123
“Take a hand to a wooster? Take a hand to a wooster!”
Dick Harding was standing out in the road near the white cottage one morning about two weeks after the hunting party, trying to decide whether he would take a walk or a ride to settle his breakfast. He glanced down into Jilly’s sober little face lifted to his appealingly.
“Take a hand to a wooster? Charmed, I’m sure. Point out the rooster. But what has his rooster-ship done, and how can I make him keep still long enough to lay hands on him, Jilly Dilly?”
Jilly clasped five fat fingers around two of his, smiled confidingly and made her plea once more: “Take a hand to a wooster.”
124Dick looked puzzled, but Jilly was pulling and he meekly followed her guidance. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you are getting me into, young lady, but go ahead, I’m at your service.”
Jilly pattered along not deigning to reply to his remarks. Jilly considered words as something to be reserved for business purposes only.
She led him to the chicken yard, pressed her small face against the wire netting that enclosed it, and contemplated the fowls ecstatically. Dick contemplated also, trying to pick out the offending rooster.
“Which rooster, Jilly?”
But Jilly only smiled vaguely. “Feed a wooster,” she commanded after another season of gazing.
“Yes, to be sure, but what would you suggest that I offer him? There doesn’t seem to be anything edible round here.”
The chickens seconded Jilly’s suggestion, coming to the fence and clucking excitedly.
Jilly looked pained at Dick’s indolence and, taking his hand, led him over to a covered wooden box, which was found to contain shelled corn. The chickens were duly fed, but Dick still puzzled over the unchastized rooster until Marian enlightened him later.
“I shall have to give you a key to Jilly’s dialect,” Marian laughed–“she merely wanted you to go with her to see the chickens.”
125Chicken Little was enjoying her guests. Her resolve to help mother was carried out only semi-occasionally when there were raspberries or currants to be picked or peas to be shelled, under the grape arbor so they wouldn’t be in Annie’s way in the kitchen. At first, Mrs. Morton had counted on having the girls help with the breakfast dishes, but they developed such a genius for disappearing immediately after breakfast that she gave it up as more bother than it was worth.
They tramped and rode, and waded and splashed and finally swam, in the bathing hole down at the creek, under Marian’s or Alice’s supervision, till Katie and Gertie were brown and hearty.
“Mrs. Halford wouldn’t know Gertie–she’s fairly made over,” Alice observed one morning.
Gertie was fast losing her timidity and had so much persistence in learning to ride that she bade fair to have a more graceful seat in the saddle than Jane herself. Sherm was deep in farm work and the girls saw little either of him or of Ernest, except in the evenings and on Sundays. Dick ran the reaper in the harvest field for Dr. Morton for three days, but his zeal waned as the weather got hotter.
“This is my vacation and I don’t want to sweat my sweet self entirely away ‘in little drops of water.’ Think how pained you’d be, dearest,” he told Alice.
“I never dreamed there was so much farming to126a ranch,” Alice remarked to Dr. Morton one day. “I thought you attended to the cattle—”
“And rode around in chaps and sombreros, looking picturesque, the rest of the time,” interrupted Dick. “My precious wife is disappointed because she hasn’t seen any cowboys cavorting about the place shooting each other up or gambling with nice picturesque bags of gold dust.”
“Dick Harding! I didn’t. But we’d hardly know there were any cattle round if we didn’t go through the pasture occasionally.”
“Our big pastures take them off our hands pretty well in summer, but in winter they have to be fed and herded and looked after generally, don’t they, Chicken Little? Humbug has played herd boy herself more than once. You are thinking of the big cattle ranges in Colorado and Montana and Wyoming, Alice. This country is cut up into farms and the ranges are gone. And we have to raise our corn and wheat and rye, not to mention fruits and vegetables. It’s a busy life, but I love its independence.”
A day or two after this conversation, Ernest came in late to dinner, exclaiming: “Father, the white sow and all her thirteen pigs are out.”
“The Dickens, have you any idea where she’s gone?” Dr. Morton looked decidedly annoyed. “I told Jim Bart that pen wasn’t strong enough to hold her–she’s the meanest animal on the place.”
127“One of the harvest hands said he thought he saw her down along the slough. I am sorry for the porkers if she is–they aren’t a week old yet.”
“Go down right after dinner and see if you can see anything of her. The old fool will lose them all in that marshy ground. And I don’t see how we can spare a man to look after them. It looks like rain and that wheat must be in the barns by night.”
Ernest came back from his search to report that the sow and one lone pig had wandered back to the barnyard and Jim Bart had got them into the pen.
“One pig! You don’t mean she has lost the other twelve? That’s costly business!”
“Looks that way. They’re such little fellows–I suppose they’re squealing down there in the slough in that swamp grass–it’s a regular jungle three or four feet high.”
Dr. Morton studied a moment, perplexed. “Well, the grain is worth more than the pigs. I guess they’ll have to go until evening and then we’ll all go down and see how many we can find. They won’t suffer greatly before night unless they find enough water to drown themselves in.”
