During the weeks of worry over Ernest’s eyes and the deeper anxiety over Marian’s tragic weakness, Chicken Little was left much to her own devices. Mrs. Morton was too overburdened and harassed to give the child the usual care and oversight. Sewing lessons were dropped entirely and practising was so irregular that her music teacher was in despair. Fortunately the days were short and Jane didn’t have much time out of school hours to get into mischief. While Ernest was shut in, she spent most of her play time faithfully trying to amuse him. But after he got out she proved the truth of the old adage of Satan and the idle hands.
Mrs. Morton always watched Chicken Little’s reading most carefully for the child bade fair to beas much of a bookworm as Ernest. She was never permitted to borrow books from other children without having Mother look them over.
Miss Brown’s room at school was cursed with the usual abnormal pupil in a silly overgrown girl called Sary Myers. Sary’s parents were shiftless and ignorant people and though Sary was almost fifteen years old, and a woman in size, she was still among children of ten and eleven.
She was a good-natured girl, always willing to pet and humor the little girls, and they liked her in a half contemptuous patronizing way. Sary came to school one day with a book done up carefully in a newspaper. She was very mysterious about it taking it out of her desk when Miss Brown’s back was turned, pointing to it with smirks and nods till the little girls were so curious, they could hardly wait for recess to see the wonderful volume.
At recess it went the rounds, Sary assuring them that it was a grand story with lots about love and getting married, and that there was a woman in it who treated a girl just terrible.
Chicken Little was not in the least interested in love or lovers, but she was not proof against Sary’s mysterious manner. She promptly begged the loan of the precious book till noon. But there was only time for aggravating peeps in the short hour filled with recitations. So she coaxed Sary to let her takeit home that night. Sary was easily persuaded. Reading was a painful process to her and she had been secretly hoping that one of the children would read the book and tell her the story.
Chicken Little slipped it home guiltily hidden in her school bag. She found it a weighty responsibility. No sooner had she ensconced herself snugly in one of the dormer windows to read, than she heard someone coming upstairs. It was only Olga. She thought possibly she would be safer in Ernest’s room, but Ernest and Carol were doing their algebra there. At last she settled down in the front parlor and by tea time was deep in the adventures of Rosamond Clifford, romantic and unreal enough to satisfy the most exacting child.
For days the book was her constant companion outside of school hours. She read snatches of it to Sary and a chosen few in a corner of the schoolyard at recesses and noons. She hid it under her pillow ready for her devouring eyes at an early hour in the morning. To be sure Chicken Little never could wake up at an early hour, her mother having to call long and lustily before she could rouse her at all. Still the book was there if she should happen to want it.
After Chicken Little finished it, the story was passed from hand to hand among the children. Gertie being the only one with sufficient firmnessof character to decline to read it without asking Mother. One adventurous child discovered she could get other books by the same author from the public library. These the children also passed round and gloated over their lurid adventures for days. The stories were doubly fascinating because each small sinner realized that the mushy volumes must be carefully concealed from mothers and teachers. The craze ended finally by Miss Brown’s discovering a copy of “Cousin Maud” and confiscating it after a sharp lecture to the school on what children should read.
But the mischief was done. Fully a dozen young heads seethed with romance. They imagined they were abused by unfeeling sisters or stern parents. They looked for unhappy lovers around every corner. They even tried to lie awake nights nursing broken hearts, but ten o’clock was the latest hour anyone reached, though Grace Dart said she knew she heard it strike one. Katy, indeed, walked in her sleep one night to her mother’s horror. Mrs. Halford promptly gave her a liberal dose of castor oil and she was never able to repeat the wonderful feat.
At least six dolls were re-christened Rosamond Clifford, and seven others promptly became Cousin Maud. Marbles and tag and the usual spring outdoor sports were neglected while they planned dollelopements or family quarrels, and locked the tiny heroines in dark closets.
Chicken Little was in great demand on these occasions because she had learned some of the choicest scenes in the stories by heart and she would talk for the dolls.
“My, you do Dr. Kennedy just grand!” said Katy stirred out of her usual calm by a thrilling scene in which her prettiest doll had defied a cruel stepfather made from a stick of stove-wood.
“It’s awful easy,” Jane responded modestly. “I’ve read it so often I can say it most all, and I just try to act mad.”
The epidemic of play-acting among the dolls gave Katy’s practical talents a chance also. There was a great demand for boy dolls. One badly damaged tin soldier and a fat sailor boy were all that could be found. But Katy was ingenious. She took her tallest doll and made her a complete outfit of men’s clothes including a cunning straw hat with a black band. She sheared Angelina’s blonde wig short and painted a smart black mustache on her rosebud mouth.
Angie was so changed she wouldn’t have known herself in the glass. But she didn’t need to. She became Horatio Seymour and was never permitted to wear petticoats again.
The other children were so charmed, Katy wasbesieged with teasing to make over their dolls. It was no small job and after being obliging once or twice, Katy had the happy thought of charging fifteen cents for the transformation.
This was more money than most of the little girls had, so they took to borrowing boy dolls. Horatio Seymour was much over-worked. He took the parts of villain, lover and irate father on an average of at least once every day and from two to three times on Saturdays. Katy had to put a little stick up his back-bone, he got so limp.
But the interest in this doll lovering began to wane after a time. The children looked about for something else exciting. They began to make Horatios out of the boys they knew. Some of the older girls started writing notes, and the smaller ones hung round breathlessly to hear the answers read. The boys were not always responsive. This was the height of the marble season and most of the lads were too crazy over the mooted question of “playing keeps” to care to spell out scrawly notes.
