273
The days crawled by during the next two weeks.
“I hate them so by night, I want to shove them off into to-morrow by main force,” Jane told Marian complainingly, the third day after Ernest and the girls had gone.
“You’ll be all right in a day or two. It’s always hardest at first,” Marian consoled her.
“I suppose it doesn’t make any difference whether I’m all right or all wrong–the folks have gone just the same.”
“And you might as well make the best—”
“Oh, yes, I might as well! ‘Count your blessings, my brethren, etc.’ I’ve done counted ’em till I’m sick of hearing about them! Marian, if you don’t find me something new to do I shall bust!”
274Marian was particularly busy that morning and not so patient as usual.
She waved her hand around the room ironically. “I shall be charmed, Chicken Little, will you finish these dishes or sweep the sitting room or sew on that dress of Jilly’s? I can furnish you an endless variety to choose from.”
“I said something new.”
“Jilly’s dress is brand spanking new.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know, Jane, I have had the feeling myself, but I don’t imagine the heavens are going to open and shower down something new and choice on you because you’re lonesome and bored. If you can’t amuse yourself, you might as well be useful and have something to show for a tedious day.”
Chicken Little drummed on the window for several minutes without replying, then swung round with a grimace.
“Hand over the dress–I can run up the seams on the machine all right, I suppose.”
The family waited, excited and expectant, for the report on Ernest’s examinations. They had had a long letter telling of his journey and safe arrival. Katy and Gertie and Mrs. Halford had each written long letters full of Centerville news and references to their pleasant summer. Mrs. Halford could not say enough concerning the girls’ improved appearance.275Katy wrote the most interesting item. “What do you think? Carol Brown left for Annapolis, too. Do you suppose Ernest will know him? P. S. We showed him your picture and he stared at it awful hard and said–you’ve got to get me a trade last for this–‘Say, Chicken Little’s going to be a hummer if she keeps on!’ Don’t you think I’m nice to tell you?”
Jane gave the letter to Sherm to read, forgetting this part. Sherm snorted when he came to it, glancing up curiously at her.
“Do you like that sort of stuff, Chicken Little?” he asked later.
It was almost two weeks after Ernest went, before Dr. Morton, on his return from town one September evening, came up the walk excitedly waving a telegram.
“Oh!” exclaimed Chicken Little.
“He must have passed or Father wouldn’t look so pleased,” said Mrs. Morton.
The doctor came in slightly breathless.
“Well, Mother, I’m afraid you have lost your boy.”
Mrs. Morton looked startled for a moment, then, reassured by her husband’s smile, fumbled nervously for her glasses to read the yellow paper he handed her.
276She was maddeningly deliberate. Jane, perched upon the arm of her chair, tried to anticipate her, but her mother held it so she could not see.
“It’s Mother’s place to see it first, daughter.”
Reproving Chicken Little steadied Mrs. Morton’s nerves, and she read the few words aloud with dignity.
“Sworn in to-day–hurrah!” Ernest.
“That means that he—?” She looked inquiringly at her husband.
“That means he has passed both physical and mental examinations and has been regularly sworn in to Uncle Sam’s service.”
“But I thought he was just going to the Naval Academy–why does he have to be sworn in as if he were enlisting?”
“Because he, practically, has enlisted. He enters the government service when he enters the academy, and he simply takes his oath of allegiance.”
Mrs. Morton’s questioning was interrupted by the entrance of Sherm, Frank, and Marian, who came in demanding news.
“Don’t worry, Mother,” said Frank, patting her shoulder, “your precious lamb is in good hands. He’ll be back next September such a dude the family won’t know how to behave in his presence.” Frank couldn’t resist teasing even when he tried to comfort.
277Mrs. Morton sighed. “A great many things can happen in a year.”
“Yes, Mother dear, they can, but most always they don’t. The only things you can depend on are bad weather and work.”
A letter soon followed the telegram, giving details of the examinations, and a glimpse of Ernest’s new life, which comforted his mother, because he was forming punctual habits and had to go regularly to chapel whether he wished to or not. He had met Carol unexpectedly, to their mutual joy. “He’s an awfully handsome chap–knows it, too, but I think he has too much sense to let it spoil him. It’s jolly to have some one I know here,” Ernest wrote.
School began for Chicken Little at the little brown schoolhouse a mile distant, on the fifteenth of September. Chicken Little and the whole Morton family rejoiced, for she had been a most dissatisfied young person of late. Her mother watched her walk away down the lane, immaculate in her new flower-bordered calico, lunch basket in hand, with positive thankfulness.
“Glad to have her out of the way, aren’t you, Mother? Jane is too restless a girl to be idle,” laughed Marian.
Jane had spoken to her father about her plan for Sherm and he had heartily agreed. But Sherm was278not to begin until the first of November when the most pressing of the farm work would be over.
Chicken Little promptly talked the matter over also with the new teacher, Mr. Clay, a young man of twenty-one, fresh from his junior year at college. He was wide awake and attractive, and while ignorant, as they, of many of the niceties of polite society, seemed a very elegant being to the majority of his new pupils. Mamie Jenkins had concluded to stay at home for the fall term instead of going to the Garland High School. For some reason it took an astonishing number of consultations with the teacher to arrange Mamie’s course satisfactorily, especially when she learned that Sherm would be coming soon. She quizzed Chicken Little carefully as to what studies Sherm would take.