“Oh, the poor piggies!” exclaimed Chicken Little. “Why, they’ll be most starved and maybe the bull snakes might get them.”
“I hardly think they could manage a pig. But I can’t help it, unless you think you could rescue them,128daughter.” Dr. Morton said this last in fun, but Chicken Little took it seriously.
“What could I put them in, Father?”
“Oh, you might take a small chicken coop,” replied her father carelessly. The wagons coming from the barn were already rattling into the road and he was in a hurry to catch one and save himself the hot walk to the fields.
Chicken Little was thinking. She sat twisting a corner of her apron into a tight roll. “I believe we could do it,” she said presently, “and the bull snakes are perfectly harmless if they are big, ugly-looking things. Will you help me, Katie?”
“Ugh, are there really snakes there, Jane?”
“Yes, but we’ve never seen any poisonous ones along there, though I saw a water moccasin once right down by the spring, so you never can tell. But snakes sound a lot worse than they really are, ’cause they’re such cowards they always run.”
Katy considered. The task did not sound attractive, but Katy was plucky. “I guess, if you can do it, I can.”
Jane had not thought of asking Gertie and she was surprised to hear her say: “I’m coming, too.”
“Oh, Gertie, won’t you be afraid?”
“Yes, I’m afraid, but I don’t want the little piggies killed–just think how you’d feel if you were lost in such a dreadful place and there were snakes129and awful things. If I see a snake I’ll yell bloody murder, and I guess it’ll let me alone.”
Jane threw herself on Gertie and hugged her. “Gertie Halford, I think you’d make a real, sure enough book heroine, because you do things when you think you ought to, whether you’re scared or not.”
“I wish Dick hadn’t gone to town to-day,” said Katy.
Chicken Little had her campaign already planned. “I’m going to get Ernest’s and Frank’s and Sherm’s rubber boots for us. They’ll be lots too big, but we can tie them around the legs to make them stick on. They will be fine in the mud and water if we have to wade in the slough. Yes, and they will protect us from the snakes, too. We won’t put them on till we get down there; they will be too hard to walk in. And we can take Jilly’s red wagon and put the smallest chicken coop on it. It isn’t heavy.”
Mrs. Morton had gone to town with Dick and Alice for the day or the girls would probably not have been permitted to carry out their unusual undertaking. They quickly made their preparations with much joking about the boots, and twenty minutes later came to the banks of the slough. The slough was in reality a continuation of the spring stream, which spread out in the meadows below the pond until it lost all semblance of a stream and became130merely a marshy stretch, whose waters finally found their way into the creek. In the meadows adjoining, the finest hay on the place was cut each year.
The girls sat down on the grass and fastened on the boots. The effect was somewhat startling, for they reached well above the knee on Chicken Little, who was the tallest of the three, while poor Gertie seemed to be divided into two equal parts.
Both Katy and Jane giggled when she got laboriously to her feet.
“There’s more boots than girl, Gertie,” laughed Jane.
“You don’t need to be afraid, Sis, you’ll scare anything, even a snake!” Katy remarked unfeelingly, though her words reassured Gertie wonderfully.
“I don’t feel so afraid in these,” she said.
Chicken Little was slowly making her way in to the slough. “Jim found the mother pig near here, Ernest said, but the little scamps may be most anywhere. Let’s listen and see if we can hear any squeals or grunts.”
“Yes, I did–I’m most sure, but it didn’t sound very close by,” Gertie answered.
Chicken Little listened. “Which way did the sound come from?”
“Toward the creek, but I don’t hear it any more.”
They had a pretty chase.
They had a pretty chase.
131“We’d better search pretty carefully as we go along so we won’t have to come back over the same ground,” remarked Katy, who had a genius for organizing–even a pig hunt. “You are the tallest, Jane, so you take the tallest grass next the water, and I’ll come along half way up the bank and Gertie can walk through the meadow grass–that way we can’t miss them.”
“No, for they must be on this side of the slough: they’re too little to wade across it.”
Chicken Little made the first find, two discouraged little porkers, hopelessly mired and grunting feebly when disturbed. They had no trouble in catching these, but holding their wet, miry little bodies was a different matter. They were slippery as eels. Chicken Little and Katy, who each had one, found them a handful.
“Oh, mine most got away! And I’m all over mud–we’ll be a sight!” Katy giggled hysterically. “I wonder what mother would think if she could see me now.”
“Well, it will all wash off. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so hard to clump along in these old boots. It takes forever to get any place.”
They had sent Gertie on ahead to open the coop door. With a sigh of relief, Katy shoved hers into it. Jane was not so lucky. Instead of going in, as a well-regulated pig should, the small, black-and-white sinner shot off to one side and made for the slough again. They had a pretty chase before he132finally tangled himself up in the grass and was captured once more.
They plodded back to take up the search where they had left off, going through the shorter grass till they should reach the point where they had found the pigs. They were clumping along, chattering gaily, when Katy jumped and let out a yell that could have been heard a block away.