“Who is your beau, Jane?” Grace Dart demanded one day.
Chicken Little cherished a secret admiration for Carol, but she wouldn’t have betrayed it for worlds. Still she felt that she must claim somebody to be in the swim. She thought about it for several days andfinally announced proudly to Grace that Johnny Carter was her beau.
“Why he’s the boy you slapped! I thought you didn’t like him Jane.”
“I don’t so very well,” confessed Chicken Little reluctantly. “That’s the reason I took him. Don’t you see—I’m going to reform him.”
Grace looked decidedly puzzled.
“Yes, like the heroines do in books.”
“What you going to do to Johnny?”
But Jane had it all thought out.
“His hands most always need washing awful bad—I did think of that, but they don’t seem ever to begin with hands. They most always make them promise not to use tobacco or drink wine and stuff.”
“Yes,” said Grace doubtfully, “but Johnny doesn’t do anything like that—Mr. Carter would lick him if he did. He’s temperance and awful strict with Johnny. I heard Mother say so.”
“Johnny chews gum. I’ve seen him lots of times—I think gum’s most as bad as tobacco don’t you?”
“Maybe it’s just as bad for a boy. Miss Brown always makes us throw it in the waste-paper basket.”
“Well, my mother thinks it’s a horrid habit. She says no lady would do such a thing.”
“How you going to make him quit?”
This was a point that was not quite clear to Chicken Little herself. To tell the truth she andJohnny had not been on very good terms since the candy episode. She thought it best to be a little vague with Grace.
“For me to know and you to find out,” she said with dignity.
“Bet you can’t do it,” retorted Grace, nettled. “Johnny Carter likes that red-headed girl who goes to our Sunday School better than you anyhow. I saw him talking to her. I guess it doesn’t make a boy your beau, just wanting him to be!” And Grace departed with her nose in the air after this parting thrust.
It made Chicken Little feel a trifle uncomfortable. She wished she hadn’t been so hasty about claiming Johnny’s affections. She wished this still more when she went over to Halford’s that evening for Katy called to her before she got inside the gate.
“Somebody’s got a beau!—somebody’s got a beau!” and Katy pointed the finger of scorn at her vigorously.
Chicken Little tried to appear unconcerned.
“Pooh, that’s nothing—all the girls have.”
Katy ignored this remark and returned to the charge.
“Jane Morton’s got a beau! Johnny Carter is Jane’s beau!”
Chicken Little began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. She did wish Katy wouldn’t sing it out so loud.
But Katy was thoroughly enjoying herself. She had discovered Ernest and Carol coming along the walk and she saw her chance to make a hit. She took up the refrain again with embellishments.
“Jane Morton’s got a beauAnd I know what’ll please her,A bottle of wine—”
but she got no further. Chicken Little, too, had caught sight of her brother Ernest and Carol, and she flew at Katy like a young fury.
The remainder of the doggerel was largely drowned in the scuffle that ensued, but Katy managed to get “Johnny Carter” out in a shrill treble that carried far, in spite of the hands clapped over her mouth.
The boys heard it, grinned, and passed on. Chicken Little was furious.
“I’ll never forgive you, Katy Halford, as long as I live, so there!” And she turned her back on the offending Katy, stalked straight out of the yard and banged the gate after her emphatically.
The feud lasted a week. Chicken Little passed Katy by as if she did not exist, and Katy lost no opportunity to hector her. She chanted Johnny’s name every time Jane came in sight till the child loathed the sound. To add to her woes, Grace Dartbegan to demand some visible proof that Johnny was her beau.
“He hasn’t ever given you anything, has he?” she quizzed. “He gave Sallie a big red apple yesterday at recess—I saw him.”
Chicken Little grew desperate. She didn’t care very much to have Johnny or anybody else as a beau. She wished there were no such things as beaux on the face of the earth, but her pride was stung to the quick. She began to imagine that Johnny grinned when he saw her. Suppose he had heard. She wanted to run every time she saw him coming, but she felt that she must do something to make friends with him.
Finally she thought out a way. She saw some of the older girls buying candy hearts at the grocery store one Saturday when she went downtown on an errand for her mother. That would be just the thing she thought. If she could find one with a nice motto it surely wouldn’t be very hard to turn around and lay it on Johnny’s desk.
The more she thought about it, the more feasible the plan seemed. Sunday afternoon she went upstairs and shook a nickel out of her bank which she invested in candy hearts the next morning, going downtown on her way to school—a thing strictly forbidden in the Morton household.
She didn’t have a chance to look at them till shegot home at noon, and then, alas, none of the mottoes seemed suitable. She couldn’t make up her mind to give him “You’re my girl,” or “I love you,” or “Sweetheart mine,” which appeared oftenest in flaming red letters on their tombstone surfaces.
She decided to try again. That night she took another nickel out of her bank and bought more hearts the following morning. This time she found two she thought might do. She wavered quite a while between “Be my friend,” and “I like you,” at length deciding on the latter.
She wrapped it up carefully in a bit of white paper, then waiting her opportunity took the rest of the bag of hearts and dumped them in the grate. She was sick of them. Her mother coming in soon after wondered what made such an odor of burned sugar.
