81
The Morton family were up early the next morning. Jane was in a state of prickly excitement between her delight over her wonderful pony, all her very own, and the expected pleasure of seeing Katy and Gertie.
“If the others have grown as much as you kids, we shan’t recognize them,” said Frank.
“Anyhow, we can tell which bunch to cut out by Alice and Dick,” Ernest answered.
Mrs. Morton was horrified. “Ernest, the idea of your talking about our friends as if they were cattle! I do trust you children will not mortify me before our guests by using such vulgar expressions.”
“Never mind, Mother,” Frank consoled her, “Alice and Dick will revel in these vulgar westernisms.82See if they don’t. Why Mother, it’s by slang that a language is enriched, didn’t you know that?”
“That will do, Frank. I should think you would try to help me keep up correct standards instead of hindering. You will feel very differently when Jilly is a little older.”
The train was due at two-thirty at the neighboring town of Garland–the neighboring town being some nine miles distant. They decided to have an early dinner at home, then Dr. Morton would drive the spring wagon in for the guests, Frank would take the farm wagon for the trunks, while Jane and Ernest formed a sort of ornamental body guard on their new ponies.
“My, but you present an imposing appearance!” laughed Marian coming out to the road with Jilly to see them off.
“We do look rather patriarchal,” said Frank, glancing around at the impressive array. “If we only had you and Mother mounted on donkeys, the reception committee would be complete. I will do my best to apologize for your absence.”
“If you are late, send Jane on ahead, they can see her a mile off on that calico pony.”
“The piebald is conspicuous,” said the Doctor, “I guess Captain Clarke picked him out for the Chicken so her mother could see her from afar.”
Chicken Little ignored this pleasantry. “Thank83you for saying calico, Marian. I was just wondering what to call him and that will do beautifully.”
“Oh, have some mercy on the poor beast,” put in Ernest. “Think of his having to answer to the name of Calico. Why don’t you call him gingham apron or something really choice?”
“Allee samee, his name’s Calico. If you want to call yours, Star of the Night or Aladdin or something high falutin, you just can.” Jane set her lips firmly. She didn’t specially care for Calico but she wasn’t going to be laughed out of it.
“That will do, children, it’s time to be off.” Dr. Morton suited the action to the word by clucking to the team of bays he drove, and the procession started.
They reached the station in good time. Both Ernest and Chicken Little wanted to stay on their mounts and dash up beside the train, but their father forbade it.
“Those ponies have never been properly introduced to an engine, and I don’t wish to take you back in baskets. You can show off sufficiently going home.”
So the ponies were left with the teams at a safe distance from the railroad.
The train was twenty minutes late and it seemed an age to Chicken Little. “I don’t see why you always have to wait for nice things, while the unpleasant84ones come along without ever being asked,” she complained.
“What about the ponies? Do you class them with the unpleasant things?” queried her father. “But here comes the train.”
Jane watched it puff in with a roar and a rattle and sundry bangs, her eyes strained for the first glimpse of Katy and Gertie, Alice and Dick. She really didn’t know which one she wanted to see worst.
“Bet Sherm will be the first one out,” said Ernest.
“Bet you Katy will!”
But it was Dick who hailed them first, before he turned to help down the little girls. Alice came next, with Sherm who was still rather bashful, bringing up the rear loaded down with satchels and lunch baskets. Katy and Gertie fell upon Chicken Little instantly and Alice had to embrace the whole bunch, because they kept on hugging and kissing Jane, laughing hysterically.
“Here, where do I come in?” Dick rescued Jane from her friends and gave her a resounding smack himself. After which he held up his hands and exclaimed: “Say, Doctor Morton, what do you feed these infants on to make them grow so fast? Jane’s a half head taller than either Katie or Gertie and we thought Sherm would surely top Ernest. In fact, we had our money on him to beat any of your85mushroom Kansas effects, but Holy Smoke, I have to look up to Ernest myself.”
Alice and Katie and Gertie were looking at Jane’s riding habit, Gertie in considerable alarm.
“We don’t have to ride to the ranch on horseback, do we?”
Before the doctor could reassure them, Frank replied gravely:
“Of course, what did you expect in Kansas? We’ve brought six horses and we thought two of the girls could ride in front of Dick and myself. It’s only nine miles and the horses don’t gallop all the way.”
The girls looked panic-stricken, even Alice seemed a little dazed, Frank was so very plausible. Dick helped him on delightfully.
“I told you, Alice, you’d better put your riding habit in your satchel. I suppose the horses are gentle, Frank.”
“Oh, they don’t often throw anyone that’s used to them. Naturally, they’re a little gayer in summer when they’re in the pasture so much.”
Ernest could not resist adding his bit. “I was thrown three times last week, would you like to try my pony, Katy?”
This revealed the game to Alice.
“You awful fibbers, don’t you believe a word they say, girls.”
86“Honest Injun,” said Ernest, “I was.”
“It’s the truth,” Frank confirmed.
Poor little Gertie, who was already beginning to realize that she was very far from home and in a strange land besides, commenced to cry.