“Oh, there’s the biggest snake I ever saw–over there near that rock–don’t you see?”
Gertie turned white, but Chicken Little encouraged her by starting toward the monster, which was indeed a huge bull snake fully five feet long, as Ernest and Sherm found by actual measurement that evening.
“Pooh,” said Chicken Little, “it looks dreadful, but it won’t hurt you. If I can find some stones I’m going to try to kill it.”
“Don’t you dare go near it.” Katy grabbed her dress and held on tight.
“But we’ll all be scared to death all the time, for fear we come across it again, if I don’t. There are some rocks over there big enough, if I can get them out of the ground.”
She went resolutely over and, prying with a stick, secured two good-sized rocks. Armed with these, she started toward the snake coiled up asleep in the hot July sunshine. Katy and Gertie watched her133breathlessly. Chicken Little advanced with caution. She didn’t like the job herself, though she was sure the snake wouldn’t do anything worse than run. She had seen her elders kill them more than once, and they had always been cowardly. Nevertheless, her heart thumped and her breath came fast, as she crept nearer. She must go close and aim at the head if she hoped to do any execution. Step by step she crept forward till she was within four feet of that ugly coil. Stopping, she raised the heavy stone and took careful aim. At this instant her presence disturbed the snake. It raised its oval head, fixing her with its beady, bright eyes. A thrill of horror shot through her. What if it should fascinate her so she couldn’t move? She had heard of such things. She heaved the stone, shutting her eyes tight as it left her hand.
Katy and Gertie both screamed and jumped back. Jane opened her eyes quickly to see the snake uncoil and start to glide away. She saw something else, too. She saw that her stone had wounded it just behind the head. Her courage flowed back in a trice. She raised the other stone and moved forward. The snake was slipping over the ground at a swift pace. She had to run, catching up with it as it came to its hole, a few feet distant. She smashed down the second rock almost in the same place she had hit before. The reptile moved feebly about six inches134farther till its ugly head was hidden inside the hole, then thrashed its heavy body through another undulation, and lay still.
Chicken Little stood looking at it in dazed surprise for several seconds. She was white and trembling with excitement. Seeing that it did not move, Katy and Gertie crept a little closer. No one said a word for a full minute, then Chicken Little came to life, her face convulsed with loathing.
“Ugh, the nasty thing–I hate them. I don’t see what God wanted to make such horrid, wicked things for!”
“Well, the Bible says they weren’t wicked till Eve ate the apple,” Katy replied, staring curiously down at the snake. She had never seen such a big one outside of a circus. “But I think they must have always looked wicked, anyhow. How did you ever dare, Chicken Little, to tackle it? I was expecting it to wind right round you like that picture of Laocoon in our mythology.”
“I shouldn’t have dared if I hadn’t seen so many of them before. I guess being brave is mostly being used to things. But I hate snakes worse than anything in the world–I don’t feel a bit sorry about killing them!”
“Oh, dear,” said Gertie, shuddering, “I s’pose we have got to find the rest of the pigs.”
135Katy and Chicken Little each echoed the sigh. They all started ahead resolutely. But they kept closer together for a time. They went some little distance without finding any further signs of the lost animals.
“You don’t suppose we could have passed them, do you?” Katy inquired anxiously.
“We couldn’t, if they are on this side of the slough.”
A few rods farther on something moved in the swamp grass. All three jumped and screamed: their nerve had been sadly weakened by the bull snake.
A squeal and chorus of grunts reassured them.
“Here they are–a lot of them. Oh, dear, I wish we’d brought the coop along so we wouldn’t have to go back.” Jane parted the tall grass and discovered five of the fugitives huddled together. They were much livelier than the first ones and showed symptoms of bolting if the girls approached nearer.
“I’ll go back for it,” said Katy. “I’ll go through the short grass and I won’t be afraid.”
Chicken Little and Gertie watched and waited.
“Isn’t that little white one with the pink ears and curly tail cunning? I didn’t suppose pigs could be so pretty.”
“They are only pretty when they are weenties. As soon as they grow old enough to root in the mud, they are horrid.”
136When Katy returned they anchored the red wagon with the chicken coop and the two captured piglets as close to the slough as possible. All three crept upon the pig cache cautiously.
“Pick out which one you’ll grab, for they are going to run sure,” Chicken Little admonished.
They made a dash and each got a pig, but, alas, the two free ones made a dash also–a break for liberty worthy of an Indian. They selected routes immediately in front of, and immediately behind Chicken Little, whose attention was absorbed with trying to hold a squealing, squirming pig. The result was disastrous to all concerned. Pig No. 1 tripped her up neatly and she sat down hastily and unexpectedly upon Pig No. 2, who gave one agonized squeal, in which the pig in her arms joined. Fortunately, her victim did not get her whole weight or there would have been one pig the less in this vale of tears. Chicken Little squashed him down gently into some two inches of oozy mud and water. It splashed in all directions, baptizing Katy and Gertie and the fleeing pig as well as completing the ruin of Jane’s pink gingham frock, fresh that morning.
