairs.
“I’m going to stay and watch them a while,” said Chicken Little.
“All right—you come and tell us if they start anything.”
“Whew, better pull the shades down!” said Carol as they entered the brightly lighted kitchen.
Alice looked up quickly. “What for? Nobody can see in here at the back of the house.”
“Oh, there might some of the boys be hanging round to steal the candy when we put it out to cool,” answered Sherm easily, trying to be off-hand.
Alice set out the molasses and butter and sugar and went off up to her room. The boys pulling the shades carefully down, set to work, and became so absorbed in the candy that they almost forgot their foes for the next ten minutes. Just as they were lifting the sticky mass from the stove Chicken Little tore in.
“Boys, I guess they’ve heard you, because one boy came and told those two boys something and they all ran round to the back of the house—just now—and there were four! Oh, you must be awfully careful! Listen, wasn’t that somebody at the door?”
There was an audible crunching of the snow outside. The door was bolted, but all four children stood for an instant with their gaze riveted upon it as if they expected to see it burst open at any moment.
“Pooh, they can’t do anything!” said Ernest coming to himself, “and the candy’ll be all spoiled.”
“Say, let’s go up to the north room and slip out on the kitchen room while the candy cools. I bet we can see ’em from there.”
The boys set the candy in a pan of snow to cool and bolted softly up the stairs. Dr. and Mrs. Mortonplacidly reading in the sitting room were blissfully unaware of the excitement.
“I wonder what makes the boys so quiet tonight?”
The boys followed close by Chicken Little had reached the north room and were cautiously opening the window, inch by inch, lest the sound should be heard outside. Then they quietly clambered out. At first there seemed to be no trace of the intruders. But when Carol incautiously exclaimed in a stage whisper: “Bet they’ve all vamoosed!” a distinct “Hist!” was heard from below. Finally Sherm, who was flat on his stomach, holding on to the edge of the roof, solved the mystery. He held up his hand in warning to the others, and presently came crawling back and motioned them all inside.
“They’re all close against the kitchen windows trying to find out what’s going on. They like to caught us when Carol piped up that time. Gee, looked like there was a dozen, but some of ’em are little fellers. I wish we could make a rush at them, but I guess there’s too many.”
“Shucks, I hate to give up,” growled Ernest.
“Well, we might as well go back and finish the candy!” said Carol after a pause. “We can’t do anything with such a crowd—a sweet time we’ll have getting home tonight,” he added gloomily.
“Pshaw, they’ll get tired and go home before that,” Ernest reassured him. “Say I’ve got an ideathey can hear about everything we say in the kitchen. Let’s go down and pretend we’re having an awful good time and——”
“Yes, and let’s guy them!” interrupted Sherm.
“Sam’s in my room at school and he can’t stand being made fun of.”
The trio returned to the kitchen, and ably seconded by Chicken Little laughed and frolicked, jeering noisily at the crowd outside. The foes soon gave evidence that they could hear distinctly. They began to return the taunts and to rattle and pound on the doors and windows. They were getting cold and the penetratingly tempting smell of the taffy had evidently drifted through the cracks, for one shrill voice piped up:
“Say, give us some!” to be immediately hushed by his more warlike companions.
If the trio had been clever enough to act on this suggestion and treat, the feud might have come to a speedy end, but the lads were not at a tactful age. Instead Sherm hurled the most insulting defiance he could think of.
“Go get some yourselves, you red-headed Irish beggars!”
This taunt roused the wrath of the attacking party to a white heat, and an instant later the kitchen window came crashing in and a giant snow ball burst into masses of wet snow on the floor.
The boys made a dash for the door, but the bolt was hardly slid, when it, too, crashed, open, and Frank Morton stamped in, pushing Pat Casey and Mike Dolan ahead of him each securely gripped by the collar, in his strong hands.
“Now look here, what’s the meaning of all this boys?”
Before the boys could recover from their surprise sufficiently to answer, Dr. and Mrs. Morton and Alice came running in.
Frank stopped their questions with a word.
“Let me tend to this, please, Father.”
Little by little he extracted the trio’s version of the day’s happenings.
He turned to the Irish boys. “Is that straight?” he demanded.
At first the lads maintained a sullen silence, but finally Pat volunteered.
“They don’t own that ’ere pond any more’n we do.”
“Who said they did?” asked Frank quickly.
“Nobody,” admitted Pat, “but they allus act like they did. They told us to keep off the north end.”
“How is that Ernest?”
“Well, we didn’t want them mixing up with us.”
“Anybody give you a deed to that pond?”
The boys were silent.
“Now look here, boys,” Frank’s voice was stern.“It strikes me you fellows were in a pretty poor business trying to hog half a public pond for yourselves. Now you have six times the opportunities for fun these boys have, and yet you try to spoil their skating. Pretty small I call that!