Dr. Morton came promptly to the rescue.
“That’ll do, boys. Save your joking till our guests are rested from their journey at least. Frank, you and Dick look up the trunks while Ernest and Sherm help me bring up the wagons. It’s all right, dear,” he put his arm reassuringly around Gertie, “you shall ride in one of the most comfortable of vehicles if we haven’t a carriage to offer you. You mustn’t pay any attention to their teasing.”
After the first two miles of their homeward journey, Chicken Little gave up her pony to Sherm and climbed in with the girls. Ernest offered to change saddles, but Sherm declared he didn’t mind the side saddle and cheerfully bore all the jokes the party cut at his expense. Dr. Morton watched him approvingly. “Good stuff,” he said to himself, as Sherm returned the sallies without wincing. The boy’s long legs dangling from the side saddle were a comical sight. Sherm, if not quite so tall as Ernest, was rather better proportioned and delightfully supple and muscular. He was the same matter-of-fact, straight-forward boy he had always been,87but his father’s long illness had sobered him, though he could be hilarious, as he was proving now.
“Say, Sherm,” Katy prodded, “why don’t you borrow Jane’s riding skirt too?”
“Yes, Sherm, go the lengths–you’d make a beautiful girl,” teased Alice.
Sherm laughed. “Chicken Little may have something to say to that!”
“I thought you’d be making excuses.”
Sherm was not to be bluffed. “Not much, hand it over, Chicken Little.”
“You never can get into it, Sherm.”
“What’ll you bet?”
“It’ll be too small around the waist.”
Dr. Morton stopped and Jane hastily slipped off the skirt, presenting rather a funny appearance herself with her habit basque and the blue lawn dress showing beneath. Sherm dismounted, turning Calico over to Ernest to hold. The entire party shouted when Jane reached up on tiptoe to throw the clumsy skirt over his head. Sherm neglected to hold it, and the shot in the hem promptly dropped it to the ground.
“Gee,” exclaimed Sherm, “the cranky thing seems to have a mind of its own.”
“I don’t know what the girls want to wear the pesky things for,” grumbled Ernest.
“They don’t want to wear them–but their pernickety88brothers and fathers and husbands consider them modest,” Alice hit back promptly.
“I consider them very dangerous,” said Dr. Morton.
While this bantering was going on, Chicken Little was vainly endeavoring to fasten the band around Sherm’s waist.
“You’ll just have to squeeze in, Sherm. I can never make it meet,” she giggled.
“I’m squeezing in, I tell you.”
With a triumphant pull, Jane got the band buttoned and Sherm heaved a sigh of relief–a disastrous sigh–it sent the button flying and the weighted skirt once more slid to the ground.
“Drat it!” Sherm groaned.
“Now, you said you’d wear it. Don’t let him back out, Chicken Little,” Katy urged.
“Who said anything about backing out?”
“You’ll have to get a string, Jane. Haven’t you a piece in your pocket, Frank?”
Frank produced the string and by dint of using it generously, the skirt was finally secured and Sherm still allowed some breathing room.
But the girls were not yet satisfied. Katy insisted upon lending him her leghorn hat and Alice contributed a veil. Gertie offered a hair ribbon which Chicken Little slyly pinned to the collar of Sherm’s coat.
89He was a sight for the gods when he finally remounted. But he carried it off with a dash, assuming various kittenish airs and coquetries, even waving saucily at two cowboys who passed them and turned to stare in bewilderment at his bizarre costume.
The ride home passed quickly with all this fun. Gertie cheered up and enjoyed the prairie sights as much as the others. Gertie seemed the same little girl of three years before except for her added inches, but Katy had many little grown-up airs and graces and evidently felt the importance of her fourteen years.
“Almost fifteen,” she answered Dr. Morton when he inquired her age. The two girls were dressed alike still, but Katy managed in some subtle way to give her clothes a different air from Gertie’s. “I don’t know just what the difference is,” Marian remarked to Alice a day or two after their coming, “but Katy is stylish and Gertie demurely sweet in the self-same dress.”
“Personality will out, even in children,” Alice replied. “They are both unusually bright and well brought up, but Katy is ambitious and likes to cut a bit of a dash, and Gertie doesn’t. She is a home and mother girl. I am amazed that she screwed up her courage to come so far without her mother. I fear she is already a trifle homesick, though she90is enjoying every minute, and is enchanted with the chickens and pups and all this outdoor life.”
Chicken Little found out these things more gradually. On the long ride home from the station they chattered busily. All three felt a little shy for the first minutes but there was so much to tell. Katy had finished her freshman year in the High School and spun great tales of their doings. Carol had graduated the week before.
“He is awfully handsome, Chicken Little. All the girls are mashed on him.”
“Are what, Katy?” demanded Alice who had been listening to Dick and Dr. Morton with one ear open for the girl’s confidences. She felt rather responsible to Mrs. Halford for Katy and Gertie.
Katy colored. “I don’t care, Alice, that’s what all the girls say, and I can’t be goody-goody and proper all the time.”