But the act of putting the fateful heart on Johnny’s desk wasn’t as simple as she had fancied beforehand. If Miss Brown wasn’t looking, Grace Dart was. It seemed to her that Grace didn’t study a single bit that whole afternoon. Twice when the coast was clear, she actually turned around with the heart in her hand, but some way her courage failed her. One look into Johnny’s impish eyes paralyzed her hand. Finally she decided to put it on his desk when he went to the board. She wouldwait till he was almost back to his seat so nobody could get it, and, then lay it down real quick.
The deed was done and Chicken Little turned back to bury her burning face in her Geography and await results. She listened to the rustling of paper as Johnny unwrapped the heart. There was a long silence. She wondered if he would eat it. But Johnny evidently didn’t eat it. She couldn’t detect the tiniest crunch. She began to grow more and more uncomfortable. Suppose he should show it to some of the other children—or to teacher.
But Johnny wasn’t thinking of doing anything of the kind. He was furtively contemplating the tip of a very red ear and a strip of cheek, which were about all he could see of Chicken Little’s face. Johnny had secretly admired Chicken Little ever since she had got even with him so artistically. He was considerably overcome by this unlooked-for mark of her favor. But he couldn’t think off-hand of any suitable way of returning the courtesy.
He went through his pockets thoughtfully. Their contents were not inspiring—five marbles, a piece of string, two broken slate pencils and a red bandanna handkerchief slightly soiled. He cherished this handkerchief specially because he had seen so many teamsters and jockeys—his special admiration—carrying them. Further, he was the only boy in school who had one.
He smoothed the handkerchief out carefully and looked at it. Finally he folded it up into the smallest wad possible, tied it with the bit of string, and reached under the desk touched Jane’s arm. He pressed it into her hand furtively when she looked around.
“’Tain’t much,” he said apologetically, “but maybe it’ll do for your doll.”
Chicken Little walked on air going home from school that night. She called Grace Dart clear across the street to come over and see. Grace came and saw and bowed down. There was no need to ask who had given Chicken Little the trophy. Only Johnny Carter possessed such a one—and the handkerchief was undeniably big and masculine. But Jane’s troubles were not over yet. Grace had a good memory.
“I don’t care if he did give it to you. I saw him chewing gum this morning coming to school.”
Chicken Little felt that having a beau was harder work than she had bargained for. She privately resolved never never to have one again, even if she never grew up to be like Rosamond Clifford. But she hated to back down on any part of her program before Grace. She didn’t like Grace very well anyway.
But Johnny himself made things easier for her this time. He caught up with her going home fromschool the next day and carelessly extended a brand new paper of gum in passing.
“Oh, Johnny,” she said, “I’d love it but Mother don’t let me—and—Johnny——”
Johnny looked expectant.
“I wish you wouldn’t chew it either.”
Johnny was surprised. He didn’t reply for a moment then demanded:
“Why, gum’s all right.”
“No, it isn’t—my Mother says it’s a very bad habit.”
Johnny pondered. He wasn’t walking along with Jane, he was about two steps ahead.
“Well, I don’t mind quittin’—it’s kind of girls’ stuff anyway.”
It was a late spring and both the wild blossoms and the early garden flowers were discouragingly scarce.
“I don’t believe there is even a spring beauty or a dog-tooth violet out yet,” Mrs. Halford replied doubtfully when the little girls broached the subject of May baskets.
“I don’t mind your making them or hanging them—I think it is a charming custom—but I really don’t see where you can get the flowers.”
“Mother’s got some geraniums in bloom. I think she’d let us have them,” suggested Chicken Little.
“And maybe there’ll be some plum blossoms out—it’s three whole days till May Day and you can see the white on the buds.” Gertie was always hopeful.
“Well, get your baskets ready and we’ll do the best we can to find the flowers. We can take somegreen from the house plants to help fill up—my oxalis is blooming nicely—that will be pretty to mix in.”
“I’m glad it comes Saturday. I wish we could go to the Duck Creek woods to hunt for wild flowers—I just know I could find some.” Katy looked out the window longingly.
“Wait and see. Perhaps you can,” Mrs. Halford answered. “But you’d better be getting your materials and start your baskets. What colors do you want?”
“I’m going to have mine all red and white—they’re so nice and bright,” Katy spoke up promptly.
Gertie decided on green and white and Chicken Little selected pink and blue.
They bought their materials that evening after school and started the dainty weaving at Katy’s house. It was pretty, bright work and a good deal of a novelty to the children for a kindergarten had only recently been established in the town.
Katy did all the cutting of the strips of shiny paper. She had a truer eye and nimbler fingers than either of the others. But they were expert at weaving the gay-colored strips in and out, and the three finished six baskets the first evening. Mrs. Halford gave them each a box so they could keep their materials and completed baskets in good order.
“How many are you going to hang, Katy?”
“Six, but you needn’t ask where for I sha’n’t tell.”
“I didn’t hear anyone ask you, Katy,” retorted Mrs. Halford slyly.
“I know two of the places anyway,” added Gertie.
“I guess I know three,” Chicken Little had been thinking.
“I bet you don’t—where?”
“Oh, Katy, ladies don’t bet,” interrupted Mrs. Halford reprovingly.
“I just forgot, Mumsey, but all the girls most, say it—you’re so very particular.”
“You’ll be glad I am some day, I hope.”
“Maybe, but I—I’m not just now. And anyhow Jane doesn’t know where I’m going to hang my baskets.”
“I do too, but I’m not going to tell.”
“You don’t either—you’re ’fraid to tell ’cause you don’t!”
Katy was crowding the truth pretty close. Chicken Little started to protest again when Gertie came to the rescue.
“You’re going to hang one for Miss Burton—I heard you say so—and one for Cousin May, aren’t you?”