The sight of her amazed and disgusted face generously decorated with mud, was too much for Katy. She giggled till the tears stood in her eyes. Chicken Little was indignant.
137“I guess you wouldn’t think it was so funny, if it was you,” she replied with dignity. Dignity did not become her tout ensemble. Katy went off into fresh screams of mirth. Chicken Little had stood about all she could that afternoon. Her face flamed with wrath, and, gathering up the struggling pig in her arms, she hurled it at Katy, as the only missile within reach. Piggy just missed Katy’s head, tumbling harmlessly into the ooze. Chicken Little was instantly remorseful, not on Katy’s account but on Piggy’s.
Katy was furious. She didn’t say a word, but walked deliberately over to the coop, deposited her pig very gently and started toward the house.
Gertie tried to stop her, but she shook her off. Chicken Little, too angry to care what happened, relieved herself of the rest of her ill-temper.
“Go off and be hateful if you want to–a lot I care, Miss Katy Halford. I should think you’d be ashamed to act so when you are most fifteen.”
A swift retort rose to Katy’s lips, but she decided it would be more impressive to remain dignifiedly silent. She stalked on. Gertie hesitated as to which of the belligerents she should follow, but finally decided in favor of the one who needed her worst. She put her pig in the coop and came to help Jane up. The latter was already ashamed of her outburst,138but was far from being ready to acknowledge it. The other three pigs had not gone far and they soon had them safely in the coop. They were debating as to whether they should give up hunting for the others, when a hail from the road brought aid and comfort. Katy had met Dr. Morton coming from the field on an errand and had told him what they were trying to do. He was delighted and surprised to see the seven rescued pigs.
“Why, Chicken Little, I didn’t really suppose you were in earnest or—” Dr. Morton stopped suddenly, he had just taken a good look at his only daughter–the look was effective. He threw back his head and roared.
“Oh, if you could just see yourself, Jane!”
This was adding insult to injury and Chicken Little burst into tears. “You can just hunt your old pigs yourself–I don’t think it’s nice of you to laugh when I tried so hard!”
“Come, come, I beg your pardon, but you are enough to make an owl laugh, Humbug. It was fine of you to try to rescue the pigs. You girls deserve a great deal of credit, for it is a disagreeable, muddy job. I guess I’ll have to make it up to you. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You may have this litter for your very own, and we’ll send the little girls their share over the cost of keeping, when the pigs are sold. How will that do?”
139Chicken Little was not in the mood to be easily appeased.
“Yes, but you say things are mine till you want to sell them, and then I never see the money.”
This was touching a sore point. The Doctor had been a little remiss on the subject of the children’s ownership of their pets. He was nettled by this accusation.
“My dear, when I say a thing I mean it. I was about to add, though, that if I give you the entire proceeds of the pigs I shall expect you to attend to feeding them until they are big enough to be turned in with the drove.”
“I thought the mother fed them.”
“Well, the mother pig has to be fed.”
“Do you really, truly, mean it, Father?”
“Truly.”
Chicken Little forgot the late unpleasantness. “Oh, goody, let’s call Katy back and tell her!”
Katy was not so far away as might have been anticipated. Her wrath was dissipating also.
Dr. Morton lingered to help them a few moments and to satisfy himself that they could not do themselves any damage that a bath and the wash tub could not repair, then left them once more to their own resources.
By four o’clock they had all but one of the missing pigs safely stowed in the coop. They were very140tired and hot, and decided to save the joy of hunting for the last pig for Ernest and Sherm in the evening.
It was well they did. The wee stray would have led them a chase. He had found his way almost to the creek, and it took the boys a good hour of wading and beating the swamp grass to discover him.
Just as Chicken Little was dropping off to sleep that night, Katy roused her.
“Do you suppose we’ll get as much as five dollars apiece from those pigs?”
141
Gertie looked wistful. Dick and Alice were going on to Denver that morning to return a month later for the little girls. All three were to drive into town with Dr. Morton to see them off. The mere thought of anyone going away made Gertie a little homesick. She went out to the chicken yard, where nine of the young prairie chickens were flourishing under the care of a much-deceived hen, who had adopted them with the mistaken notion that they were her own egg kin. The little mottled things seemed very much out of place among the domestic fowls. They were wild and shy and astonishingly fleet on their reed-like legs. Gertie loved to watch them. Two of the chicks had died the first night, and one, two days later. But the rest survived, and,142in the course of time, flew away to join their wild mates.
“Dear me, I wonder what we can do next?” said Chicken Little, as they watched the train pull out with Dick waving from the rear platform.
Dick’s and Alice’s going seemed to have finished things, at least for the time being. Her question was answered as soon as she got home.
“Jane,” said her mother, “I have just received an invitation for you and the girls that I am a little doubtful about. Ernest and Sherm are invited, too, but not to remain for the night.”