“All right, Katy, if you think Mother likes that kind of slang, I don’t mind.”
Katy didn’t say anything further to Alice, but when she resumed her story to Jane, she said: “Well, I don’t care what you call it, but they all are! And he just smiles in that lazy way of his and doesn’t put himself out for anybody. He didn’t even take a girl to the senior party, and lots of the Senior girls had to go in a bunch because they didn’t have an escort.”
91“But he had awfully good marks,” added Gertie, “and Prof. Slocum said he could have been Valedictorian just as well as not if he had tried a little harder.”
“That’s the trouble–he’s too lazy to try. I guess if he goes to the Naval Academy as he wants to, he’ll have to get over being lazy.” Katy evidently wasted no sympathy on Carol.
The mention of the Naval Academy fired Jane. She shouted the news to Ernest who was some distance ahead with Sherm.
“Yes, Sherm’s just told me,” he called back, “wouldn’t it be scrumptious if we both got to go?”
“Oh, is Ernest going?” Katy and Alice and Dick all exclaimed nearly in unison.
Chicken Little told them all about Ernest’s plans and about the Captain. Katy wished to call on this fascinating individual immediately. But Dr. Morton suggested that he thought they would all be tired enough to rest for the remainder of the day by the time they arrived at the ranch. They were, but not too tired to enjoy Mrs. Morton’s hearty country supper.
Dick ate hot biscuit and creamed potatoes and fried chicken till Alice declared she shouldn’t have the face to stay a month, if he gorged like that all the time.
“You’ll stop keeping tab on his appetite before92you have been here many days, Alice. You’ll be busy satisfying your own. You will find country air a marvellous tonic,” Dr. Morton assured her.
They were all amused to see Katy looking in shocked amazement at Gertie who had just been persuaded to have a second heaping saucer of raspberries and cream. To be sure, Katy herself had had two drumsticks and a breast. But she considered being served twice to dessert away from home highly improper.
“I wish it were a little later in the season so Ernest could bring us in quail for you,” said Mrs. Morton.
“Quail?” Dick’s face lighted. “Is the hunting still good around here?”
“Excellent for quail and prairie chicken, and the plover are plentiful at certain seasons,” Dr. Morton replied.
“They found two deer on the creek last winter,” added Ernest.
“Yes, there are a few strays left but the day for them has practically gone by.”
“Dick, if you go hunting you’ve got to take me.” Alice put her hands on her husband’s shoulders and rested her chin on his hair.
“Barkus is willing if you can stand the tramp.”
“We don’t tramp, we drive. It’s a trifle too early for hunting, but by the latter part of next93week, you might try it. You can take the boys and spring wagon and have an all-day picnic. I can spare them, and Ernest for a guide.”
“Can we all go?” Katy started up excitedly.
“Of course, I can shoot a little,” Chicken Little sounded patronizing.
“Yes, Chicken Little can shoot but she never hits anything–she always shuts her eyes before she pulls the trigger,” Ernest called her down promptly.
“It’s no such thing, Ernest Morton, I killed a quail once, didn’t I, Father?”
“Dick, if you’ll come and unrope our trunks, I think we’d better be getting our things out,” said Alice an hour later.
“Yours to command, Captain. I am perishing to have Chicken Little see my present.”
“Yes, Jane, what do you think? Dick had to go and pick you out a gift all by himself–he wasn’t satisfied with my efforts. And he has the impudence to insist that you will like his best.”
“We’ve got a package for you, too, but I don’t know what’s in it. Mother wouldn’t let us see. Let’s go unpack quick, Gertie, and find out.”
“And I want to show my trousseau! Shall I get it out to-night, Mrs. Morton, or wait till morning?”
“To-night, Alice,” spoke up Marian, “I want to see it and I’ll be busy in the morning. I am pining to see some pretty clothes.”
94Dick had already vanished into the upper regions and he called down airily: “Doors open, ladies. World renowned aggregation of feminine wearing apparel, including one pair of the very latest hoops and the youngest thing in bustles, now on exhibition.”
Mrs. Morton looked shocked, and Marian and Alice tried to control their amusement. “The heathen, I warned him to be good.” Alice laughed in spite of herself with an apologetic glance at Mrs. Morton. The girls had bolted upstairs at the first words of Dick’s invitation.
“Come on, Mother, don’t mind Dick’s nonsense,” said Marian, linking her arm in hers and gently drawing her up. “It will do you good to see Alice’s pretty things.”
Dick held the door open for them with a deep salaam. Alice held up a finger warningly with an imperceptible gesture in Mrs. Morton’s direction. He shrugged his shoulders repentantly.
“Now, Alice, if you’ll just dig out my particular parcel I’ll vamoose. Women complain that men never take an interest in their affairs and then if a misguided chap tries to act intelligent, he is snubbed.” Dick’s tone sounded injured.
Alice kissed the tip of his ear and shoved him out of the way. “You’re so big, Dick, there’s never room for anyone else when you’re around.”
95Alice deftly opened trays and lids, pulling out protecting papers; she handed Dick a large flat parcel.
