If there had been any person left to get married, Chicken Little would have been sure the family was preparing for another wedding during the next few weeks. Her father and mother had their heads together over something most of the time. Once she found her mother crying and she seemed grave and worried.
“I wish people weren’t always having secrets,” Jane complained to Ernest.
“It won’t be a secret very long, Sis. They’ll tell you as soon as they really truly decide.”
“Decide what?—tell me, Ernest.”
“I can’t because Father and Mother don’t want it talked about, if they don’t go.”
“Go where? Ernest, tell me. You’re just as mean as you can be—I always tell you things.”
“Well, I know mother is going to give in because Father’s dead set on going. Cross your heart that you won’t tell a living soul till mother tells you.”
Chicken Little crossed her heart emphatically. Ernest was quite as eager to tell as she was to hear and soon poured out his tale.
“Maybe we’re going to Kansas with Frank and Marian to live on the ranch. I hope we’ll go. Father says I can have a horse and there’s lots of hunting, quail and prairie chicken and plover—and a man killed some antelope about sixteen miles west of the ranch last winter. There are a few deer left, too, on the creek, Father says. Oh, I’m wild to go, but mother doesn’t want to a bit.”
Chicken Little was dazed for a moment.
“Would we stay there always? Wouldn’t I ever see Katy and Gertie and Dick Harding again? Why doesn’t mother want to go?”
“Goosie, you could come back here to visit. Father told mother she should come back at the end of a year. And maybe you could have a pony. I wouldn’t mind your riding mine sometimes when I don’t want him, after you learn how to ride. We’d be a whole day and night on the train. Wouldn’t that be jolly?”
“Oh, could I sleep in one of the little beds?”
“Of course, I told you we’d be all night on the train.”
“Why doesn’t mother want to go?”
“She doesn’t want to leave her friends and she doesn’t want to live way off on a farm where there isn’t any church close by and only a country school. What do you think, the school house has only one room and one teacher? You’d be in the same room with me. Father says he’ll have to prepare me for college at home. I have to begin Latin next year. Gee, I bet Father’ll make me study. He thinks if you haven’t got a lesson perfect, you haven’t got it at all.”
Ernest was standing by the open window idly playing with the lace strap that looped the curtain back.
“Say, there’s Frank and Marian coming in with father now. I wonder what’s up. Bet they’re going to settle the whole business right away.”
The children listened until they heard the others go into the sitting room and carefully close the door behind them—hot weather as it was.
Ernest laughed when the door clicked.
“Family council—children and dogs and neighbors please keep out. They’ll talk till dinner time. I’m going over to see Sherm.”
Jane waited round a while expectantly, studying over the wonderful possibility of moving but finally got tired and went to Halford’s.
When she came home to dinner the sitting-roomdoor was still closed and a steady murmur of voices could be heard.
Olga rang the bell for dinner twice before that closed door was opened.
Chicken Little eyed them curiously as they filed out. Her father looked eager and excited, but her mother’s eyes were red as if she had been crying again.
Dr. Morton put his arm around Chicken Little as she passed her and drew her tenderly to him.
“How would you like to go and live on a farm, Humbug, where you could have chickens and calves and ponies to play with? It would put more color into your face I’ll be bound.”
“Could I have a pony, Father, all my own?”
Dr. Morton nodded.
“Gee, wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Jane,” said Mrs. Morton severely, “how often have I told you that little ladies do not use slang?
“You seem to be planning to let the children run wild when they get out to Kansas,” she added, turning to Dr. Morton, “but I will have them use correct English.”
It did not take the news that the Mortons were moving to Kansas, long to spread in the small town. Visitors flocked in to sympathize with Mrs. Morton over going to a new country, and Dr. Morton’sfriends and patients stopped him on the street to express their regret at losing him.
There were still many things to be arranged before they could set a date for their departure. Their chief concern was the home. Frank had been fortunate enough to sell his pretty cottage, but the old-fashioned gabled house with its wistaria vines and terraced lawns, was not so easy to dispose of. Dr. Morton hoped to rent it for a year or two until he could sell it. He was most anxious that they should all accompany Frank and Marian to the new home in September.
One afternoon as Chicken Little was coming leisurely up the walk with Katy and Gertie, Mrs. Morton called from the window:
“Hurry up, Chickabiddy, there is somebody here you would like to see.”