“Maybe I am and maybe I’m not. Perhaps I haven’t decided.”
“You are too, Katy Halford, you said you were.”
“I s’pose I ought to hang one for Miss Brown,” sighed Jane. “I don’t want to very bad—she’s been awful cross—and Marian. I’m going to give her the prettiest one I have. I wish I could send Alice one.”
“How is Alice getting on?” asked Mrs. Halford.
“All right. I guess she’s learned a lot—she says she stays up till ten o’clock every night studying. Her aunt Clara gave her a pretty new dress—and a new coat. Her aunt’s going to take her to the seashore with them this summer, maybe. I wish I could go to the seashore.”
“I’ve been to the lakes—that’s most like the seashore, isn’t it, Mother?” Katy boasted.
“A little. But you haven’t told us about the baskets, Katy. Where are the other four going? I’m getting curious myself.”
Katy looked up at her mother’s teasing face.
“I’ll tell you, Mumsey, but I sha’n’t tell the girls.” Katy jumped up and whispered something to her mother.
“There, there, dear, you tickle my ear and I didn’t half hear.”
Katy put her mouth close to her mother’s ear and hurriedly mumbled six names.
“That’ll do—it feels as if you were exploding firecrackers in my ear. I guess I got them all.”
“I heard, too,” piped Chicken Little and Gertie almost in concert.
“You didn’t either!” Katy looked up indignantly.
“I did, too. You said Miss Burton and Cousin May and Marian Morton and Papa and Grace Dart and Ernest—so there!” Gertie reeled off the names almost as quickly as Katy had.
“Gertie Halford, I think that was real mean of you to tell.”
“I heard them all but Ernest, anyhow,” Chicken Little said quickly.
“Jane Morton, if you ever tell Ernest I’m going to hang a May basket to him, I’ll never speak to you again.”
“You don’t need to get so mad—I wasn’t going to tell, but I just guess you told on me—and——”
“And what?” demanded Katy icily.
It had been on the tip of Chicken Little’s tongue to add, “and you thought you were awful smart, too,” but she suddenly remembered Mrs. Halford’s presence and she didn’t want to be a tattle-tale.
“Nothing,” she finished lamely, and was deaf to further questioning.
The Fates favored Chicken Little and Gertie for Miss Brown suddenly decided to have a May Day hunt for wild flowers for her room instead of waiting for the usual June picnic.
They started out at nine o’clock Saturday morning. It was an ideal spring day—not a cloud in the sky and the sunshine so warm that coats and jacketswere shed long before they reached the woods. Some of the plum trees were out in bloom, and purple and yellow crocuses were opening in a number of the yards they passed.
“We’ll surely find a few spring beauties and yellow violets,” said Miss Brown hopefully.
There was only a faint glimmer of green on twigs and brown earth as they came into the timber and, for a time, the little band searched in vain. But Miss Brown showed them where to look in sheltered places and under protecting leaves. Johnny Carter found the first—a little bunch of spring beauties fragile and exquisite. After showing them proudly to “Teacher” he shyly slipped them into Chicken Little’s basket.
They found the flowers more plentiful as they penetrated deeper into the woods. Gleeful shouts of discovery grew more and more frequent as they swarmed up and down the creek banks, over fallen logs and through the underbrush, merry and chattering as the squirrels themselves. Chicken Little counted seven blue-birds and Gertie ten, besides one brilliant cardinal that flashed by like a flame, whistling joyously.
Chicken Little’s basket filled quickly for Johnny’s sole interest in the flowers was apparently the pleasure of finding them, and he gave most of his spoils to her. Most, but not quite all. He had a littlepasteboard box in his pocket into which he occasionally tucked a particularly choice spring beauty, carefully moistening its stem in the creek first.
Chicken Little got so many that she generously divided with Gertie when noon came, and Miss Brown called her flock together. She showed the children how to preserve the flowers by wrapping their stems in damp moss and packing them carefully in the boxes and baskets.
The ground was voted too damp for the picnic lunch so “Teacher” aided by the bigger boys searched till she found a great fallen tree, whose trunk and spreading branches accommodated her thirty chickens nicely.
The girls lined up along the trunk as near Miss Brown as possible, but the boys perched aloft, sitting astride some crotch or forked branch with their dinner pails hung conveniently on a twig nearby.
Doughnuts and sandwiches and apples went from grimy hands to eager mouths with a rapidity that astonished even Miss Brown despite her ten years of teaching. She had brought a big box of bright colored stick candy to top off with. One thoughtful boy gratefully started three cheers for Miss Brown by way of the thanks most of the children forgot. The hearty cheering of the shrill young voices went far to repay her for the morning’s trouble, and warmed her heart much more than the stiff little“I’ve had a nice time, Miss Brown,” “Good-bye, Miss Brown,” which the more gently-bred children conscientiously repeated at parting.
Chicken Little turned to look back at the teacher’s plain face as they left her at the school-house gate.
“I don’t mind hanging her a basket now—she—she didn’t act mad a bit today.”
She went straight over to Marian’s to display her treasures.
“Oh, the lovely woodsy things! I wouldn’t have believed there were so many out—how I love them!” and Marian sniffed the wild-wood fragrance hungrily.
“Oh, I do hope I’ll be well enough to go hunt them soon. Bring your baskets over here, Chicken Little—Katy and Gertie too, and let me help you fill them—I’d love to.”