Dick received it with his hand on his heart, then striking an oratorical attitude, addressed Jane in the formal tone he used in court.
“Ladies, Miss Chicken Little Jane Morton, I have the great honor on this suspicious occasion to present to you on behalf of my unworthy self, a slight testimonial of my deep respect and undying affection–Alice, stop winking at Marian–Mrs. Morton, is it fitting for a wife to stop the flow of her husband’s eloquence by winking? I wish you’d take Alice in hand. I think she needs some lessons in the proprieties. As I was saying, I wish to present this trifle to you, and the only expression of gratitude I desire in return, is thirty kisses to be delivered one daily, on or before the twelfth hour of each day, to which witness my seal and hand.”
With another bow, he resigned the parcel to Chicken Little.
She promptly tendered one kiss in advance. Then stripped off the papers with eager fingers. A charming white leghorn hat appeared. It was faced with pale blue and trimmed with knots of apple blossoms and black velvet ribbon.
“How charming!” exclaimed Mrs. Morton.
96“Dick, I didn’t suppose you had such good taste!” added Marian.
“Try it on quick, Chicken Little.”
Chicken Little’s shining eyes and clear, fair skin fitted like a charm under the pale blue.
Dick was jubilant. “I saw that hat in a shop window and I thought it looked exactly like Chicken Little. Who says a man can’t pick out a hat?”
He departed without waiting for any disparaging remarks.
Alice’s present came next, a charming muslin with sash and hair ribbons the exact shade of the blue hat facing.
“If it only fits, Jane. I left some to let out in the hem, but you are bigger every way than I thought. I tried it on Katie.”
“Changing it a little at the waist will make it perfect,” Marian reassured her.
“Oh, I am so glad it is snug, and just the right length, Alice. Mother–” Chicken Little stopped suddenly, she couldn’t be criticising mother before company. “You see I grow so dreadfully fast that Mother has to make everything too big so it’ll last a while.”
Marian supplemented this explanation later to Alice.
“Poor child, Mother Morton does make her clothes too big! And it doesn’t do a bit of good97for they hang on her the whole season and by the next they’re either worn or faded–and she generally manages to out-grow them, in spite of their bigness.”
The girl’s parcel was found to contain candy and a duck of a fan.
But Alice’s wedding things soon put everything else in the shade. The dainty sets of underwear with their complicated puffs and insertings, frilled petticoats, silk and muslin and poplin gowns, hats and parasols, lay in a rainbow colored heap on the bed and chairs.
“Alice,” said Marian, caressing some of the dainty lingerie, “who is going to iron all these puffs and ruffles? It would take hours to do them right, especially the petticoats.”
“I know, Marian–I asked Aunt Clara the same question. And do you know what I have done?”
Her audience looked interested.
“I just went down town the minute I got to Centerville and got some nice strong muslin and I’ve been making it up perfectly plain except for a tiny edge. They are heaps more comfortable–and I wear these others for best. Why, I couldn’t keep a maid and hurl all that stuff at her every week!”
“Are they wearing hoops pretty generally?” Mrs. Morton inquired as Alice laughingly held a pair up for inspection.
98“Yes, and bustles too. See this buff poplin with the panniers just has to have a bustle. Thank goodness they’re young yet, as Dick says, but I suppose they’ll keep on getting bigger.”
“Oh, I should think they’d be so hot and horrid.”
“They are, but the hoops are delightfully cool, only you have to be on your guard with the treacherous things or they swing up in front when you sit down, in a most mortifying fashion.”
“I have a pair to wear with my muslin dresses–it makes them stand out beautifully,” said Katy complacently. “But Mother wouldn’t let Gertie have any. She said she was too young.”
“I didn’t want the old things,” Gertie protested. “And you wouldn’t have got yours if you hadn’t teased perfectly awful, and I heard Mother say she guessed you’d soon be sick enough of them.”
“I agree entirely with your mother, Gertie, I consider them unsuitable for little girls. But they do set off a handsome dress to advantage. I remember during the war we used to wear such large ones we could hardly get through a door with them.”
“Mother Morton, I bet you were a lot more frivolous than we are now.” Marian put her hand lovingly on the wrinkled one that was smoothing the folds of a rich silk.
Mrs. Morton smiled. “Well, we had our pretty things. Alice’s dresses are lovely, but she hasn’t99anything more elegant than my second day dress. It was a brown and silver silk brocade with thread lace chemisette and under sleeves. And my next best was apple green and pink changeable, trimmed in yards and yards of narrow black velvet ribbon all sewed on by hand.”
“How I should love to have seen them!” Alice smiled wistfully. “You know I didn’t have any of my mother’s things.”
“Come on, girls, it’s getting late, let’s help Alice put her treasures away. They couldn’t be nicer, Alice, and I think you are going to be a very happy woman to make up for that desolate girlhood of yours.”
Marian was already folding the garments. They were soon laid away snugly in trunk and closet and drawers, and the whole family packed off to bed to be ready for the early farm breakfast on the morrow.