“Geometry and Latin, I think. I asked Mr. Clay and he said he could. Maybe bookkeeping, too.”
“I was just thinking I ought to go on with my Latin. I had Beginning Latin last year, and I really ought to take Cæsar right away before I forget.”
Jane regarded her thoughtfully. She happened to know that Sherm was planning to study Cicero. How mad Mamie would be if she started Cæsar all alone! She had half a mind to let her go ahead. Mamie had spent the entire morning recess telling her how the boys bored her hanging round. Yes, it would do Mamie good to have to recite alone.279Chicken Little shut her lips firmly for a second. When she opened them, she replied that she understood Cæsar was a very interesting study.
Mamie bridled and said condescendingly: “It’s a pity you haven’t had Latin so you could come into the class, too.”
“Oh, I see enough of Sherm at home!” returned Chicken Little maliciously. Mamie had the faculty of always rubbing her up the wrong way.
Mamie gave her shoulders a fling. “Of course, I always forget you are just a little girl, Jane. You’re so big and—” Mamie didn’t finish her sentence. She merely glanced expressively at Jane’s long legs. “I think I’ll go in and talk to Mr. Clay. He must be sick of having all those kids hanging round him.”
Mamie sailed off in state, leaving Jane feeling as if she had run her hand into a patch of nettles. She was standing there in the sunshine looking after Mamie resentfully when Grant Stowe came along.
He nodded toward the schoolhouse door through which Mamie had vanished. “What’s Miss Flirtie been saying to make you so ruffled? She’s begun to sit up nights now fixing her cap for the teacher. Bet you a cookie he’s too slick for her.”
Chicken Little laughed, but retorted: “Humph, how many times have you sat on her front porch this summer?”
280Grant reddened. “Oh, we’re neighbors, and a fellow has to kill time summer evenings. Father and mother always go to bed with the chickens and it’s no fun listening to the frogs all by yourself. Suppose your folks wouldn’t let anybody come to see you–I hear they’re all-fired particular.”
Jane did not have an opportunity to answer. One of the little girls came begging her to play Blackman with a group of the younger children. Grant suggested that she choose up for one side, and he would for the other. She had just begun to choose when Mr. Clay appeared at her elbow. “May I play on your side, Jane?”
“Teacher’s” entrance into the game acted like magic. The few big boys who had come on this first day, edged near enough to be seen and were speedily brought into the sport. Mamie, venturing languidly to the door to see what had become of Mr. Clay, suddenly decided she was not too big to play “just this once.”
Teacher and Jane were both swift runners and Grant had hard work to make a showing. Mamie sweetly let herself be caught by teacher the first rush, to Grant’s openly expressed disgust. The big boys warmed into envious rivalry with Mr. Clay right from the start, but he soon convinced them that they would have to work, if they worsted him at any of their games or exercises.
281Chicken Little found team work with him very delightful and could scarcely believe the noon hour was over, when he pulled out his watch and announced that he must call school. She turned a radiant face up to him.
“Oh, it’s such fun to have you play–I wish you would often.”
“Thank you, it’s fine exercise, isn’t it?”
Mamie began her Cæsar the next day, requiring much help from “Teacher.” She also came to school in her best dress. Mamie had faith in first impressions. Chicken Little had been tempted the night before to betray Mamie’s schemes to Sherm, but she stopped with the words on the tip of her tongue. She couldn’t exactly have explained the scruple that would not let her “give Mamie away,” as she phrased it.
“Is the teacher any good?” Sherm had asked, meeting her at the ford on her way home, and taking lunch basket and books with an air of possession, which was the one trick of Sherm’s that annoyed Chicken Little. He never asked leave or offered to relieve her of burdens; he merely reached over and took them.
She minded this more than usual to-day; Mr. Clay’s manner had been so delightful. She couldn’t even thank Sherm. They trudged along in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Sherm asked dryly:282“Left your tongue at school, Miss Morton?–you’re not very sociable.”
Chicken Little responded by making a face at him, which brought an ominous sparkle into the boy’s eyes. Things hadn’t gone very well with him that day and he had waited for Jane for a little companioning.
“Well,” he demanded gruffly, “what’s the matter? Did Mr. Clay stand you in a corner the first day or did the handsome Grant neglect you for Mamie?”
The last thrust put fire in Chicken Little’s eye. She turned and looked at him squarely.
“Sherm, if I slapped you some day would you be surprised?” she demanded unexpectedly.
Sherm flashed a sidelong glance at her. “Not as surprised as you’ll be, if you ever try it.”
Chicken Little considered this remark. Just what did he mean?
Sherm’s face was flushed a trifle angrily. He looked as if he might mean most anything. She replied demurely with a provoking shrug of her shoulders.
“I didn’t say I should–but I wanted to dreadfully a minute ago.”
The tall lad beside her seemed genuinely surprised at this statement.
“I suppose you know what you are talking about, Chicken Little, but I’m blamed if I do.”
283“It’s the way you take my books and—”
“Yes?” Sherm was still more surprised. Then an idea popping into his mind, “Oh, I presume you’d like to have me take off my hat and make you a profound reverence as your favorite heroes do in novels. What in thunder you girls find to like in those trashy novels is more than I can see!”