Jane had something on her mind. She wanted to lay it before Marian but shyness overcame her whenever she opened her mouth to mention it. She hung round Marian’s chair restlessly till Marian discovered that she wanted something and helped her.
“What is it, Sis? Do you want some of my flowers for the baskets? Anything I’ve got except that big lily.”
“Oh, Marian, I don’t want to take your flowers—I just—wanted to ask you something.”
“Ask away—I can give you advice to burn—it’s about all I’m good for these days.”
“It’s about the May baskets. Do you think it would be all right to hang one for Carol?”
“Why sure, dear. Anybody would like one of your lovely baskets with these dear flowers.”
“But—I——”
“Yes?”
“Johnny Carter gave me all his flowers and I thought maybe I ought to hang one for him.”
“Well, you have plenty of flowers for two.”
“Ye—es.”
“Well?”
“I thought maybe it wasn’t nice—to have two.”
“Two what?”
Chicken Little wriggled uneasily and got rather red in the face.
“Two beaux.”
Marian suppressed a laugh.
“Why, Chicken Little, I think you are a little young to be talking about beaux. I wouldn’t, if I were you. Carol is Ernest’s friend and he does lots of nice things for you. And you certainly don’t want to neglect Johnny when he was so kind about giving you the flowers. It would be very nice for you to show your appreciation by hanging a basket for each of them. I’ll write the names for you, if you want me to—then they won’t recognize the writing.”
“Oh, will you? And Marian——”
“Yes?”
“Don’t tell Katy or Ernest—or Mother, will you?”
“I won’t tell a living soul, dear, this shall be our very own secret.”
“Katy’s going to hang one to Ernest,” said Chicken Little shamelessly betraying Katy’s secret just after she had secured Marian’s promise to keep her own.
“Is she? That’s nice, but Chicken Little, if you don’t want me to tell about you, you oughtn’t to tell about Katy—ought you?”
“I am not going to tell Ernest,” the child assured her hastily.
“Well, I don’t believe I’d tell anybody. It’s Katy’s little secret. Let her tell it if she wants to.”
Marian’s admonition was well-timed but she felt it was rather wasted later that afternoon. The little girls had accepted her invitation and had brought their flowers and May baskets over for her help and advice. Katy was filling hers deftly, chattering as she worked. She was especially particular with one, taking the flowers out and rearranging them several times before she could get them to her liking.
“That must be for someone very special, Katy.”
Katy looked pleased.
“Yes, it’s for a very—special friend.”
Marian saw that Katy wished to be questioned.
“Why, Katy, that sounds mysterious. I suppose we don’t dare ask who this friend is?”
“It’s somebody you know,” volunteered Gertie.
Chicken Little giggled, appreciating the joke.
“Somebody you know very well,” added Katy with emphasis.
“It can’t be Frank?” Marian queried.
The children laughed in derision.
“You’re getting a little bit warm,” suggested Katy.
“Only a little bit warm—let me see—it’s Dr. Morton. No?—then it must be Dick Harding.”
Katy shook her head.
“I’m certainly a poor guesser. Is it Sherm?”
Jane was delighted with Marian’s pretending and Gertie was burning to assist.
“He was here this morning,” Gertie encouraged.
“He has weak eyes,” Chicken Little was delightfully definite.
“Why, it must be Ernest!”
Katy smiled a self-conscious little smirk and the others nodded joyfully.
“Of course, how stupid I was. Let’s see—you go after dark and hang the baskets on the door knob, then ring the bell and run—isn’t that the way? That’s the way we used to do with our comic valentines.”
The little girls were not the only ones who came consulting Marian that day. Three rather sheepish boys appeared so promptly after the girls departed, that Marian suspected they had been hanging around waiting for the children to go.
“Say, Marian, do you s’pose you could help us fix up some of those May basket things everybody’s talking about?”
“It’s a little late in the day, Ernest. How many do you boys want?”
Ernest looked at Sherm and Sherm looked at Carol, and Carol saw something out of the window that interested him.
At length, Ernest, getting no assistance from the others, blurted out:
“One’s enough for me. What do you say, boys?”
Carol and Sherm nodded.
“One apiece—my, this looks exciting. Somebody is to be very specially honored I see. It is too late to make the kind the little girls have, but you might buy some tiny baskets—I’d love to trim them up for you. Got any money, boys?”
An exhaustive search of trousers’ pockets revealed a combined capital of twenty-five cents. The boys asked anxiously if it were enough.
“Yes, for three. Are you getting this for Chicken Little, Ernest?”
Ernest got red and looked uncomfortable.
“Never mind—I didn’t mean to be prying—only I wish you big boys would hang some for the little girls—it would please them to death. If you don’t mind my having a part in this. I’d like to put in a little money, too. Let me put in another quarter and I’ll do the trimming and you boys can repay me by hanging a basket to each of the little girls as well as to your own friends.”
The bargain was speedily struck and the boys hurried off downtown for the baskets and the ribbon for the tiny bows Marian had decided should adorn them.
They came back so quickly, it made Marian breathless to think of the pace they must have gone. Carol didn’t come straight either. He slipped round by home to beg some blossoms from his mother’s house plants. Not finding her, he promptly helped himself to all her most cherished blooms to her surprise and wrath when she discovered her loss.
Marian filled in with her own flowers and the boys hung round admiring, waiting upon her awkwardly and watching every move she made with the baskets.
“Is it all right?” she asked, holding up the first, filled with scarlet geraniums.
“Gee, that’s a dandy!” Ernest approved.
“Say, I’d like to have that one,” said Sherm.