100
The day following the arrival of the guests was spent in resting and seeing the ranch. Katy and Gertie had never been on a large farm before, and the thousand acres of field and prairie and woodland, seemed as marvellous as the tales they had read of the big English estates. Alice and Dick were also fascinated by all this space and freedom, but they saw deeper than the little girls.
“It’s a wonderful place,” said Dick, “and I don’t wonder the Doctor is proud of it. But he is too well along in years to handle such a big undertaking. I doubt if the ranch pays for ten years to come, and it means hard work and a lonely life for all of them. It’s all right for Frank and Marian, but I’m sorry for the rest of the family.”
“Mrs. Morton is growing old fast with all this101unaccustomed drudgery, and she is worried about the children’s education, I can see,” replied Alice.
“Yes, there are two sides to it. I guess we’ll stick to the law and little old Centerville; we may not die rich, but we’ll be a lot more comfortable as we go along.”
Sherm took to the farm like the proverbial duck to the pond. He donned overalls that first morning and was off with Frank and Ernest to the fields before the little girls were out of bed. After breakfast Jane took Katie and Gertie to see the sights of the ranch. First to the spring under the old oak where the cold, clear water gushed from the rocks into a little basin, and then tumbled down a rocky channel under the springhouse and on for some hundred of yards farther before it widened out into the pond.
“We can go swimming in the pond but there is a nicer place in the creek above the ford.”
“Oh, I’d love to learn to swim but we haven’t any bathing suits.”
“Pooh, that doesn’t matter, we just take some old dresses–there isn’t anybody to see you, especially down at the creek. You know it’s private ground and the trees hang over the pool all around so the sun only comes in a little bit. We’ll get Marian to go with us.”
“I should think you could skate, too.”
102“We do. I had a great time once last winter–Father told me the ice was too thin, but I saw a yearling calf go over all right and I thought the ice would bear me. But I guess calfie had more sense about the weak places. At any rate, I went through, near the middle. The water was up to my shoulders. Gee, it was cold and the ice kept breaking when I tried to climb out–and the men were all away. I most froze before I got to the bank, and then my skate straps were so wet I couldn’t loosen them, besides my fingers were too numb to bend. I had to walk on the skates all the way to the house. My teeth chattered till they almost played tunes by the time I got to the door.” Chicken Little shivered at the recollection.
“What’s the cunning little stone house for?” Gertie’s attention was caught by a tiny hut without windows on the edge of the pond.
“Oh, that’s the smokehouse. We’re so far from town that we put away a lot of meat every winter. The hams and sides of bacon are smoked there.”
“And that wooden building over yonder?”
“The granary–for the wheat and rye. Those open log houses are the corn cribs.”
“My, it takes a lot of buildings to make a ranch.” Katy was impressed in spite of herself.
“We haven’t been to the barns and corrals yet. I love the hay mow.”
103Chicken Little had not forgotten lumps of sugar for Calico and Caliph. Ernest had given his pony a high-sounding name. The intelligent beast was proud and dainty enough to deserve it. He was shy about coming for his lump, but when he once got the taste, he nosed around Chicken Little for more.
They ended the morning’s wanderings in Jane’s own particular bower, known to the family as the Weeping Willows because she had once retired there to cry out her troubles, and had been discovered in a very moist state by Frank, who was a merciless tease.
There were two rows of the old willows. They formed a long leafy room on the edge of one of the orchards, out of sight both of the house and road. Chicken Little had been known to flee thither on more than one occasion when she did not wish to be disturbed in the thrilling place in a novel. For you really couldn’t hear any one calling from the house in this leafy fastness. Ernest had made her two or three rustic seats, and a little cupboard where she could keep her treasures sheltered from the sun and rain.
Katy and Gertie were charmed with this retreat.
“If there was only a table, I could write all my letters home out here. Wouldn’t it be romantic?” Katy loved the unusual.
“It’s lovely, Jane, let’s stay out here lots.” Gertie104settled down on one of the seats with a little sigh. “I wish I had my old doll here; it would make such a dandy playhouse.”
“Gertie Halford, the idea of a great, big girl like you wanting to play with dolls.”
“I get Victoria out sometimes and dress her up,” confessed Jane. “It isn’t much fun all alone, but I like to see her sometimes. If you’d like to, Gertie, we’ll have a doll sewing bee this afternoon and you can be Victoria’s mother and Katie and I will be dressmaker’s though I never could sew decently. Mother’s about given me up in despair.”
Chicken Little had noticed a little far-away look in Gertie’s eyes ever since she came. Marian had warned her the night before that she had better keep Gertie pretty busy for a day or two, or she would be homesick.
Unfortunately, Chicken Little’s kindness precipitated the catastrophe she was trying to avoid. She was so motherly she reminded Gertie afresh of the dear little mother she had left so many miles behind and the tears came in spite of her.
Chicken Little coaxed and comforted, and Katy coaxed and scolded, but Gertie’s tears were apparently turned on for keeps and the Weeping Willows was earning its name again. Gertie cried till she got all shivery, declaring solemnly whenever she could command her voice sufficiently to talk, that105there wasn’t a thing the matter–only–only–she–was a little bit homesick.