“Stay all night? Where, Mother, where?”
“With Mamie Jenkins. The Jenkins family are hardly as refined as I could wish for your associates; still they are good religious people, if they are plain, and Katy and Gertie might enjoy going to a country party.”
“A party? O Mother, please let us go.”
“I don’t mind so much your coming to the party, but they want to have you stay overnight and attend a picnic some of the young people are getting up for the next afternoon.”
Katy was as eager as Jane for the festivity and Mrs. Morton was at length persuaded to pocket her scruples and permit the girls to accept Mamie’s invitation. Ernest and Sherm were also delighted at the prospect of a frolic. They were to take the143girls over and leave them for the night, returning the next afternoon for the picnic, which was to start from the Jenkin’s farm.
But when the day of the party arrived, Gertie backed out, begging to be left at home with Mrs. Morton. The thought of meeting so many strangers frightened her.
“I doubt if she would enjoy it. She would be the youngest one there–most of them will be from fourteen to twenty. The neighbors live so far apart, they have to combine different ages in order to find guests enough for a party.”
At first, Chicken Little would not hear to Gertie’s remaining behind, but finding that she would really be happier at home, stopped urging her. Jane and Katy were soon joyfully planning what they should wear. They were to go in their party frocks, each taking another dress along for the morning and the picnic. Jane was to wear Alice’s gift. Katy had a dainty ruffled muslin with cherry-colored sash and hair ribbons.
“I was afraid I wasn’t going to have a single chance to wear it here,” she remarked naïvely.
The boys were busy shining their shoes, and performing certain mysteries of shaving with very little perceptible change in their appearance. Ernest felt that he could not possibly go without a new necktie, but as no one was going to town before the event,144he had to content himself with borrowing one from Frank.
It took the combined efforts of Marian and Gertie and Mrs. Morton to get the revellers dressed to their satisfaction. Gertie waited on the two girls as patiently as any maid. Marian was in great demand by the boys to coax in refractory cuff buttons and give a “tony” twist to the ties.
“Is tony the very latest, Ernest?”
“That’s what Sherm says. Just make the bow a little more perky, can’t you, Marian? I don’t want to look like a country Jake.”
“Ernest, you are just the boy to go to Annapolis; you are so fussy about your clothes.”
“Golly, I hope I do get to go. Father hasn’t heard from the Senator yet, but he may be away from home.”
Sherm was struggling with his tie, getting red and hot in the process. He had just tied it nearly to his satisfaction, when he carelessly gave it a jerk and had it all to do over again.
“Cæsar’s Ghost!” he exclaimed vengefully, “what do they make these things so pesky slippery for?”
Marian laughed and Sherm colored in embarrassment over his outburst.
“Please excuse me, but this is the fifth time I’ve tied the critter.”
145“Let me try.” Marian turned him to the light and had the bow nicely exact in no time.
The girls found their source of woe in their hair. Katy, having learned that most of the young people would be older than themselves, decided to put her hair up, and look grown up, too. Mrs. Morton was horrified and made Katy take it down. Katy, though rebellious, dared not oppose her hostess openly. She contented herself with taking a handful of hair pins along and putting it up after she reached Mamie’s. To be sure the heavy braids piled upon her small head looked rather queer, especially with her short skirts, which she could not contrive to lengthen. But Katy made up for this defect by an unwonted dignity, and actually persuaded a majority of the people she met that she was sixteen at the very least.
Country folk gather early and they found the fun well started when they arrived. The Jenkins family had come to the neighborhood about a year before from Iowa.
The farmhouse was new and rather more pretentious than most on the creek. Lace curtains with robust patterns draped the windows in fresh-starched folds. A green and red ingrain carpet covered the floor, while the entire Jenkins family–there were four olive branches–done in crayon by a local photographer, adorned the walls. It would be more146truthful to say, adorned three walls. The fourth was sacred to a real oil painting in an unlimited gilt frame, which had come as a prize for extra subscriptions to the St. LouisGlobe-Democrat. Mrs. Jenkins regarded this treasure almost with reverence. “I do think it is real uplifting to have a work of art in the house, don’t you, Mrs. Brown?” she had been heard to remark to a neighbor who failed to notice this gem. The family bible and a red plush photograph album rested on the marble-topped table, usually placed in the exact center of the room. To-night, it was pushed back against the wall to make more room for the games.
Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins were rigid Methodists and would not tolerate any such worldly amusement as dancing. Kissing games were substituted, and if, as the Jenkins believed, these were more elevating, they were certainly coarser and rougher than the dancing would have been.
Mamie had attended the Garland High School for one year and had acquired different ideas. She would have much preferred the dancing, but her parents were firm. Mamie deemed herself a full-fledged young lady at fifteen. Her highest ambitions were to have “style” and plenty of beaux.
Ernest and Sherm had to find a place to tie the horses. They lingered also a moment at the pump to wash the leathery smell of the harness from their147hands–a fastidious touch that would have subjected them to much guying if the other boys had seen them.