Chicken Little bristled. “Hm-n, Walter Scott and Washington Irving, trashy! Shows how much you know, if you have graduated from High School, Sherman Dart! Besides, I didn’t mean any such thing. Only, you sort of take my things without asking–as if–as if—” She was getting into rather deeper water than she had anticipated.
“Yes, as if what?”
“Oh, I don’t suppose you mean it that way–but you act as if I was only a silly little girl–and didn’t count!”
Chicken Little was decidedly red in the face by the time she finished.
Sherm didn’t say anything for a moment, but he continued to look at her. He looked at her as if he had found something about her he hadn’t noticed before.
“Who put that idea into your head?–Mamie?”
She shook her head indignantly.
“Grant Stowe?”
284“Nobody, thank you, I guess I have a mind of my own.”
“New teacher start in by giving you a lecture on deportment?”
Chicken Little stamped her foot. “You’re perfectful hateful–and I sha’n’t walk another step with you!”
They were near the gate leading from the lane into the orchard and she suited the action to the word, by darting through it and running off under the trees.
Sherm looked after her a moment, undecided whether to stand on his dignity or to pursue. He had considered Jane a little girl–most of the time. Some way she was alluringly different to-day. He suddenly resolved that he would not be flouted in any such fashion. It took him about two minutes to catch up with Chicken Little and slip his arm through hers.
“No, you don’t, Miss. You are going to sit down here under this tree and tell me exactly what’s the matter!”
Chicken Little struggled rebelliously, but Sherm held her firmly.
“I can’t–Mother told me to come straight home from school; she wanted me.”
“Fibber! Your mother and Marian went over to Benton’s this afternoon. You needn’t try to285dodge–you and I are going to have this out right now. So you might as well be obliging and sit down comfortably.”
“It wasn’t anything to make such a fuss about.”
“Then why are you making such a row?”
Chicken Little flung herself down upon the grass.
Sherm stretched his muscular length on the sward in front of her and began to chew a grass stem in a leisurely fashion while he watched her.
Chicken Little pulled a handful of long grasses and commenced plaiting them. Her hair was windblown and her face rose-flushed from her run. She declined to look at Sherm.
“Chicken Little–O Chicken Little, are you very mad? Chicken Little?”
Chicken Little kept her brown eyes fixed upon the pliant stems.
“Chicken Little,” Sherm murmured softly, “you have the prettiest eyes of any girl I know.”
Chicken Little caught the touch of malice in his tone and shot an indignant glance at him from the aforesaid eyes.
Sherm laughed delightedly. “Chicken Little, you don’t need to tell me what’s the matter with you–I know.”
Chicken Little shot another indignant glance. “There isn’t anything the matter except what I286told you–of course, it wasn’t anything really–only—”
“Yes, there is, Chicken Little, that was only a symptom.”
“Stop your fooling.”
“Don’t you want me to tell you?”
“No!”
“Bet you do–honest, don’t you?”
“I haven’t the least curiosity–so you can just stop teasing.” Jane was positively dignified.
“Well, I’m going to tell you, whether you want to hear it or not. You’re growing up, Chicken Little, that’s what’s the matter with our little feelings. But don’t forget you promised to give me part of Ernest’s place this winter. It was a bargain, wasn’t it?” Sherm reached over and took possession of her busy fingers. “Wasn’t it? Chicken Little Jane, wasn’t it?”
Jane looked at this new and astonishing Sherm and nodded shyly.
Sherm gathered up her books with a laugh. “Come on, your mother wants you.”
“She does not–and I’m going to sit here till I make a grass basket for Jilly.”
September and October slipped away quietly, their warm, hazy days gay with turning leaves and spicily fragrant with the drying vegetation and ripening287fruits. Chicken Little found school under Mr. Clay unwontedly interesting. He departed from the regulation mixture of three parts study and one part recitation and tried to lead his pupils’ thoughts out into the world a little. Indeed, some of his innovations were regarded with suspicion by certain fathers and mothers in the district. When he advised his advanced history class to read historical novels and Shakespeare in connection with their work, there was much shaking of heads. But when he took advantage of the coming election to waken an interest in politics, the district board waited on him. If the visit of the school board silenced Mr. Clay, it did not discourage his charges, and partisanship ran high. The favorite method of boosting one’s candidates being to write their names on the blackboard at recesses and noons, and then stand guard to prevent the opposing faction from erasing them.
The fun grew furious. The Mortons were staunch Republicans, and Chicken Little strove valiantly to write “Garfield and Arthur” earlier and oftener than the Democrats, led by Grant Stowe and Mamie Price, could replace them with “Hancock and English.”
Grant was the biggest and strongest and bossiest lad in school. His favorite method of settling the enemy was to pick them up bodily and set them outside the schoolhouse door while he rubbed out their288ticket. Or better still, to hold the door while Mamie or some other democrat turned the entire front board into a waving sea of “Hancocks and Englishes.”
The Republicans were in the lead as to numbers, but they were mostly the younger children. But few of the older boys could be spared from the farm work to enter school so early in the fall. So Chicken Little captained her side, aided by quiet suggestions from Mr. Clay who did not wish to take sides openly.
Many were the ruses employed to capture the blackboards. Jane stayed one evening after school to have things ready for the morrow, but, alas, Grant Stowe was in the habit of waiting to walk a piece home with her. He waited down the road till he grew suspicious, and, coming back, caught her in the act.