She wouldn’t hear to Jane’s going to fetch Alice or Mrs. Morton or Marian. “She’d be all right in a minute, if they’d just let her alone.”
But the minutes went by and she still cried, and in spite of the warm June sunshine, her hands felt cold and her shoulders shook as if with an ague. Chicken Little and Katy were both getting worried when help came in the shape of Marian and Jilly.
Marian understood at a glance, and dropping to the ground beside her, drew her into her lap and chafed the cold hands while she bade Jilly hug poor Gertie. Jilly was a born comforter and she half smothered the patient with her energetic hugs and moist, warm kisses.
“Too bad, too bad–ants bite Gertie, too bad! Jilly fine ’em.”
Jilly had not forgotten her own sad experience with the ants and not seeing any visible cause for Gertie’s woes, evidently thought they were the guilty ones again.
Jilly was irresistible. Gertie had to laugh, even if the tears running down her face, did leave a salty taste in her mouth. She hugged the small comforter. Jilly, however, was not to be turned from her hunt. She insisted upon pulling down Gertie’s stockings and making a minute search for the culprits.106Her little tickling fingers and earnest air completed Gertie’s cure, and Jilly adopted her as her own particular property from that day on, seeming to consider her in need of protection.
Marian declared they must all come and have dinner with her. Ernest and Sherm were already there and they had a merry meal in the little cottage, for Marian made them all help–even the big boys. She tied a blue apron around Sherm and set him to stirring gravy while Ernest watched four cherry pies almost ready to come out of the oven. She had despatched Katy and Jane to the springhouse after milk and butter. Gertie, assisted by Jilly, set the table.
Sherm had burned a nice fiery red during his morning’s plowing. He was immensely proud of his efforts.
“I tell you Sherm’s some farmer for a tenderfoot,” said Ernest, telling about the number of corn rows he had done.
“Better come stay with us, Sherm.”
“Haven’t I come–I love the ranch. But I suppose I’ve got four years of college ahead of me.”
“You’ll have time enough after that, Sherm,” said Frank, “but if you should want to try ranching, you’d better come out this way.”
“No ranching for me.” Ernest thumped the table with his fork emphatically. “You can have my107berth, Sherm, and welcome. The only thing I care for here, is the hunting. By the way, Frank, are you and Marian going hunting with us?”
“I’d like to. What do you say, Marian?”
“Why, if there’s room for so many.”
“I wish we could ask Captain Clarke,” Chicken Little spoke up.
“My, you are daffy about the Captain, Jane. He wouldn’t go–you couldn’t hire him to if he knew Alice and I were to be of the party. Queer he is so charming with Jane, and with the men and boys, and so very reserved and stiff with women.”
“He probably has some reason for disliking your sex. Perhaps, if we’d let him go with the children and the boys, he might be persuaded to come. He’d only see you at luncheon time. What’s the matter, Katie?”
“I’m not a child,” said Katy with dignity.
“All right, you may come with us grown-ups and let the Captain have the children and the boys.”
“You’d better find out whether the Captain is willing before you plan so definitely, Frank.”
“We’ll send Chicken Little and Sherm over on the ponies as a special deputation to invite him. You must coax your prettiest, Sis.”
“I’d love to. I just know I can get him to come. Will you go with me, Sherm?”
108“Nothing I’d like better,” responded Sherm heartily.
The next few days fairly twinkled by. The girls roamed the woods and the fields with Dick and Alice, and went in bathing, and fed chickens, and even made little pats of butter down in the cool springhouse. Gertie mourned because she could not send hers home straightway to Mother. Chicken Little and Sherm waited until Sunday to go over to the Captain’s.
Sherm found Caliph and the Mexican saddle rather more to his taste than Chicken Little’s outfit had been on the ride from town. He had about all he could do for the first five minutes to manage Caliph for he had had little opportunity for riding at home. But he had a cool head, and with a few suggestions from Jane, he soon convinced Caliph that he had a new master as determined as Ernest, if not quite so skilful a horseman. They did not talk much. Sherm considered Jane a little girl and Jane stood rather in awe of Sherm. But they enjoyed the brisk ride none the less. The swift motion with the wind in their faces, the wide stretches of prairie bounded on the distant horizon by a faint line of timber, were novel and delightful to Sherm. To Jane, they were familiar and dearly loved. Besides, she liked having Sherm with her.
He glanced at her from time to time. Chicken109Little glanced back with sweet, friendly eyes. It was she who finally broke the ice.
“I do hope the Captain will go. I’m most sure he’ll like you, because his little boy looked a lot like you. He showed me the picture.”
“He seems to like you all right from what they say.”
Chicken Little laughed merrily.
Sherm couldn’t quite see the connection.
“Well, what’s so funny about that?”
“Will you cross your heart never to tell, Sherm? Frank and Ernest would tease the life out of me if they knew.”
“Cut my heart out and eat it, if I ever breathe a word.”