“I like blue better anyway—make mine blue, will you, Marian?” Ernest added.
Marian thought of Katy’s scarlet and white offering to be laid at Ernest’s shrine and smiled.
“Yellow for me, please,” put in Carol. “Yellow’s so kind of cheerful—like sunshine or gold—I always liked dandelions only they’re such a pest.”
The little girls had been too happily full of their own plans to wonder whether they would get any baskets in return. But they came back that evening from the delightfully exciting task of hanging their fragrant gifts to find that friends and playmates had been equally mindful of them.
Katy had the most—seven. Jane and Gertie had each five. One of Jane’s was a marvellous creation so heavy that she promptly investigated what lay beneath the flowers, finding a fat little box of candy hidden away. Another was a crude little pasteboard affair fairly overflowing with dainty spring beauties, and this, too, contained an offering in the shape of a jolly little homemade whistle. Still another had scarlet bows.
Katy wondered and wondered who sent her a similar basket with golden yellow bows on each side of the handle.
“I’m sure I heard Ernest and Sherm outside our gate. I just know Ernest gave me that,” she confided to Gertie.
Gertie’s biggest basket had blue bows and Gertie loved blue.
Marian never knew where the mates to the blue and yellow and red baskets found a lodging place. She did not inquire. But when she saw Chicken Little’s candy she promptly exclaimed “Dick Harding!”
“I just know it was,” replied Chicken Little.
May seemed to have traded places with April that year for it was a month of many showers. Poor Marian got tired of watching the pelting rain and Mrs. Morton complained that it was simply impossible to clean house as the sunniest day was liable to end in a downpour.
Dr. Morton’s letters from the west full of glowing accounts of the sunshine in Kansas and Colorado seemed almost irritating in their contrast. Alice, too, wrote of lovely spring weather, declaring it had been almost hot some days.
The children did not mind the rain—they merely objected to being shut in on account of it. Chicken Little told Dick a long tale of woe one evening when he came up to inquire about Marian and get the latest news of Alice.
“Fine weather for ducks and frogs, Chicken Little. Just try standing in the edge of a puddle—saying croak, croak and see if you don’t like it. I’ll have to give you a few swimming lessons,” he consoled her teasingly.
“Don’t put any such nonsense into her head, Dick. She is a born duck now and is forever teasing to go wading,” Mrs. Morton had replied.
“Why we’ll have to call you Ducky Daddles instead of Chicken Little,” said Dick.
Mrs. Morton repeated the incident to Mrs. Halford the following day.
“Children certainly do have the craziest notions. Chicken Little has been fretting all spring to go out in the rain. I suspect several slight colds she has had are due to experiments of that kind.” Mrs. Morton looked both amused and annoyed.
“Yes, Katy and Gertie have had the same craze—I guess it’s natural. I remember the spring rains used to have the same attraction for me when I was a child. My father used to say children should be born web-footed—they love water so. Puddles do look tempting. I think the thing that cured me was one of those dashing spring showers that bring the earthworms out. Some kind child made me believe they rained down. I loathed the slimy things. You couldn’t get me out doors, if it so much as looked like rain, for weeks after. I kept imagining thecrawly things dropping down on my hair and face. Ugh! I remember just how I felt even yet.”
“That might be a good way to cure our would-be ducklings.”
“No, I don’t think so—fear is never the best way to cure a child, and I like my girls to love rain as well as shine. But I’ve been wondering if it might not be a good idea to let them go out once in a good hard thunder shower just to get it out of their systems—though, of course, there would be fear in that, too.”
Some two weeks after this conversation between the mothers, Chicken Little was spending Saturday morning at the Halfords’. The children were playing keep house out under the gooseberry bushes. The bushes were very old and tall. Mr. Halford kept them trimmed up underneath, forming leafy aisles about three feet high. Here the little girls delighted to set up their doll goods in the late spring and early summer.
They had everything arranged to their taste on this particular morning. They had settled down in charge of a most extensive dolls’ hospital, using the aisles between the rows of bushes for wards and the green gooseberries for pills—a most convenient arrangement because the supply of medicine never gave out. But, alas, before Dr. Katy had time to inspect a single ward, big drops began to patter down,and Gertie’s cherished Minnie, suffering from a terrible attack of pneumonia, was well sprinkled before her anxious mother could remove her to a sheltered spot. The sprinkle was but the beginning of a smart shower that sent the children scurrying to the house with their arms filled with a jumble of patients and bedding. Gertie regarded them dumped in a heap on the kitchen floor, ruefully.
“Minnie’ll take an awful cold and die I just know, and my new pink silk quilt got wet and the pink’s run into the white!”
“I think it’s horrid of it to rain just as we got everything fixed,” added Katy.
“I wish we could stay out in it,” said Chicken Little, staring out the window at the rain falling ker-splash on the brick walk outside.
“Wouldn’t it be fun!” Katy exclaimed enthusiastically. “See what big drops—I most believe I could catch some in my hands. Oh, I wonder if Mother would let us go out—I’m going to ask her.”
Mrs. Halford meditated a moment over the request, then putting by her sewing went to the window to take a look at the clouds.
It was growing darker with an occasional flash of lightning and an accompanying growl of thunder off in the distance. Mrs. Halford turned to the children with a twinkle of resolution in her eyes and astonished them by saying:
“Yes, you may. Off with your shoes and stockings and put on your gossamers. You may stay out in the rain just as long as you like. You too, Chicken Little, I’ll be responsible to your mother. You can take my gossamer.”