He took swift revenge, none too generously, by forcing her to erase every line, then rubbed it in by guiding her hand to make her write the names of the opposition candidates. Despite all Chicken Little’s struggles, he persisted until the hated names were finished in writing that decidedly resembled crow tracks, but could be read by anyone having sufficient patience.
Chicken Little was furious but helpless. Mr. Clay had gone home early in order to drive into town289that evening. Grant treated her anger as a good joke. She finally wrenched her hand loose and gave him a resounding smack across the cheek, that made her tormentor’s face tingle.
It was Grant’s turn to be vexed now. He caught her arm and twisted it till she winced. “Say you’re sorry!”
“I won’t!”
Grant turned the supple wrist a twist farther. “Now, will you?”
“No sir, not if you twist till you break it–I won’t! I’m not going to be bullied!”
Grant began to be afraid she meant what she said. But his pride would not let him give in to a girl. “All right, little stubborn, I’ll kiss you till you do.”
As Grant loosened his hold on her wrist, Jane jerked away and fled toward the door in a panic. She was more than half afraid of Grant in this humor–and then her promise to Ernest.
“Oh, dear, I knew better than to do that, but he made me so mad!” she mourned.
Grant was close upon her. She fairly hurled herself out the door and most unexpectedly bumped into Sherm, who caught her in time to save her catapulting down the steps.
“Save the pieces, Chicken Little, what’s your hurry?”
290“O Sherm,–oh, I’m so glad you came–I—”
Before she could finish Grant reached the door, stopping short on seeing Sherm.
Jane clutched Sherm’s arm tight. “Don’t let him, please don’t let him!”
Her words were not entirely clear, but Sherm promptly shoved her behind him and confronted Grant angrily.
“Big business you’re in, frightening girls–you bully!”
Sherm had taken a dislike to Grant that evening at Mamie’s and exulted in this opportunity to pick a quarrel. Grant was equally ready. He scorned explanations and replied by pulling off his coat. Sherm swiftly peeled his also. Chicken Little was alarmed by these warlike preparations.
“Don’t, boys, don’t! I guess it was part my fault, Sherm. Grant didn’t mean any harm. We were scrapping over the election and—”
“I don’t care whether it was your fault or not, Jane. If Grant doesn’t know enough to be a gentleman, it’s time he learned.”
Sherm sprang forward and the boys clinched. They were pretty evenly matched. Grant outweighed Sherm, but the latter was quicker and had had some training in wrestling. This was the popular method of settling quarrels, boxing not having come into vogue. Inside of three minutes both were291down, rolling over the ground an indiscriminate, writhing heap of arms and legs.
Chicken Little was utterly dismayed. She didn’t want either of the boys hurt, but they heeded her remonstrances no more than if she had been a mosquito. She even tried pulling at the one who came uppermost, but they both pantingly warned her off. Chicken Little set her jaw firmly. She flew into the schoolhouse to the water bench, and seizing the water bucket, flew out. Pausing long enough to take good aim, she dashed its contents over the boys’ heads with all her might.
Grant being underneath at the moment, with lips parted from his exertions, received the full force of the water in his mouth and nose, and nearly strangled from the dose. Sherm had to let him up and apply first aid to help him recover his breath–the lad was purple. When he began to breathe readily once more, both boys got to their feet, glaring reproachfully at Chicken Little. Each was restrained by the presence of the other from expressing forcibly his opinion of the young lady. The heroine was in wrong with both the villain and the hero. However, the heroine did not care.
“You boys ought to be ashamed of yourselves, both of you–fighting like a pair of kids. I wish you could see yourselves! You look exactly like drowned rats!”
292The lads could not not see themselves, but they could see each other, and the exhibit was convincing. Sherm’s mouth puckered into its crooked smile.
“Well, if that’s the way you feel about it, Chicken Little, it’s all right with me. So long, Grant.”
Sherm picked up his coat and cap and set off, leaving Jane to follow or linger as she saw fit. She turned to Grant.
“I didn’t mean to get you into trouble, Grant.”
“Don’t mention it, and, truly–I didn’t intend to frighten you, Chicken Little. I guess you aren’t like most of the girls on the Creek–I didn’t suppose you’d take it that way. Good-bye, Sherm,” he called. Grant also picked up his belongings and departed.
Chicken Little rescued the water pail and carried it into the schoolhouse. She secured her hat and lunch basket, and was starting for the door when a wonderful idea buzzed in her brain. Slipping to the window she glanced out. Grant was striding rapidly off up the road. She ran to the board and hastily erased that hateful “Hancock and English” and as hastily wrote the names of the other presidential candidates in letters a foot high across the front board, underlining them heavily and putting hands pointing toward them on each of the side boards. This done, she locked the schoolhouse293door, as she had promised Mr. Clay, and, taking the key over to a neighbor’s a few rods away, joyously departed homeward.
Sherm was not in sight when she started. A little farther down the hill she saw him waiting beside a haystack. He had evidently been watching to make sure she did not get into further trouble. He walked briskly on as soon as he caught sight of her.
Young Mr. Dart looked a trifle sulky at supper that evening. Chicken Little tried to attract his attention in various ways without success. Sherm was resolved to ignore her. Finally, she addressed him directly.
“Won’t you please pass the water, Sherm?” she asked with exaggerated meekness.
Sherm grinned in spite of himself. The other members of the family looked at Jane inquiringly. Jane, having received the water, ate her supper in profound silence.