So Chicken Little led Katy into the crowded room, unsupported. There was no hall or entry and they were plunged directly into the thick of the party. Many of the country lads and lasses were her mates at the district school and greeted her cordially, eyeing Katy, however, with frankly curious stares. Mrs. Jenkins relieved her embarrassment by taking them upstairs to remove their wraps. She introduced herself to Katy before Jane could get out the little speech of presentation her mother had urged her not to forget, since Katy, being a stranger, should be made to feel at home as quickly as possible. Chicken Little hated introducing people and had been dreading the ordeal, but kindly Mrs. Jenkins took Katy by the hand and presented her to the whole roomful at one fell swoop.
“This is Miss Katy Halford, young folks, and I want you all to introduce yourselves and see that she has a good time or she’ll think you are a lot of green country jays who haven’t any manners.”
“King William was King James’s son” was in full swing. The young folks made places for the two girls in the ring and promptly drew in Ernest and Sherm as soon as they entered. The lilting tune was sung lustily while the supposed victim in the center,148a handsome lad of sixteen with bold, black eyes and dark curls, surveyed the girls, big and little, with an evident enjoyment of his privileges.
Several of the older boys interrupted their singing to give him advice.
“Take the city girl, Grant, buck up and show your manners.” “Bet you knew who you’d choose before you left home.” “Don’t let on that you don’t know which girl you want–Mamie’s biting her lips already to wash off that kiss.”
The boy returned or ignored this badinage as he saw fit.
Mamie, however, was indignantly protesting that he needn’t try to kiss her. Grant looked in her direction and smiled as the fateful instant arrived. Indeed, he started toward her, then mischievously whirled around and seizing Chicken Little, who was whispering to Katy that Grant was Mamie’s beau, kissed her with a resounding smack.
Chicken Little was taken so unawares that she had time neither to blush nor to protest or struggle, as was considered etiquette on such occasions. She didn’t even try to rub it off, as was also customary. She just looked at him with such a funny mixture of surprise and dismay that everybody roared, including Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins and some of the older neighbors who had come in to see the fun.
“Here, Chicken Little, you need practice,” and149“Chicken Little acts as if she didn’t know what kisses were. You’ll have to have a rehearsal beforehand next time, Grant!” “Why, Grant? What’s the matter with the rest of us?” These comments were open and noisy.
Ernest took all this coarse bantering at his young sister’s expense good-naturedly. He knew no offence was intended. He had been present at a number of these rural frolics. But Sherm, town-bred and unaccustomed to this form of amusement, was distinctly displeased both at the kiss and the talk. He got Chicken Little off to one side as soon as he could.
“Say, Chicken Little, don’t let the boys kiss you.”
Chicken Little looked concerned. “I don’t like them to, Sherm, but I can’t help it if I play–and they’d think I was awfully stuck up and rude if I refused.”
“Does your mother know they have this sort of games?”
Chicken Little made a little grimace. “Don’t go and be grown-up and horrid, Sherm. Everybody does it here. They’ll stop this pretty soon and play clap in and clap out or forfeits.”
Her big brown eyes were lifted so innocently and sweetly that Sherm couldn’t say any more, but he felt a curious desire to fight every time a big boy so much as stared at Jane.
“She’s such a kid!” he explained the feeling to150himself, “and Ernest isn’t looking after her at all.”
Katy entered into the romping heart and soul. Katy was playing young lady. Her pink cheeks and laughing eyes and little flirtatious ways were very popular with the boys–so popular that Mamie was vexed because many of her mates seemed to have eyes only for the city girl, as she called her behind her back.
Mamie eased her mind by treating her special friends haughtily. She got even with the recreant Grant by choosing Ernest the very first time in Post Office. She even put some of the girls up to boycotting the boys who were hanging round Katy, for one entire game, persuading them to choose Ernest and Sherm alternately till the others were jealously wrathful without being quite sure whether it was accident or conspiracy. Considering his scruples about kissing, Sherm submitted most meekly. He had the grace to color when Chicken Little remarked carelessly: “It wasn’t so bad as you thought it would be, was it, Sherm?”
“Oh, it’s different with boys,” he retorted loftily. “Little girls like you don’t understand.”
“Little girls! I suppose you think yourself a man grown. You needn’t feel so big because you’re most seventeen. I heard Dick say a boy of seventeen wasn’t really any older than a girl of fifteen, because151girls grow up quicker. So there, you’re not much more than a year older than I am!”
Sherm’s “little girl” rankled not only that evening but for weeks afterwards. She told Katy and Mamie in strict confidence after they had gone upstairs that night.
“I’d show him if I were you, Jane,” advised Mamie the experienced.
Chicken Little needed no urging, but she was in doubt how to proceed.