“As for you boys,” turning to his captives, “you weren’t helping matters any by being mean—now were you? You didn’t think acting that way would make you any more popular did you? By the way you’re Mrs. Casey’s boy, aren’t you? Your mother is a fine woman and she works too hard to have to pay for broken windows, don’t you think so, Son?”
Frank laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder and looked straight into his eyes.
Pat shifted from one foot to the other uneasily.
“Yes, sir,” he mumbled with an effort.
“Well, she isn’t going to have to this time. I will give you a chance to earn the money to pay for it yourself? Want to?”
The boy nodded eagerly. Frank smiled in return.
“Ernest, pass that candy over here and you boys shake hands with Pat and Mike and see to it you treat them white after this! My brother and his friends aren’t as small as they let on, boys,” he added turning to the others.
The Irish lads grinned sheepishly, and shyly accepted the candy and apples which the trio, with a complete change of heart pressed upon them.
Chicken Little not to be outdone made them all laugh by offering her small fist, which was hopelessly gummed up with the taffy she had forgotten in the excitement.
“Well, Alice,” said Dr. Morton, coming in one noon stamping and shaking the snow off his broad shoulders. “I have discovered why you haven’t heard from Gassett again. He is down with typhoid fever—looks like a bad case. He won’t be in a condition to start lawsuits for some weeks, so you may set your mind at rest for the present.”
The Christmas holidays had gone by all too quickly for the Morton family. The children were already grumbling about starting back to school. Dr. Morton had a number of very sick patients on his hands and looked worried in consequence. Mrs. Morton was helping Alice with her simple wardrobe, and Alice was helping Mrs. Morton break in a new maid.
It was really a great comfort to Mrs. Morton tofeel that Alice could now be received as an equal. She had grown fond of her unconsciously, but according to her rigid ideas, friendship with a servant was impossible. “I have always felt,” she told her friends, “that Alice was too refined for her situation. Blood will tell, you know.”
Chicken Little and Ernest mourned Alice’s departure loudly. Ernest turned up his nose promptly at the new girl—a willing soul with scant intelligence.
“Have we got to have that thing round, Mother?” he demanded in deep disgust. He had just deluged his hot cakes with cream which Olga had put in the syrup jug by mistake.
“I’m afraid so, my son, until we can find someone better. Girls are hard to get in this town. Alice has certainly spoiled us.”
“What did you let her go for?” Ernest grumbled as if keeping her with them were optional.
“Why, Ernest, I thought you were pleased with Alice’s good fortune.”
“Well, that’s not saying I want her to go off and never see her again.”
“Oh, you’ll see me again, Ernest,” said Alice, coming into the room just then and divining the boy’s mood.
“I am coming back to Centerville as soon as I finish school. It seems so hard to leave you all. You’ve been so good to me——”
Alice broke down and turned hurriedly away to hide her tears.
Chicken Little jumped up and threw her arms around Alice’s waist, laying her face against her hands lovingly.
Alice hugged the child tight.
“I am going to miss you so, dear. There won’t be any little girl to cuddle at Uncle Joseph’s.”
Jane followed Alice into her room after breakfast to help pack the shiny new trunk. This was Alice’s last day.
“My, isn’t it grand! It’s got a place for hats and your parasol—and what are these little places for, Alice?” Chicken Little was eagerly investigating.
“Oh, handkerchiefs and ties and gloves. I’m a lucky girl to have all these nice things. Just think—three new dresses! Blue and brown cashmeres for school and a green silk poplin for Sunday best—aren’t these little bows down the front cunning?”
Alice surveyed her treasures with a sigh of satisfaction.
“If they’ll only like me a little at Uncle Joseph’s. I wish I could take you along, Chicken Little Jane, I wouldn’t be lonely if I had you.”
“Will you be dreadfully lonely, Alice?” Chicken Little was getting concerned.
“I am afraid I will, Chicken Little.”
The child pondered the matter for the rest of the morning.
At dinner, she interrupted her father in the midst of a story to ask:
“Can people take dogs or birds on a train?”
“Yes, Chicken, what did you want to know for? The dogs are usually put in the baggage car.”
“If it was just a puppy would it have to go in the baggage car?”
“Why if it was very tiny it might be carried in a covered box or basket.”
Jane subsided for several minutes then interrupted again.
“Could you put a kitty in a basket?”
“I guess so, but don’t interrupt me so much, child.” Dr. Morton replied carelessly.
“Yes, Jane, that is a very bad habit you are forming. It is not polite to break into a conversation that way—especially when older people are talking,” Mrs. Morton added impressively.