The little girls started to run, guessing eagerly as to who the visitor might be.
As Chicken Little crossed the threshold the mysterious someone pounced upon her and lifted her up bodily from the floor, exclaiming:
“Oh, Chicken Little, I’ve been homesick to see you in spite of the kitty! Dear me, how you have grown!”
It was Alice, laughing and crying and hugging her all in one instant. Katy and Gertie came in for their share, too. Then they must all go into the parlorto meet Uncle Joseph, for he had come all the way from Cincinnati with Alice.
Jane edged rather shyly up to the dignified, gray-haired man who was talking to her mother. She hadn’t forgotten the evening when she had written to him in fear and trembling beside the very window where he was sitting now. But Uncle Joseph rose to meet her with a broad smile making little kindly wrinkles around his eyes.
“So this is Chicken Little Jane,” he said, taking both her hands and looking down into her wondering brown eyes. “Well, Chicken Little, I believe I should have known you anywhere. You look so exactly like yourself, big eyes and all.”
Uncle Joseph laughed at her mystified expression.
Alice came to the rescue.
“He means you look like my description of you, dear. I shall take great credit to myself.”
“You needn’t,” said Uncle Joseph, “for that’s only partly what I mean. She looks like what she does. What do you make of that?” he demanded, turning suddenly to Katy, who was regarding him with open-eyed curiosity.
Katy was startled but her keen wits hit the nail on the head promptly.
“I guess you mean she looks like she’d do anything she thought she ought to and you couldn’t make her if she didn’t want to.”
“Good for you, child, that’s just what I do mean—and it is a very valuable trait of character, little girls. Chicken Little, I was much obliged to you for showing me what I ought to do last winter.”
He drew her to him with an affectionate pat.
“And I am grateful to you for so many things, Jane. I shall never be able to half thank you, dear.” And Alice came over to give her another hug.
“Don’t praise the child so much, you’ll spoil her,” objected Mrs. Morton.
“I can’t help it, Mrs. Morton—she and Mr. Harding have given me Uncle Joseph and now it looks as if the letter she took to Mr. Harding, might give me back my father’s property and this old home.”
“I am in hopes that may help you and Dr. Morton, Madam,” said Uncle Joseph gravely. “Mr. Harding tells us Dr. Morton is anxious to sell the place, and if Mr. Gassett makes the settlement we hope for, he will simply pay back the purchase money to Dr. Morton because the place was never his to sell. He has arranged to meet us tomorrow morning.”
It was several years later before Jane was old enough to understand exactly how the letter she and Gertie had carried to Dick Harding could work all the wonders it seemed to be responsible for.
Mrs. Morton said it was the work of Providencethat this special letter was preserved and found at just the right time. Uncle Joseph declared that Alice’s asking them to hunt through the old closets had more to do with it than Providence. But Dick Harding said it wasn’t Providence at all—it was paper dolls and Chicken Little Jane.
“At any rate,” he said, “I never heard of Providence making a man turn green, and Gassett certainly did when I showed him his own writing and read him about two paragraphs of it. There it was in black and white that the mortgage on the house had been paid in full, and that the bank had just returned Mr. Fletcher’s stock certificates deposited with them to secure a firm debt. The letter was jubilant over the business success that had enabled Fletcher and Gassett to pay up, and Mr. Gassett declared he was grateful beyond measure to Alice’s father for risking his bank stock for the firm credit. Nice way he took to show his gratitude, wasn’t it?” Dick Harding looked the disgust he could not express.
Uncle Joseph had been telling the Mortons what happened when Mr. Gassett met them in Mr. Harding’s office.
“Did he show any signs of fight at the start?” inquired Dr. Morton.
“Oh, he tried to bluster for a moment,” replied Dick, “but I asked him ‘Do we go on with this casein court, Mr. Gassett, or do we not? Yes, or no?’ ‘No,’ said Mr. Gassett, so we got down to business.”
“He was willing to do anything to hush the matter up,” added Uncle Joseph. “It took exactly ten minutes to hand over a check for the money Dr. Morton paid him for the house, and to give Alice a paper resigning all claim to the bank stock. I have an idea the old rascal was afraid we might discover something else he had stolen.”