“My, I wish I was awfully beautiful and grown up. I’d make him fall so many billions deep in love with me he couldn’t squeak.” Jane felt positively vindictive whenever she thought of Sherm’s patronizing tone. She had neglected to mention to the girls the little conversation that had preceded her remark to Sherm. She didn’t consider it necessary to tell everything she knew.
Mamie tittered. “Pooh, you sound as if you had been reading Sir Walter Scott. They don’t do things that way nowadays. When I was in town last winter at school I had lots of boys gone on me, and I’m not a raving, tearing beauty either.”
Mamie looked as if she expected her guests to contradict her, but they were too much impressed with her conquests to do anything so rude. A little disappointed, but finding their absorbed expressions encouraging, Mamie preceded to retail her adventures.152Boiled down, these were mainly a box of candy and various walks taken at recesses and noons, with an occasional escort to a party. They were sufficiently thrilling to the others, who had never been permitted even such mild forms of dissipation.
“My, wouldn’t I catch it if Papa ever caught me walking with a boy!”
Katy painted the paternal wrath with a real relish. It seemed to furnish an adequate excuse for her having nothing to relate and put her on a little pinnacle of superior breeding as well. Her parents looked after her. It was only more ordinary people who permitted their daughters to run about at fifteen.
Mamie was keen enough to realize this and she promptly resented Katy’s patronizing tone.
“Oh, Pa would have been mad, too, if he had known. But I was staying with my aunt. She didn’t care what I did, just so I was on time to meals and didn’t run around after dark.”
Katy was determined to keep up her end. “We used to have wonderful times at the church oyster suppers. One night last winter Dr. Wade–you don’t remember him, Chicken Little, he’s only been in Centerville about a year. Well, he took me in for oysters and bought me candy and three turns at the grab bag. And he is a grown-up man–he’s been a doctor for over two years.”
153Katy would hardly have told this story if Gertie had been there. She neglected to mention that Dr. Wade had kindly included Gertie and five other young girls in these courtesies. Or that he had remarked to Mrs. Halford that he loved to be with children because he missed his own brothers and sisters sadly. But Gertie was not present to mar the effect of this story with further particulars. Mamie began to rack her brain for forgotten attentions worthy to be classed with this superb generosity. Poor Chicken Little was hopelessly out-classed. Nothing more thrilling than being singled out in games and Blackman at school had happened to her.
“Grant Stowe said you had the prettiest eyes of any girl here to-night. I heard him tell Jennie Brown so when she asked him whether he liked blue eyes or brown best. She is the awfulest thing–always fishing for compliments.”
This was generous of Mamie, for Grant was the one who had passed her by so recently. But Katy’s eyes were also distanced and Mamie had been very much thrilled by hearing that Ernest might go to Annapolis. Further, he had chosen her twice that evening. She felt amiably disposed toward Ernest’s sister.
When the tales of past glories were exhausted, the conversation grew intermittent, being punctuated by frequent yawns. They were just on the point of154dropping off to sleep when Mamie suddenly opened her eyes and sat up in bed with a jerk.
“Music! Don’t you hear it? I shouldn’t wonder if some of the boys were out serenading. Oh, I do hope they’ll come here.”
Katy and Chicken Little listened breathlessly.
“It is!”
“Yes, and it’s coming nearer.”
All three hopped out of bed and crouched down by the window. The moon was setting, but there was still a faint radiance. The strains were growing more distinct.
“I bet it’s Grant Stowe and his two cousins from the Prairie Hill district. They are staying all night with him and are going to the picnic to-morrow. Don’t you remember that red-headed boy?”
“It sounds like a banjo and guitar,” said Katy. “Oh, I do love a guitar. It always makes me think of ‘Gaily the troubadour.’” Katy gave a wriggle of delight at this romantic ending to the night’s festivities. She was already planning to tell the girls at home about the wonderful serenade.
The tinkle tinkle of the thin notes grew stronger and clearer and they found that a third instrument, which had puzzled them, was a mouth organ.
“I didn’t suppose anybody could really make music with a mouth organ, but it goes nicely with the others.” Chicken Little, like Katy, was more excited155over the serenade than the party. It seemed so delightfully young ladyfied.
The trio had one awful moment, for the music seemed to be dying away and still there was no human in sight. Suddenly it stopped altogether. They listened and waited–not a sound rewarded them.
“I think it’s downright mean if they’ve gone by.” Mamie’s tone was more than injured.
The words were hardly out of her mouth when a stealthy foot-fall came directly beneath their window, and guitar, mandolin, and mouth organ burst forth into “My Bonnie,” supported after the opening strains by half a dozen boyish voices.
The boys had crept in so close to the wall of the house that the girls had not discovered them. The young ladies ducked at the first sound, and hastily slipped their dresses over their night gowns so they could look out again.
“O dear,” said Mamie, “I almost forgot my curl papers.”
They were arrayed in time to reward the serenaders with a vigorous clapping of hands, Father and Mother Jenkins joining in from the window of their bedroom downstairs.
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” floated up next, followed by “Over the Garden Wall,” which, if not156choice, had the distinction of being sung in New York, as Grant Stowe proudly informed them.