After dinner Chicken Little began to rummage. First she found a collar box with a cover. She took this to her mother and asked if she might have it. Her mother readily gave it to her, but apparently the child was not satisfied. She looked it over dubiously. “I don’t believe it could breathe,” she said to herself.
The collar box was discarded and she began anothersearch. She finally resurrected a small covered sewing basket considerably the worse for wear, which her mother was also willing to part with.
Her next move was to line the basket with cotton batting after which she hunted out a doll blanket from her playthings.
“I guess that’ll be enough,” she remarked aloud.
These preparations completed, she tucked the basket under her arm and slipping out the side gates, went over to Grace Dart’s. She had not taken the trouble to ask permission.
About ten minutes later she returned carrying the basket most carefully. Very little was seen of her till train time. When she started down to the station with her mother and Alice she still had the basket with her. Mrs. Morton did not notice it until Chicken Little put it down beside her on the seat of the omnibus.
“What are you bringing that old basket for?” she asked.
“Oh, just ’cause.”
“Well, of all the queer children!” Mrs. Morton sighed. Chicken Little’s whims were very puzzling at times.
Alice suspected that the basket contained some parting gift for herself. Ernest had hung around her at the last and had finally thrust a big bag of candy into her hand—an offering that deeply touched her since she knew he must have spent his last penny to buy it.
Give her this on the train and—please ... carefully.Give her this on the train and—please ... carefully.
They found Dick Harding at the station. Chicken Little heaved a sigh of relief when she caught sight of him. She had an idea.
When the train rolled in and he picked up Alice’s valise to carry it into the car for her, Chicken Little pulled at his arm. As he leaned down, she whispered hastily; “Give her this on the train and—please, carry it carefully.”
Dick Harding took the basket. Mrs. Morton was bidding Alice good-by and did not notice the transfer.
Mr. Harding seated Alice and delivered the sewing basket.
“Here is something very special Miss Jane Morton wished me to give you. I have an idea its contents may surprise you, judging from certain sounds I heard.”
Alice took it on her lap and lifted the cover.
A sheet of bright pink note paper lay on top. It read, “With love for Alice so you won’t be lonesome.”
Beneath the note paper a tiny gray head peeped out from under a doll blanket and a plaintive “miauw” greeted her.
“Well, I never!” laughed Alice. “What can I do with it?”
“Keep the basket and I’ll put kitty in my pocket and dispose of her some way.”
“No, indeed, I’ll manage somehow—bless the child. This must be the kitty Grace Dart promised her. If they’ll only let me keep it at Uncle Joseph’s I believe it will be a real comfort.”
Dick Harding lifted Jane up for a parting wave to Alice through the car window as the train pulled out. Alice held up a pert maltese kitten and made it wave its paw in return.
“Why—where did she get that kitten?” gasped Mrs. Morton, a sudden suspicion entering her mind. “Chicken Little Jane was that what you had in that basket?”
Chicken Little looked abashed, but Dick Harding came to the rescue.
“Mrs. Morton, may Jane walk up with me—I’ll take good care of her?”
After a moment’s hesitation Mrs. Morton consented. Dick handed her into the omnibus and Chicken Little trotted joyfully along beside him. Dick Harding seemed to enjoy having the warm little hand tucked confidingly into his own.
It was an ideal winter day, clear and crisp and gorgeously white.
They walked along in silence for a few minutes before Jane burst out with the idea that was occupying her small brain.
“Why does it make people nicer to go to school a lot? I don’t think Alice could be any nicer, do you, Mr. Harding? Our teacher’s gone to school, oh, most always, I guess, and I don’t think she’s near as nice as Alice.”
Dick Harding laughed heartily.
“Miss Alice is A1, isn’t she? And we don’t like to have her go away so far—do we? Education doesn’t always make people nicer, but it often helps, Chicken Little. You like your father’s ways rather better than old Jake’s don’t you? Well, your father has education and Jake hasn’t. That’s not all the difference but it is part. Besides, even if it didn’t make us nicer to know things, it is rather good fun to learn them, don’t you think?”
He patted the hand in his and smiled down at her. Chicken Little partly understanding yet puzzled, smiled back.
They walked on a half block farther before Jane found anything more to say.
“I guess Alice won’t be lonesome now she’s got the kitty. Don’t you think it was a pretty kitty? I wanted it awfully bad myself but I’ve got Ernest and Katy and Gertie to play with and Alice won’t have anybody you know.”
Dick Harding stifled a laugh as he recalled Alice’s surprised face.
“I think that was an uncommonly pretty kitty andyou were very generous to give it away when you wanted it yourself. It is mighty hard to part with things we want ourselves, don’t you think so, little partner?”
Dick looked off where the smoke of the departing train could still be plainly seen in the distance.
Chicken Little followed his gaze but not his thoughts.