He came on her unexpectedly down by the spring a little later. It was growing dark and he did not see her until he was almost beside her. He hesitated a moment, then joined her. She glanced up demurely.
He regarded her an instant in complete silence. Chicken Little tossed her head.
294Sherm came a step closer and Jane prepared to fly if necessary, but Sherm contented himself with staring at her till he made her drop her eyes.
“You mischievous witch, I’d like to shake you hard!”
295
The prairies were brown–a dead, crisp brown, as if they had been baked by hot suns through long, rainless days and nipped by a whole winter of killing frosts.
“I don’t understand why the grass is so dry by the middle of November,” said Dr. Morton. “Of course the summer was pretty dry, but then we had rains in September.”
“Yes, Father,” Frank replied, “but there has been less rainfall for the past two years than Kansas has known for a decade. I imagine the ground is baked underneath on the prairies, and the rains only helped for a time.”
“Well, whatever caused it, we shall have to feed earlier than usual. I am afraid we may have some296bad fires, too, if we don’t have rain or a snowfall soon.”
“There was a fire over on Elm Creek night before last,” spoke up Sherm. “Grant Stowe’s cousin was telling us about it at school.”
“I saw smoke off to the north yesterday,” said Chicken Little.
“Oh, I hope we sha’n’t have any bad fires this fall!” exclaimed Mrs. Morton. “I do think a big prairie fire is one of the most terrifying sights, especially at night. I couldn’t sleep that first fall for dreading them. I used to get up in the middle of the night and look out the windows to see if that awful glare was anywhere on the horizon.”
“Don’t go borrowing trouble, Mother. There hasn’t been a bad fire on Big John for years. The country is so thickly settled a fire doesn’t have the sweep it used to.” Dr. Morton tried to reassure her.
“They must be wonderful things to see. I hope there won’t be any bad ones, but if one shows up anywhere within ten miles, I propose to be on hand,” Sherm said eagerly.
“You won’t be so keen after you have fought one or two, Sherm.” Frank smiled with the wisdom of the initiated. “Say, Father, I think Jim and I had better fire round those stacks on the north eighty.297It would be hard to save them if a fire got started on the divide.”
“Yes, I don’t know but you’d best do it this afternoon. Burn a pretty wide strip. And we ought to run a guard on the west from that field of winter wheat to the county road. If a fire ever got in there, it might come down on the house.”
Chicken Little spoke up. “May I go, too, Frank? I love to watch you.”
“You will be in school, but you can come home that way if we are still at work. You can easily see the smoke. We won’t try it if the wind rises, and I believe it is going to.”
“Chicken Little, if you see the smoke you may tell Mr. Clay I won’t come for my recitation this afternoon. I am going to find out how this back-firing business is done.”
Sherm had begun his studies some two weeks previous and was making rapid progress, studying evenings, and going to the school a half hour before closing time to recite.
Chicken Little found this arrangement extremely pleasant, because Sherm was always there to walk home with her. They took all sorts of detours and by-paths through the woods, instead of coming along the road to the ford. They discovered unexpected stores of walnuts and acorns and wild rose hips, and scarlet bitter-sweet just298opening its gorgeous berries after the first hard frosts.
Jane helped Sherm press autumn leaves and pack a huge box of nuts to send home. His mother wrote back that his father hadn’t showed as much interest in anything for weeks, as he did in the nuts. They seemed to carry him back to his own boyhood.
Mr. Dart seldom left his bed now, and Sherm’s mother told but little of his condition. Sherm understood her silence only too well. Chicken Little noticed that he always worked hard and late the days he heard from home. She began to watch for the letters herself, and to mount guard over the boy when he looked specially downcast, teasing him into going for a gallop or wheedling him into making taffy or playing a game of checkers. She got so she recognized Sherm’s blue devils as far off as she could see him.
Sherm did not notice this for some time or suspect she was looking after him, but one day he remarked carelessly when she thought she had been specially clever:
“Chicken Little, don’t make a mollycoddle of me. A man has to learn to take what comes his way without squealing.”
“Yes, Sherm, but if you get thorns in your hand, it’s better to try to pull them out than to go on pushing them in deeper, isn’t it? I know when I was299a kid, it always helped a lot to have Mother kiss it better.”
“How’d you get so wise, Chicken Little?” The lad smiled his wry smile.
“Don’t make fun of me, please, Sherm.”
“Make fun of you? Lady Jane, I’ve been taking off my hat to you for a week. How in the dickens you girls find out exactly what’s going on inside a chap beats my time. It’s mighty good of you to put up with my glooming and try to cheer me along. Maybe I don’t look grateful, but I am.” Sherm was eager to make this acknowledgment, but found it more trying than he had anticipated. He revenged himself by starting in to tease.
“Say, I wish you’d try your hand at this splinter–I can’t budge the critter.”
Jane flew for a needle, unsuspecting. The splinter didn’t look serious, but she painstakingly dug it out.
“Is that all right?” she demanded, looking up to encounter a wicked glint in Sherm’s gray eyes.
“Hm-n, aren’t you going to put any medicine on it?”
“Medicine?”
“Well, you know you said it helped.” Sherm was grinning impishly.
“Sherman Dart, I think you’re too mean for300words!” She was about to turn away affronted when she had an inspiration.