Chicken Little related the swearing episode which she had not seen fit to trouble even Marian with, at home. “I guess,” she concluded, “he felt sort of sorry for me right at the start and that made him like me.”
“’Twouldn’t be such a hard job as you seem to think, Jane,” Sherm surprised himself by saying.
Chicken Little flushed and looked up hastily at Sherm who also felt his face getting warm to his great disgust. Sherm hated softies of any kind.
“Oh, I believe there’s the Captain now over by the pasture fence.”
Captain Clarke was riding round the pastures inspecting110the barbed wire fencing. He soon hailed them.
“Hello, Little Neighbor, is the piebald behaving himself?”
Jane introduced Sherm as soon as they came abreast.
“Captain Clarke, this is Ernest’s friend, the Sherman Dart I told you about.”
Captain Clarke scanned the boy’s face curiously. His own went a little white after an instant’s inspection.
“You are right–he is marvellously like what my boy might be to-day. I beg your pardon for my rude scrutiny. Possibly Jane has told you of the resemblance. You will come up to the house and let Wing give you some lemonade. It is hot this afternoon.”
Chicken Little declined to take him from his course and told him their errand. He hesitated. “You say Mr. and Mrs. Harding and your brother and his wife are going. Would you think me very rude and unappreciative if I declined, dear? I am poor company for anyone these days and—”
Chicken Little looked so disappointed that he paused ruefully.
“Please, just this once, Katie and Gertie want to see you dreadfully and you could go with us. Pretty please.”
111She thought she saw signs of weakening. Sherm also noticed the Captain’s hesitation.
“We’ve all sort of set our hearts on having you, Sir. Chicken Little and Ernest have talked so much about you we feel acquainted, and Dr. Morton says you’re a dead shot. I’ve never hunted anything but squirrels myself.”
Captain Clarke stared at Sherm as if in a dream for a minute. The boy was embarrassed by his silence and smiled his little crooked smile to cover it. Their host passed his hand over his eyes and sighed. Then he smiled.
“It’s no disgrace to surrender to a superior force. I am yours to command. But I stipulate that you two stand by me.”
Chicken Little gave a bounce in her saddle to emphasize her delight and Calico took this as a hint to go on.
“Whoa, Calico! Thank you–bushels! Oh, I just know we’ll have the best time! Would you mind if we children all went with you because nobody’s going to be willing to be left out?”
“I can take five nicely and have plenty of room for guns and lunch baskets besides. By the way, please tell your mother that Wing Fan will never forgive me if he is not permitted to get up the lunch for all the young people at the very least.”
112“Have you a gun with you?” he asked Sherm as they were going.
“No, but Ernest said I might take his.”
“I have a new shotgun. I should be glad if you would share it with me.”
They found Alice and Dick, Marian, Katie, Gertie and Jilly, not to mention Huz and Buz, waiting for them on the Morton side of the ford.
“What luck?”
Sherm didn’t give Jane a chance to reply.
“Oh, Chicken Little just put on her company smile and the Captain held out his hands and said: ‘Handcuffs, please.’” He was meeker than Buz.
“Sherman Dart, you old–” Chicken Little flicked Caliph lightly by way of revenge, and Sherm had his hands full for several seconds, for Caliph resented the indignity.
It was arranged to start early the following Saturday morning. Mrs. Morton and Annie were up soon after daylight busy with the mysteries of fried chicken and fresh rolls. The men of the party were equally busy cleaning guns and routing out all sorts of hunting toggery. The girls tried to help everybody impartially, succeeding for the most part in making a general nuisance of themselves.
At exactly seven-thirty Captain Clarke drove up with a wonderful team of blacks. His hunting jacket was belted in with a formidable looking113cartridge belt, two shotguns were slid in on the floor of the spring wagon, and lunch baskets and a great earthenware jug of lemonade were wedged in under the seats. He gave a shrill hunting halloo as he drew up at the gate.
Mrs. Morton was a little disturbed at the gay looking team.
“Are you quite sure they are safe with the guns? You know young people are often reckless and this is a very precious load.”
“My dear madam, I think I can answer for Jim and Jerry. I took them out for an hour yesterday and used the gun over their heads to make sure they hadn’t forgotten their manners.”
The Captain met the strangers of the party in his usual courteous reserved fashion, but his eyes lighted when Chicken Little ran down the walk. He established Ernest and Katie and Gertie on the back seat and swung Jane up in front to the driver’s seat with Sherm on her left.
“Ernest, I’ll handle the ribbons going, if it suits you, and you can drive us back. I have an idea you will have the sharpest eye for game of any of this crowd. We ought to do our best work the next two hours for snipe. We probably won’t find many prairie chickens until we get over on Little John. By the way, boys, be careful not to disturb the mother birds–there are still some on the nests. I114really don’t like to hunt quite so early in the season as this, although a good many of the young birds are shifting for themselves already–bird parents have a beautiful faith in Providence. They don’t worry long about their young.”
A light shower had fallen the night before and the air was fresh and fragrant with the smell of wet grasses and moist earth.