“The Gassetts are going away I understand,” said Dr. Morton. “Well, it’s a lucky strike for me to get the money back for the house. I am delighted, too, that Alice is to have her parent’s home. Do you ever expect to come back to live in it, Alice?”
Alice blushed and Dick Harding looked confused.
“I hope to—some day,” she answered softly.
Uncle Joseph and Alice went back to Cincinnati on the fifteenth of August. The next two weeks were busy ones in the Morton home. The old gabled house was in the dire throes of packing.
Chicken Little could not remember any previous moving and she thoroughly enjoyed the excitement despite the fact that her mother looked worried, and her father was cross when she got in his way. She watched him fill box after box with books, for Dr. Morton had a large professional library besides the family books which ran into the hundreds. Sheloved to see the crates and barrels swallow up dishes and crockery like hungry monsters with wide-open jaws. She found even the wrapping of chair legs with excelsior, and the crating of bureau and tables, interesting.
“Looks just like they were put in cages,” remarked Katy, peering through the slats at a lonesome-looking, marble-topped stand.
Gertie gazed about at the stripped walls and windows and gave a little shiver. “I don’t like it—it looks like you were gone, Chicken Little.”
The house certainly had a forlorn look and an empty ring. Pete sat on his perch grim and curious. He seemed to regard the bustle and hammering as a personal affront.
“It seems almost foolish to take Pete along,” Mrs. Morton remarked as she passed him one morning. “You will have so many pets on the ranch? Why don’t you give him to Katy and Gertie?”
“But, Mother, Pete wouldn’t like it. He’d be lonesome without his Chicken Little—wouldn’t you, Pete?”
Pete was not in a good humor. “Go off and die,” he croaked morosely.
The family laughed at Jane’s discomfiture.
As the time approached for them to go, the talk of leaving the parrot behind became more serious. It was already apparent that the family would beoverburdened with hand baggage and Pete would be difficult to care for on the train.
Mrs. Morton’s globes of wax flowers and fruit were proving a complication. It seemed impossible to pack the fragile handiwork and the delicate glass shades so there would be any hope of their reaching Kansas safely.
“Confound them,” exclaimed Frank in desperation, “I wish mother could be persuaded to part with the old things. They always did make the cold chills go up and down my back. I guess I have been cautioned 499 times by actual count not to run into those globes and not to joggle the tables they were on.”
“But, Frank, the wax flowers and fruit are the very apple of your mother’s eye. They were the height of fashion ten years ago. She spent days and days making and coloring them—they really are exquisitely done,” protested Marian.
“But they are such a nuisance! Just picture us lugging Jane’s parrot and those two huge globes on the train in addition to the satchels and lunch boxes. We’ll look like a traveling circus.”
Marian laughed at his wry face.
“It is awful—but think of your mother. I’ll carry one of the globes myself.”
“Not much you won’t. You will be tired enough with the journey without that burden.”
“I’ll carry the fruit,” volunteered Ernest. “I expectthe boys’ll laugh but mother feels bad enough about going away anyhow.”
“Yes, poor mother is giving up a good deal to go with us. We must always remember that.”
“All right, behold me with two satchels in one fist, mother’s tower of wax flowers hugged to my manly breast with the other hand, while I assist the ladies on the train, and clasp my friends’ fists in fond farewell with a third. But what of Chicken Little’s parrot?”
“I could carry Pete,” said Chicken Little.
“Not unless we left his cage behind, Chick, but don’t worry your head. We will find some way to get the family plunder on board.”
Jane was thoughtful for the remainder of the day. She took Pete over to Halford’s that afternoon and the children let him hop about from one room to another.
Gertie hovered over him a careful slave, but Katy enjoyed teasing him and made him ruffle up his feathers angrily a time or two.
Chicken Little rescued him, and cuddling him up on her shoulder, carried him tenderly home.
“No, I just couldn’t,” she said to herself. “I am sure he’d be homesick.”
“Mother, there’s a whole pile of my clothes up here you forgot to pack.” Chicken Little’s voice floated plaintively down the staircase.
“No, that is all right, dear. They are things you have outgrown and I am going to give them to Maggie Casey. Pat is coming for them this morning. By the way, if I am not here when he comes, just get them for him, will you, please?”