It was three o’clock past, before they finally settled down in bed once more. Faint suggestions of dawn were already apparent.
“It’s not much use to go to bed, Father always gets up at six,” mourned Mamie.
A brilliant idea struck Katy. “Suppose we stay up all night. Grace Dart said she did once when her father was so sick, and she said it was the most wonderful thing to see the sun rise when you hadn’t been to bed at all.”
This proposal met with instant favor. They clambered out of bed and lit the small oil lamp, wrapping themselves in quilts and petticoats impartially, for the air was growing chilly. The next three hours were the longest any of the three had ever known. In spite of fortune telling, and a thrilling story which Mamie read in tragic whispers, the minutes shuffled along like hours. Yawns interrupted almost every sentence and much mutual prodding and sharp reproaches were necessary to keep their heavy eyes open. They were too sleepy to care whether the sun rose in the usual sedate way or pirouetted up chasing a star. In fact, they forgot all about the expected sunrise. They wanted just two things–sleep and something to eat.
The call to breakfast was even sweeter than the157serenade had been. Father and Mother Jenkins were concerned at their jaded appearance.
“Seems like parties don’t agree with you young ones none too well. I reckon we won’t have them very often,” Father Jenkins remarked tartly. His own eyes smarted from loss of sleep.
“I don’t believe you ought to go to the picnic this afternoon if you are feeling so played out,” Mother Jenkins added. “Your Ma will think I haven’t taken good care of you. It was them good-for-nothing boys a-coming that wore you plumb out.”
Generous cups of strong coffee–a luxury not permitted to either Chicken Little or Katy at home–woke them up and they got through the morning nicely. Not for worlds would they have missed that picnic.
But even the coffee could not carry them through the afternoon. They were the butts of the entire party on account of their dullness and heavy eyes.
Ernest expressed his disgust with his sister openly. “Well, I think Mother’d better keep you at home till you’re old enough not to be such a baby.” Jane had been nodding in spite of herself.
“Looks to me as if you girls had stayed up all night!” exclaimed Grant Stowe.
Mamie roused enough to retort: “Well, I guess you didn’t get any too much sleep yourself.”
“We can keep awake if we didn’t. But if it has158this kind of effect on you, we’ll leave you out the next time we go serenading.”
It had been arranged that they should catch fish for the picnic supper. The girls had brought a huge frying pan and the butter and corn meal to cook them in. As soon as the teams were cared for, the boys got out fishing tackle and bait and the party broke up into small groups for the fishing. Grant Stowe offered to help Chicken Little with her line. She found this courtesy on his part embarrassing, for Katy and Mamie exchanged looks, and she was so utterly sleepy, that she would have preferred Ernest or Sherm so she wouldn’t be expected to talk. Chicken Little had gone to school with Grant the preceding winter. He was always a leader in their school games and a great favorite.
Grant found a snug place beside a deep pool that promised catfish at the very least, and might be expected to yield a few trout. He made her comfortable on the spreading roots of an elm growing upward with difficulty from a steep bank. Grant smiled at her as he handed her the rod and tossed the baited hook into the stillest part of the pool.
“There, you ought to get a bite soon. This is one of the best places on the creek for catfish. Say, what did you girls do to yourselves that you are so used up to-day? You didn’t take a five-mile walk or anything after we left, did you?”
159Jane laughed. “Don’t you wish you knew?”
“Oh, I’ll find out, but I wish you’d tell me.” Grant looked at her from under his long black lashes. His tone was distinctly wheedling.
Chicken Little laughed again and shook her head.
Grant threw his own line in, seating himself a little lower down on the bank; and quiet reigned for several minutes.
But the boy was determined to get the secret from her. After a tedious silence, he began in a low tone so that he would not disturb the fish: “You know, Chicken Little, I always did think you were the prettiest girl in school, but you were such a kid you never took the trouble to look at a fellow. Seems to me you might be nice now and tell me what you did.”
He neglected to mention the fact that he had bet Mamie a silk handkerchief against a plate of taffy that he would find out what they had been up to before night. He received no response.
“Oh, come now, be a trump and tell a fellow.”
He glanced around this time with a tenderly reproachful look. This tenderness speedily vanished. Jane was peacefully asleep, her head supported against the tree trunk.
The boy’s face flushed wrathfully for an instant, but he had a saving sense of humor. “Serves me right for trying to get the best of a kid, I guess,” he said to himself. He let her sleep on undisturbed160until the sound of voices announced the approach of some of the others, when he hastily wakened her. He did not intend to be laughed at for the rest of the day.
Chicken Little found it hard to wake up and was heavy-eyed and stupid the remainder of the afternoon. Fortunately for her and Katy, Ernest had orders from his mother to be home by dark.
Patient Gertie was waiting expectantly to hear about the good times, but she could hardly extract three words from either of the revellers. Parties and boys and finery were all stale, but their neatly made bed looked like heaven.