“Mother,” she called, “O Mother!”
Mrs. Morton had been placidly sewing in the sitting room while the young people were studying their lessons by the dining-room table. She came to the door, inquiring.
“Mother, Sherm’s had a splinter in his finger and he wants you to kiss it better.”
Sherm started to protest, but Mrs. Morton did not stop to listen.
“Jane, I think that kind of a joke is very ill-timed, making your poor mother get up and come to you for nothing. You must remember I am not as young as I once was.”
Mrs. Morton departed with dignity.
“Now will you be good?” chuckled Sherm.
“Oh, I guess I’m square,” Chicken Little retorted, going back to her lessons.
Mrs. Morton had said truly that she was not so young as formerly. She had not been well all fall. Dr. Morton had persuaded her to see another physician, who, having assured her that she was merely run down, had prescribed the usual tonic. He had told Dr. Morton, however, that her heart action was weak and warned him to guard her against shocks of any kind and to have her rest as much as possible. This had agreed with the doctor’s own diagnosis of301her condition, and the family had been trying to save her from all exertion. So Chicken Little was a tiny bit conscience-stricken.
High winds and more pressing farm duties had interfered with running the fire guards. It was not until the week before Thanksgiving that the men got at it, then they succeeded only in protecting the stacks. They had intended to finish the job the following morning, but one of the neighbors, passing through the lane, stopped to tell Dr. Morton of a sale of yearlings to be held the next afternoon in the neighboring county.
“It must be part of the Elliott herd. They’re three-quarters bred shorthorn; I’d like mighty well to pick up a bunch of them. We have plenty of feed for any ordinary winter.” Dr. Morton was talking the matter over with Frank after supper.
“Suppose we ride over, Father, it’s only about twenty miles. We can start early–we don’t need to buy unless they are actually a bargain.”
They were off at six the following morning, planning to return the same day. Dr. Morton, however, warned his wife not to be anxious if she did not see them before the next afternoon. If they bought the steers, they would not try to drive them home the same day.
The morning was bright and pleasant, but the wind rose toward mid-day and was blowing a young302gale by the time Chicken Little returned from school at half-past four. Mrs. Morton began worrying lest the doctor and Frank had not wrapped up sufficiently.
“Why, it isn’t cold yet, Mrs. Morton. In fact, it is astonishingly warm for November. And there’s the queerest, yellowish haze I have ever seen.” Sherm said this to reassure her.
“Probably dust,” replied Mrs. Morton carelessly, relieved from her anxiety about her family.
Chicken Little hurried through her supper and went over to see Marian. Presently Marian threw a shawl over her head and they both climbed the hill back of the house. The wind was still blowing fiercely. Sherm saw them on the ridge and followed to see what was tempting them to a stroll on such a night.
“What’s up?”
Marian answered. “Why, Jane thinks all this yellow haze comes from a prairie fire. We’ve been trying to see if we could see any trace of it. It seems to me I do smell smoke–there’s a kind of pungent tang to the air, too.” Marian sniffed uneasily.
“Like burning grass or leaves?”
Marian’s face paled. “Sherm, that’s exactly what it is! What can we do? And the menfolks all away except Jim Bart, and he’s gone to Benton’s on an303errand. He’ll be back in a few minutes though.”
“Don’t worry, Marian,” said Jane, “if it’s a prairie fire it’s miles and miles off. It must be on the other side of Little John. It can never cross the creek–besides, the wind is blowing the wrong way for it to sweep down on us.”
“That’s so–but the wind might change any minute, and in a gale like this I’m not so sure it might not jump Little John. I do wish Frank had finished that back-firing.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t be possible to do it until the wind lulls, but Mrs. Morton, I’ll sit up and watch to-night–at least until the wind goes down. It often falls about midnight,” said Sherm, looking troubled.
“It looks to me as if we were in for a three-days’ blow,” Marian replied despondently. “But I’d be much obliged if you would, Sherm, I don’t quite like to ask Jim Bart to, for he’s had such a hard day. Do you think you can keep awake? And, Chicken Little, don’t let on to Mother–we mustn’t worry her.”
“Sherm,” said Jane, after they went into the house, “I’m going to stay up, too; I’ll slip down again after Mother goes to bed. It’s a lot easier for two people to keep awake than one.”
“No, Chicken Little, I don’t believe you’d better. Your mother wouldn’t like it. And we’d be dead sure to laugh or talk loud enough for her to hear304us. I hope the wind will go down early. If it doesn’t and I find I can’t stay awake, I’ll call you and let you watch while I doze on the couch here.”
Jane stayed up as late as her mother would let her, and Sherm made the excuse of having special studying to do, to sit up later. After Mrs. Morton had retired he made frequent excursions to the hill top. A lurid glare lit up the horizon to the northwest. He could still catch the tang of smoke and whiffs of burning grass, but these were not so pungent as earlier in the evening. The fire seemed farther away. By eleven, the glare was decidedly fainter and the wind had subsided noticeably. At twelve, he concluded it was safe to go to bed.
Chicken Little waking about two, stole down stairs and finding everything dark, made the rounds of the windows, but the distant fire showed only a faint glow in the night.
When they arose the next morning there was no trace of the fire to be seen. Sherm hailed some men passing, for news. They reported that it had swept the north side of Elm Creek and said it had burned up a lot of hay. There was a rumor that two of the upland farmers had lost everything they had and that a man and team had been caught in it. But they hadn’t been able to get any details.