Pat was late and Mrs. Morton had gone over to Marian’s before he arrived. Chicken Little gathered up the bundle and soberly presented it to him. Pat thanked her but lingered cap in hand, shifting his weight from one foot to the other uneasily.
“I am sorry you’re after going away,” he said finally, conquering his embarrassment. “You’ll be coming back I hope.”
Chicken Little was at a loss for the proper reply. She smiled and asked him if he would like to see Pete.
To her surprise the parrot walked over to Pat at his first chirrup and climbed up on the hand he held out and on up to his shoulder.
“Why, I never saw Pete do that with a stranger before. He must like you.”
“We got acquainted that day I brought him home. Didn’t we, Pete?” Pat stroked his feathers caressingly and Pete sidled up nearer to his face.
Jane watched them silently. She was thinking.
“I just know he’d be good to him,” she said to herself. “And Pete likes him and I don’t s’pose Pat’s got any pet—but I would miss Pete awfully.”
“Have you got a cat at your house, Pat?” she asked presently.
“No, mother doesn’t like cats very well.”
Chicken Little studied about two minutes longer then shut her eyes and made the leap.
“Pat, would you like to have Pete,—for your very own?”
“Cricky, I should say, but you’re not after leaving him behind, are you?”
“I hate to, but mother says I’ll have lots of pets anyhow at the ranch and Frank says he’ll be a nuisance on the train. You’d be awful good to him, wouldn’t you, Pat?”
Pat nodded eagerly.
“He calls me when he’s hungry. You won’t ever forget to feed him or let any of the boys tease him?”
“I’ll take the best care I know and Maggie’d love him. She’s always wanted a bird.”
“I’ll get the cage,” said Chicken Little, turning away to hide the tears that would come.
But they came in spite of her when she gave Pete a parting squeeze.
“He’ll never come to any harm if I can help it,” vowed Pat, trying to reassure her, “but I wouldn’t be wanting you to give him to me if you feel so bad.”
“Yes, I want to—take him away quick, Pat.” She shoved the handle of the cage into Pat’s hand and flew upstairs to have her weep in private.
“It isn’t as much fun going away as I thought it would be,” she mourned.
That afternoon saw the last dray load of boxes and furniture taken down to be loaded into the freight car. The trunks were all packed and strapped and placed by the front door ready to be taken to the station on the morrow.
Dr. and Mrs. Morton with Ernest and Jane were to spend their last night with the Halfords. Chicken Little was to sleep in the trundle bed with Katy and Gertie. It was most exciting to see Mrs. Halford pull it out from under the big four-poster. It stoodabout a foot from the floor and was covered with a blue and white woven coverlid, which Mrs. Halford said her mother had made for her when she was married.
“I like a trundle bed,” said Katy, “because if you roll out, you don’t bump so hard.”
“Katy is such a restless child she falls out of bed about once a week,” laughed Mrs. Halford. “She sleeps all over Gertie. If she tries to take her third on your side just give her a punch, Jane. I am sorry I have to crowd you all in together, but I guess you little girls will sleep even if you are thick.”
It seemed doubtful, however, if they would sleep themselves or permit anyone else to sleep that night. They whispered and tittered far into the night in spite of warning hushes from Mrs. Halford and sundry raps on the wall from Dr. Morton’s side.
Neighbors and friends had flocked in that evening to say good-by to Dr. and Mrs. Morton. And the children, though banished upstairs, had kept tab on the gathering below by dashing to the head of the stairs, regardless of nighties, every time the bell rang.
When Dick Harding appeared they ducked down modestly behind the bannisters and yelled at him.
“I thought you were coming to the station tomorrow,” Chicken Little reproached him.
“I am, Miss Morton, wild horses couldn’t keepme away, but I wanted to have a little visit with your father and mother tonight. I will see you off tomorrow.”
Chicken Little was awake early the next morning in spite of their late hours. The child had been wakeful, partly because she was unused to sleeping with anyone, partly because the unknown life ahead was beginning to oppress her vaguely.
Katy and Gertie were still sleeping peacefully so she wriggled out quietly and dressing herself, slipped over into the dear old yard she was so soon to leave for good. She took a last swing under the old apple trees, digging the tips of her toes into the worn place in the sod and listening to the birds in the branches overhead. There was a little choke in her throat as she stared at the alley fence, and the fence corner by the street where the remains of her last play house were still strewn about. She didn’t like this new feeling, and getting out of the swing, she went over among the flower beds to cheer herself up. There a riot of autumn blossoms sparkled with dew drops in the early morning sunshine.