“Do you s’pose I’ll ever go ’way off to school, Mr. Harding?”
“I think it likely some day. When you do, I’ll promise to see you off and bring you a big box of candy, if I’m round when you start. Say, how would it do to stop in at Jackson’s and get the candy today? I might not be there when the time comes, you know.”
They stopped and made the important purchase after much deliberation as to kinds.
“I like gum drops and chocolate creams best,” Jane volunteered naively.
“Mr. Harding is too generous,” her mother remarked with a wry smile when Jane proudly displayed her trophy. She had never had a whole boxful of candy before. Usually a dime’s worth had been the maternal limit.
Chicken Little treated Katy and Gertie and Ernest and Carol and Sherm and the new maid, with lavish generosity. She also ate all her mother would lether, herself. Finally, Mrs. Morton ordered her to put the rest away for the next day. It would have been well for Chicken Little if her mother’s direction had extended to the next day as well. But by morning Mrs. Morton had forgotten all about the candy. Chicken Little had strict orders not to eat sweets before breakfast so she heroically withstood temptation until her last bite of waffle was swallowed, then munched away till school time. The box with its remaining contents accompanied her to school to her later undoing.
She had never known such popularity as was hers when the other children found what the big box contained. One boy made her a present of a brand new slate pencil on the spot. She was allowed to choose up for her side in “No bears out tonight,” though this honor usually fell to one of the bigger girls. By the time the bell rang she felt blissfully important. She settled regretfully down to her work with the candy snugly tucked away inside her desk.
All went well until about the middle of the geography recitation, when turning around from her work at the board, she caught the small boy, who sat across the aisle, in the act of helping himself to a handful of her cherished sweets. She was surprised into forgetting where she was and exclaimed out loud:
“Oh, you mustn’t!”
The teacher looked up in pained amazement.
“Who was that spoke out loud?” she demanded.
Chicken Little raised a reluctant hand.
“Jane Morton, I’m surprised—I wouldn’t have believed it of you! You may stand on the floor by my desk for half an hour.”
The teacher had been much annoyed by whispering that morning, the children being all more or less riotous after their vacation, so without stopping to investigate, as was her usual custom, she promptly visited the sins of the whole school upon Jane.
Jane had never stood upon the floor for punishment before and she felt the disgrace keenly. It hurt the child’s sense of fairness, too, but she dared not try to explain lest Miss Brown should confiscate the remainder of her precious candy. She took her book and walked slowly over to the spot indicated in front of the whole school, her face growing redder and redder. It was several minutes before she dared lift her eyes and face her mates.
When she did, several of her friends telephoned furtive messages of sympathy that cheered her a little. But her humiliation over her disgrace was soon swallowed up in wrath when the offending small boy, who had caused all her troubles, added insult to injury by ostentatiously eating his booty whenever the teacher’s back was turned. He would roll hiseyes and smack his lips in the utmost enjoyment.
Chicken Little forgot her disgrace in a desire for revenge. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing she cared. She set herself resolutely to study, avoiding even a glance in his direction. But she did more than study; she laid her plans for swift vengeance. When permitted to go back to her seat, she still ignored him though he did his best to attract her attention.
His place in the line was just ahead of hers, and she followed him down the halls and the long stairs calculating to a nicety just how she would get even. The moment they passed through the outside door, the boy turned for a parting taunt. He did not get it out. Before he could utter a single sound Chicken Little struck him a resounding slap in the face with all her young might.
The youngster would have hit back, but another boy grabbed him and ordered him roughly to let little girls alone. And Chicken Little went home ashamed but solaced.
She was nervous for a while lest her mother should hear of her scrape. However, several days went by and she was beginning to breathe easier, when Brother Frank overtook her one morning on her way to school.
“Hello, Sis, what is this I hear about having a prize-fighter in the family?”
Jane’s face grew hot, but she looked at him mutely.
“I thought it was only rough boys who smashed in people’s noses and made them bleed. I didn’t suppose my gentle little sister would do such a thing.”
Chicken Little swallowed hard but still kept silent and Frank pressed harder.
“I have always believed my little sister was a lady. I am afraid Mother will be grieved to hear what her daughter has been doing.”
Words came to Chicken Little at last in a burst of sobs:
“I don’t care—he took my candy—I had to stand—on—on the floor—and it wasn’t fair—you can just go and tell Mother if you want to!”
Frank took her hand and patted it.
“Out with the whole story, Sis. I suspected there was something more to it than I heard—you aren’t usually warlike.”
So Chicken Little sobbed out the woeful tale. Brother Frank smiled broadly above the bent head over the ludicrous incident, but he controlled himself sufficiently to admonish soberly.
“Well, Johnny seems to have deserved all he got. At the same time, Jane, I don’t think I’d do such a thing again, if I were you.”