“Though it wouldn’t be surprising,” one of the305strangers added, “that fire was traveling faster than any horse could run.”
Chicken Little had come out and was standing beside Sherm. Her eyes grew big. “Do they really think somebody got burned?”
One of the men nudged the man who had spoken.
“No, Sis, it was just a rumor–I don’t ’low it was true. When folks can’t give you any name or place–it most generally ain’t so.”
The men drove on.
It was Saturday. Jim Bart had gone down to town for the weekly supplies and Sherm was busy with odd jobs. He asked Jane to go up to the hill top occasionally to make sure there were no fresh signs of the fire, though Jim Bart had assured him the danger was over. Sherm noticed that the wind had changed. It was blowing freshly from the very direction where they had seen the fire the preceding night.
Chicken Little obediently made trips once an hour until noon; she could detect nothing to occasion alarm. After dinner her mother set her to making doughnuts and she forgot all about it.
Mrs. Morton was not so well to-day and Jane persuaded her to go to bed. Drawing the blinds to, she put a hot iron to her mother’s feet and left her to sleep. The clock striking four attracted Jane’s attention as she came back into the sitting room, the306last doughnut was draining in the collender while Annie mopped the kitchen floor.
She stood irresolute for an instant, undecided whether to read or to fetch some walnuts from the smokehouse for Sunday. Dr. Morton always liked to have a basket of walnuts handy on Sunday afternoons. “I guess I’ll get the nuts, and perhaps I’d better run up the hill to be sure that old fire hasn’t had a change of heart. Father says often some little side fire smolders and burns after the main fire is all out. Though I guess one would have showed up long before this if there’d been any this time.”
She argued with herself for two or three minutes, finally deciding that it wasn’t much trouble to go take a look, even if it were foolish. Just outside the door she met Sherm and he walked up to the crest with her.
Half way up the slope Chicken Little suddenly stopped, sniffing suspiciously. “Sherm, I believe I smell smoke again.”
Sherm stopped also to draw in a long breath. He did not wait to announce his observations, but broke into a run for the top of the hill. Chicken Little followed him a length in the rear. Sherm took one look and gave vent to a surprised whistle. Chicken Little stared, fascinated, at a tiny line of fire burning merrily on a hillside not a mile distant.
307“Jumping Jehosophat!” exclaimed Sherm, “how did it ever creep up on us this way?”
Jane was thinking rapidly. She scarcely noticed what he said.
“Sherm, Frank left the water barrels and the mops and everything on the wagon, didn’t he?”
“Yes–what—”
“Are the barrels filled?”
“Yep, do you think—”
“Sherm, run hitch the bay team to the wagon quick. I’ll get Marian and warn Annie not to tell Mother–she’s asleep still. Hurry, Sherm, every minute’s precious!”
Sherm’s “All right” drifted from him on the run. He was already on his way to the stable. He realized that Jane knew more about fire fighting than he did.
Jane hurried to the cottage. Marian listened to her news, white to the lips.
“Annie can take Jilly. Perhaps I’d better ride over after Mr. Benton.”
“Marian,” protested Chicken Little, “there isn’t time. And if Mr. Benton’s home, he has probably seen it, too, and is trying to protect his own place. No, we’ve got to work fast. Unless we can run a fire guard before the fire reaches that tall grass on the division line, the whole place is a goner! It isn’t coming very fast yet. Here, I’ll run with Jilly308over to the house and you put on a pair of Frank’s trousers–your skirts might catch. I’ll get that old pair of Ernest’s. Hurry, Marian, hurry!”
Chicken Little gathered up Jilly and started on the run.
Both Marian and Jane reached the stable yard just as Sherm drove the heavy farm wagon clattering out of the gate. They hurriedly climbed in and Sherm lashed the horses into a gallop. As they passed the cottage, Marian exclaimed: “Did you get matches either of you?”
Sherm slowed up the team and examined his pockets.
“A handful.”
“Stop a moment–I’ll run fetch a box. It takes a lot.” Chicken Little was over the wheel before the words were fairly out of her mouth.
She was back in a jiffy with the matches, which she proceeded to divide among them, while the horses leaped forward again.
“Stop on the backbone where the Santa Fe trail strikes the road.”
Precisely four minutes later Sherm pulled up the panting team. Chicken Little promptly took command. She had been out many times with her father and brothers and knew exactly what to do.
“Wet your mop–take a bucket of water and fire309right along the trail, Marian,–that buffalo grass burns slow. Call if it starts to get away from you. I’ll begin there by the hedge. Drive about fifty yards farther on, Sherm,–the horses will stand. Fill all the buckets and wet the extra mops. We’re liable to want them in a rush.”
“All right, Jane, save your breath–you’ll need it. Careful there, Mrs. Morton, beat out the flames along the trail as you go. Never mind how fast it whoops the other way. Cæsar’s ghost! that fire is getting close!”
The waving, irregular lines of flame on the hillside were coming steadily on, now leaping up several feet high as the breeze freshened, now creeping close to the ground when the gusts died away. The wind was fitful.