“I’ll pick some pansies and mignonette for mother,” she said half aloud, “she loves them so.”
She picked till her hands were full of the purple and yellow and white flower faces and the fragrant green spikes. Then she laid her cluster down in the shade and fell to making morning-glory ladies withlarkspur hats to match their gowns. A whistle from the fence disturbed her. She looked up and saw Pat Casey waving to her.
“I’ve got something for you.”
She went to the fence.
“Hold your skirt,” Pat commanded. She did so and Pat dropped in a handful of big yellow plums.
“I’ve got a lot more in my pockets,” he said as she started to thank him.
He had. The pockets appeared to be practically bottomless, as Pat hauled out handful after handful till the skirt of Jane’s neat little traveling dress began to sag dangerously with the weight.
“They aren’t much,” he said apologetically, “but I wanted to bring you something. Pete’s getting along fine. Mother likes him—she says he’ll be company for Maggie when she’s out washing. And Maggie’s that happy you wouldn’t believe it. We’re awful obliged.”
Pat’s desire to bring Chicken Little something seemed to be contagious. Grace Dart caught sight of them out at the fence and ran over bearing a parting gift.
“I want you to have it, Jane. I cracked the mirror and the lining of the box is torn a little but the rest’s most as good as new. And I truly think Victoria is the prettiest.”
She thrust the remains of the prize toilet set into Chicken Little’s hands with a beaming smile.
Chicken Little entirely forgot that she didn’t like Grace Dart.
“I’ll write to you soon as we get settled,” she promised.
Ernest came to fetch her to breakfast accompanied by Carol and Sherm, who had whistled for him before he was out of bed. These reinforcements soon lightened her load of plums and Grace Dart got her a paper bag for the rest.
Mrs. Halford’s fried chicken and hot biscuit and honey were a great bracer. Chicken Little’s teary mood slipped away and she revelled in the excitement of the good-byes. She promised everybody weekly letters for the remainder of her natural life.
“You must write to us the very first ones, Jane,” Katy demanded.
“I see you young ones are fixing to break me up buying postage stamps,” remonstrated Dr. Morton, trying to tease them.
“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Morton about an hour after breakfast, “has anyone fed Pete. I entirely forgot him last night and this morning. How could I be so careless?”
“Sure enough, where is Pete?” asked the doctor.
“He—he isn’t here,” replied Chicken Little. “I gave him away.”
“That was nice—Katy and Gertie will take good care of him I know.”
“I didn’t give him to Katy and Gertie.”
“Why—who?” Mrs. Morton looked puzzled.
“I gave him to Pat—when he came for the things.”
“Well, I declare,” ejaculated Mrs. Morton. “You certainly are the queerest child! Well, I suppose if you wanted to give your pet to a little Irish boy instead of to your best friends it’s all right.”
Katy looked reproachfully at Jane, but Mrs. Halford understood.
“I told you Chicken Little wouldn’t give you Pete when you teased him. I am glad you gave him to Pat, dear. He is a kind boy and the parrot will mean far more to him than to my little spoiled girls.”
“Here comes the expressman for the trunks,” said Dr. Morton. “You had better get your things on, Mother, the bus will soon be here.”
Chicken Little danced up and down as the big yellow omnibus backed up to the front gate and Dick Harding swung off the top, where he had been sitting beside the driver.
“How many passengers for Kansas?” he demanded.
“We’re all going as far as the station if there’s room,” Mrs. Halford replied.
It was a merry group that gathered outside thecar window. But tears were close to the smiles, for Marian was leaving father and mother and Mrs. Morton looked forward with anxiety to the new country and the new home.
Chicken Little felt blissfully important. Dick Harding had brought her a box of chocolate creams and gum drops to match Pat’s bag of plums. She waved one in each hand as the train pulled out.
“Good-by, Mr. Harding. Good-by, Katy. Good-by, Gertie.”
“Good-by, Chicken Little.”
The rattle of the car wheels and the shriek of the engine drowned out their voices, but Chicken Little watched from the window until they were all a blur.