“Oh, Mother,” Katy and Gertie both flung themselves at their little mother for an ecstatic hug.
“Yes,” she continued, as soon as they released her. “You may take those old umbrellas in the woodhouse and go back under the gooseberry bushes if you wish—I want you to be thoroughly satisfied, so you won’t always be teasing to go out in the wet.”
“You don’t need to think we’ll get tired of it, Mother,” Katy assured her.
“My, I could stay out all day—I love it so,” Chicken Little protested.
“We’ll stay as long as you’ll let us, Mumsey.”
Mrs. Halford smiled.
Shoes and stockings came off in a jiffy and the children ran out jumping up and down gleefully. They splashed about in the little puddles in the old brick walk, and dabbled their bare toes in the wet grass. They danced and squealed, catching the splashing drops in their hands and flinging them in each other’s faces until the water was dripping in streams from noses and chins.
“Isn’t it grand?”
“My, I never had so much fun in my life!”
“’Tisn’t a bit cold.”
They frisked and splashed till the novelty began to wear off a little, then adopted Mrs. Halford’s suggestion about going back to their gooseberry playhouse.
The rain was coming down harder now and the roll of thunder and play of lightning were more frequent. But the little girls were too much absorbed with their own plans to notice this.
“I shall not take Minnie out in this rain—she would be sure to take a nasty cold,” said Gertie decidedly, heartlessly denying her child the pleasures she was enjoying.
“Let’s leave the dolls in the house—they’ll get all messy—besides the paint comes off if you get them a teeny bit wet.”
“Let’s play we’re sailing in a boat—and the umbrellas can be the sails and——”
“No, let’s be Swiss Family Robinson in the tree house—we can just play pull the ladder up after us.”
They all agreed to this and started out to fit up their abode under almost as discouraging circumstances as that famous family are supposed to have faced. Taking two of the old umbrellas Katy propped them up to reinforce their foliage roof over the driest spot she could find. She worked quite a while before she could get them moored securely.It was hard to manage with the rain driving in her face and the wind tugging at the umbrellas.
“My, it’ll be fine when we get it all fixed. See, it’s hardly a bit wet here——”
“Let’s bring an old piece of carpet and spread down—and a book. We can read here just as snug.”
“Yes, and some cookies and apples—I’m getting hungry.”
“All right—let’s.”
The children plodded back and forth under the remaining umbrellas looking like a six-legged mushroom. They found it difficult to get the carpet and provender safely placed without getting wet. And however willing they were to be ducks themselves water didn’t seem adapted to carpets or cookies.
Mrs. Halford watched the trio busy and dripping and laughed till the tears stood in her eyes. The Irish maid in the kitchen was scandalized but interested.
“Did you ever see the likes of ’em? They’re that wet, ma’am, they leave puddles on me floor every time they come in and they be after stayin’ out there and ‘atin,’ ma’am! Now drinkin’ would sure be aisier.”
“Never mind, Maggie, it does seem foolish, but I want them to have their fill of it.”
“Fill—it’s sloppin’ over they are already. HowlySaints—hear that thunder! They’ll not be stayin’ out long to that music I’m thinkin’.”
Mrs. Halford smiled and settled down to her sewing after one parting look at the camp under the gooseberry bushes.
It was truly a comical sight. The old umbrellas swayed uneasily above the green domes below and they could catch glimpses of the gossamer-clad figures, including a generous exposure of bare feet and legs in the leafy gloom beneath.
Maggie came to the sitting-room door a few moments later in the last throes of astonishment.
“And what do you think they be doing now? It’s radin’ they be—radin’! It’s swimmin’ they’ll be doin’ soon I’m a thinkin’!”
Maggie returned to her post indignant at such carryings on.
The rain was coming down steadily. Water was pouring off the eaves in great streams, branches were dripping, and some chickens huddled in a fence corner in the adjoining yard were so dejected that not even an aspiring tail-feather pointed heavenward. The streets were almost deserted and the few passers-by hurried along wet and forlorn. Mrs. Halford began to wonder a little anxiously how long the gooseberry campers would stick it out. She began to have painful visions of sore throats and bronchitis or at the best colds, caught from sitting on thewet ground. She was also fearful lest Mrs. Morton might not approve after all.
“Have you got plenty of boiling water, Maggie?” she called. Hot drinks and hot foot baths could surely be relied upon to ward off colds, she reassured herself, if they didn’t stay too long. She wondered if they were really enjoying it.
The children were beginning to wonder themselves, though not for worlds would either Chicken Little or Katy have confessed to the other that this rainy day playhouse was not all she had fancied.
The trio huddled together close under the two umbrellas. The rain was pounding down through the gooseberry screen now and the carpet was decidedly damp on the edges. Little streams of water ran down the furrows in the garden about them. They had eaten all the cookies but one, which got wet and dissolved in a gluey paste. Katy read away valiantly but the story didn’t seem as absorbing as it had been the night before—the children found their attention wandering.
Gertie’s eyes kept straying to the forked streaks of lightning that were cutting the black clouds overhead.
“It’s getting pretty close,” she complained finally.
But the others’ courage was still good.
“Pooh, who minds a little lightning,” said Katy scornfully.
“I’m not afraid of lightning,” said Chicken Little valiantly, “but I wish it wouldn’t thunder so hard.”
“Bet you are afraid, Jane Morton.”
“I am not, Katy Halford. I never said a word about going in. I just said I wished it wouldn’t thunder so much—and I do.”
A long reverberating roll gave point to her wish.