Marian and Sherm both had their trail of fire flickering into a blaze before Chicken Little got hers kindled. Her hands shook so she could hardly hold the match. The first flickered and went out, a second, then a third, blackened, before she could coax the stubbly grass to burn. She caught up a bunch of weeds, set it blazing in her hand and dragged it swiftly along the ground. Tiny swirls of yellow flame wavered in her wake, crackled feebly for an instant in the shorter herbage, then, reaching out tongues into the longer blue stem beyond, leaped forward like a frolicsome animal. Sherm’s and310Marian’s lines of fire were eating their way merrily toward hers on each side.
It was easy to beat out the flame in the Buffalo grass, which formed their safety line toward the house, and the three soon had several hundred feet of fire running to meet those menacing flames on the neighboring hillside. For a while it seemed almost pretty play save for that haunting dread of disaster. But the dripping mops were heavy for girls’ wrists and arms, the constant stooping and rising and the lifting of the heavy buckets pulled painfully on aching muscles. They must backfire for a third of a mile before they dared hope the place was safe.
A field of winter wheat adjoining the wagon road where they had started, and extending down to the bank of Big John, was the best of protection to the lower half of the farm. West from this, there was neither track nor field to break the tindery sweeps of prairie grass, until the strip of breaking on the north boundary of the pasture was reached. The old Santa Fe trail along which they were firing, fortunately extended to within some two hundred yards of the breaking, and was their safeguard against the ever-present danger of letting the fire get away from them to the rear.
Older heads would have selected that hundred yards of high grass as a starting place, while they311were fresh and best able to cope with its perils. Chicken Little was leaving it to the last. Swiftly as the three worked, the head fire was rapidly gaining on them. Again and again, one of them glanced toward the house in the hope that Jim Bart might have returned, or some neighbor have seen their danger and be on the way to help. Not a human being was in sight in any direction.
Marian straightened up with a groan and glanced despairingly at the head fire. Sherm’s gaze followed hers anxiously.
“We’ve got to do better than this, girls. Here, Chicken Little, make a torch of some of those resinous weeds–those long crackly ones–and fire just as fast as you can. I’ll follow with the mop and yell if I can’t manage it.”
The plan worked well for a time–their haven of hope, the brown strip of breaking, seemed to move steadily nearer. But Chicken Little and Marian were fast becoming exhausted. The main fire was now so close that its smoke was beginning to drift in their faces. Prairie chickens and quail, startled and confused by the double line of flame, whirred above their heads, uncertain how to seek safety. A terrified jack rabbit leaped up almost at Sherm’s feet. Rabbits, ground squirrels, one lone skunk, and even an occasional coyote, darted past them. Back at the road where they had begun, the head fire was already312meeting their line of back fire and dying down in sullen smoke. Still, that hundred yards of blue stem was untouched.
They paused a moment at its edge in hurried consultation.
“Let’s souse all the mops–dripping wet–and trail across first,” suggested Chicken Little in short, labored gasps. She had been running for several minutes.
“Yes, and then fire back. Christ!–we must hurry!” Sherm, too, was breathless. “Can you stick it out a few minutes longer, Marian?”
Marian Morton’s face was drawn and colorless. She nodded and rested a moment, leaning on her mop.
For the next sixty-five yards the blows of the wet mops rained down with the precision of clock work. Twice the flames started in quick eddies back of their line, but, panting, the girls almost sobbing, they beat them back. The smoke was growing stifling. The wind, freshening, blew it from both fires full in their faces. They could see only a few feet ahead.
“Light another torch and run, Chicken Little–there’s no time to lose–we must chance it!”
Chicken Little obeyed silently. Half way to the breaking she stumbled and fell. Her torch of twisted grass flew from her hand, scattering the burning fragments about her. Before she could get313to her feet, the grass was ablaze all around. Quick-witted Sherm threw her a mop, then beat his way toward her. Marian, summoning her last remaining strength, ran to help, but sank to the ground in a faint before she could reach Jane.
Sherm and Chicken Little, beating, stamping madly, did not see her fall. The flames fairly licked up the long grass. They beat them out around Jane only to see them spread in an ever-increasing circle. Chicken Little’s legs gave way under her and she sank helplessly down, watching the rushing fire. Sherm struggled on with parched throat and stinging eyes, but he, too, was fast becoming exhausted in the unequal fight, when a strong pair of hands seized the mop from his straining arms and rained swift blows on the flaming grass. Answering blows resounded from four other stout pairs of hands and an irregular line of charred vegetation was soon all that was left to tell the tale of the danger they had escaped.
“Thank God, we got here in time!” Captain Clarke ejaculated fervently, raising Marian’s head and dashing water in her face to restore her.
“We’re so shut in by the timber at our place, I didn’t dream the fire was in this part of the country till one of the hands went up in the pasture. We mounted and came double quick, I tell you. And we’d have got here quicker, if I’d known what straits314you were in. You’re a plucky lot! Easy there, Mrs. Morton, you are all right, and the fire is safe to smoke out at its leisure. Here, drink a drop of this whiskey.”
Sherm had gathered up Chicken Little and carried her beyond the smoke, then dropped down beside her with a sigh to recover his breath. He felt numb and so dazed he hardly heeded what the Captain was saying.
“Pretty well done for, yourself, aren’t you, lad?” one of the men inquired. “You sure knew exactly what to do, if you are a tenderfoot.”
Sherm roused himself enough to twist the corners of his mouth into his wonted smile.
“Me? I didn’t do anything–Chicken Little was the boss of this gang.”