Gertie and Chicken Little both squirmed uneasily, but Katy caught her breath and went on reading, scrooging up a little closer under the umbrellas. The continuous drip from one of the umbrella points down on her back was making her nervous, she said. She could feel a little damp spot coming through her gossamer. Gertie drew her bare feet up under her and cast longing looks toward the house. She was getting cold and the drifting smoke from the kitchen chimney looked wondrously inviting. She did wish Katy would stop reading. But Katy read on as steadily as the rain pattered, rolling out the big words reckless of mistakes and lifting her shrill little voice almost to a shriek when it thundered, as if she defied the elements to do their worst.
“I don’t think it’s very intrusting,” Gertie interrupted plaintively.
“Why, Gertie Halford, you said you just loved it last night.”
Gertie could not deny the accusation. She didn’t quite realize herself how very different the storyseemed when listened to from the depths of a cushioned chair in a cozy, brightly lighted room and out here under the dripping bushes, chilled and frightened. Even the old umbrellas were getting soaked. Katy had to shift the precious book a time or two to avoid the drip.
Gertie returned to the charge.
“I guess the Swiss family got awful tired of their tree house if it rained like this. I am never going to play tree house again, Katy.”
“’Fraid cat! ’fraid cat! I think it’s lots of fun. Don’t you, Jane?”
Chicken Little had begun to fuss about restlessly, shifting from one cramped position to another. She did not answer Katy’s question right away.
“I guess it’s most noon,” she finally evaded diplomatically. “Mother said I must be home by noon.”
But Katy saw through this flimsy excuse.
“Oh, you’re backing out! ’Tisn’t anywhere near noon—you’re just making an excuse to go home. I bet you’re ’fraid too.”
“I’m not, Katy Halford, I’m not afraid the least speck and I can stay here just as long as you can!” Chicken Little repelled this slur upon her courage indignantly.
“Pooh, I’m going to stay here till the dinner bell rings,” declared Katy with a confidence she did not feel. She had been secretly hoping for severalminutes that her mother would call them in.
A blinding flash put a period to her sentence. There were three alarmed “Ohs!” and three pairs of frightened eyes blinked an instant from the glare.
Then Gertie picked herself up resolutely.
“I’m going straight in to Mother. I am ’fraid of lightning and I don’t care who knows it—and you don’t like it any better than I do, Katy, but you just think it’s smart to pretend.” And Gertie gathered her flapping gossamer about her and scurried for the house.
Katy looked at Chicken Little and Chicken Little looked at Katy. They were both longing to follow but neither would give in.
Suddenly another and then another dazzling flash blinded them. The forked flames seemed launched straight at them and the deafening crash that followed shook the very ground under their feet.
With a wild yell in unison, the children fled screaming to the house. Mrs. Halford met them at the kitchen door white and worried. She had not dreamed they would hold out so long.
The piece of carpet was left to a watery fate under the bushes. The book dropped from Katy’s nerveless fingers unnoticed and forgotten till the next day, when Maggie picked it up limp and discolored near the kitchen door.
It took Mrs. Halford a full hour to dry and comfort the terrified trio. But once warmed and reassured Chicken Little and Katy promptly quarreled as to who deserted first.
“I wouldn’t have come if Chicken Little hadn’t been so scared. Of course, I didn’t want to stay there all alone,” Katy asserted blandly.
“It’s no such thing, Katy Halford—I’m most sure you started first. It was ’cause you yelled so I got so scared. My mother always says I’m real brave about thunder.”
“You did start first, Chicken Little Jane, and I just wish you could ’a’ heard yourself yell!”
“Girls,” said Mrs. Halford with a twinkle in her eye, “stand up together there.”
The children wonderingly obeyed and she surveyed them both carefully.
“Do you know,” she said reflectively, “I am sure it took you both to make all the noise I heard—I wonder how you did it—it sounded like a whole tribe of wild Indians. And if either of you beat the other to the house, it was because she could run faster.”
The little girls edged apart sheepishly. The subject was dropped. Mrs. Halford was a quiet little woman who seldom scolded, but she had a way with her that silenced even obstreperous Katy.
“Now if you want to know what I think,” shecontinued, “I think Gertie was the bravest one of the three.”
“Why, Mumsey Halford—you know Gertie came in first of all.” This was more than Katy could stand.
“Exactly, that’s why I think she was the bravest. She was brave enough to stand being made fun of rather than be a foolish little girl and stay out in the storm needlessly. Your courage and Jane’s, too, was mostly vanity, Katy dear. You wanted to show off—and each wanted to beat the other. That is the kind of courage that gets people into trouble in this world. The kind of courage I want my girls to have is the finer kind that does some good. It is the kind of courage that makes men risk their own lives to save people from drowning. Don’t you remember, Katy, the story I read you of the life-savers going out in the terrible storm to get the people off a sinking ship? And you remember how thrilled you were reading about the awful hardships of the patriots at Valley Forge? Theirs was the courage to suffer for the sake of their country. Do you suppose we would honor them today if they had half-starved themselves in the snow that winter just for fun? And the courage which is not afraid to refuse to do something wrong or silly, is just as necessary as the courage to do. I guess Gertie is one ahead this time. Don’t you think so?”
The children were saved the pain of answering by the arrival of Ernest with umbrella, water-proof, and rubbers for Chicken Little.
Mrs. Halford laughed merrily when she saw them.
“After all, children, I guess the joke is on me. I am afraid I didn’t have the courage to act at the proper time myself.”