The rattle of wheels close behind assured them that Frank and his load were near.
“Kansas certainly takes the cake for climate,” Dick called to them, happily reckless about corrupting the young folk with his slang. Alice promptly reproached him.
“Mrs. Morton would send you home by the first train if she heard you.”
Dick assumed an air of mock woe. “Oh, I say there, Chicken Little, don’t mention that little matter of the cake–that particular cake isn’t respectable, Alice says.”
It was Frank who got the first shot.
“Here, Marian, take the lines quick. Hold them tight–they may jump when I fire. Turn out of the road–to the right–slowly now. Stop!”
Frank drew the gun to his shoulder and took careful aim while the others were still vainly trying to see something to shoot at. A snap, a flash,115and a bird whirred up a hundred paces away, flew a few feet from the ground, and fell.
Frank ran to the spot and held up a good-sized plover. Marian and Alice examined it pitifully.
“What a slender delicate thing it is! It seems a shame to kill it. I like the excitement of hunting but I always want to cry over the victims,” said Alice with a sigh.
Sherm caught sight of a covey soon after. He and Ernest slipped out of the wagon and stole up as close as possible. Ernest got two with the scattering bird shot, but Sherm missed.
“You were too anxious, lad. Stop an instant always before you fire to make sure your hand is steady,” the Captain consoled him kindly.
Sherm profited by this advice and brought down his next bird. Captain Clarke left the game to the boys until their first zest for the sport was satisfied. Chicken Little frequently discovered the birds before either of the boys, and was eager to have a turn herself, as was also Katy. Gertie put her hands to her ears every time a gun was fired and openly hoped they wouldn’t find any more game to shoot at. Captain Clarke advised the girls to wait a little, and watch the boys carefully to see exactly how they aimed and rested their guns, and he would help them both a little later. But Ernest soon undertook Katie’s education and was surprised to find116he had a very apt pupil. Katy had as steady a nerve and as true an eye as either of the boys. Ernest began to be alarmed lest his pupil win his honors away from him.
“You must have shot before, Katy.”
“I have with a revolver. Uncle Sim used to let me shoot at a target. And he had an archery club last summer.”
The Captain did his best for Chicken Little but she did not do nearly so well as Katy, though she made one shot the Captain considered quite extraordinary.
“It’s a pretty long range for a novice, little neighbor, but you can try it.”
Two birds flew up where she had seen one. “Oh, dear, I missed,” she lamented.
“I’m not so sure,” said Sherm. “Let’s go see.”
He helped her down and they made a brisk run toward the spot where the grouse had risen. After a few minutes, Sherm stooped and picked up a bird considerably to the right of where Chicken Little had aimed.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he exclaimed with a puzzled expression. “You did get one.”
He stood looking down thoughtfully at the ground. Chicken Little hurried to him elated, but her joy was short-lived. Snuggled among the grasses was an empty nest.
117“Oh, do you ’spose she was on the nest? But I couldn’t have seen her if she had been–and it’s empty.”
By way of reply, Sherm stooped again and picked up a baby grouse from a clump of weeds. Fear had frozen it into a motionless wee brown image.
“Oh, the poor little darling! I took its mother.” Chicken Little looked ready to cry.
Bending down Sherm parted the weeds and grasses cautiously.
“Here’s another–and another. We must hunt them, Chicken Little, and take them home or they will all starve. Gee, what can we put them in?”
Jane slipped her hat elastic from under her braid, and taking a handful of long grass to line it with, soon made a snug nest. They tucked the mottled downy bunches into it.
“What in Sam Hill are you people doing over there?” called Ernest.
“Little grouse–come help us find them,” Sherm called back. “Be careful now or you’ll step on them,” he warned as Ernest and the girls came running up. “They are the slyest little codgers–you don’t see them until you are right on them.”
Gertie was on her knees peering before the words were out of his mouth. She lifted a fourth mite from its hiding place, and a fifth, and a sixth, almost as fast as she could pick them up. “Oh, aren’t they118dear? May I hold them, Jane, when we get back to the wagon?” Gertie was caressing them with hands and eyes.
There were ten chicks cuddled in the hat, when after a thorough search of the weeds, Ernest announced that they must surely have them all. But to make sure they went over the ground in all directions once more.
Jane was very sober. Sherm tried to cheer her.
“You couldn’t help it, Chicken Little. You didn’t mean to.” Sherm smiled his funny smile as he said this.
“Why are you smiling? Oh, I know–I believe so, too.”
“What secrets are you talking?” Katy was curious.
“Yes, speak United States, it isn’t polite to leave your guests in the dark this way,” growled Ernest.
Jane haughtily declined to explain just then. When they returned to the wagon, they found the Captain as much interested in the shot, as he was in the prairie chicks.
“That was really a wonderful hit, little girl. I congratulate you.”
Jane stole a glance at Sherm. He wasn’t looking at her, but he was smiling. Jane smiled, too.
“Yes, Captain Clarke,” she replied demurely, “it was rather astonishing.”
119This was too much for Sherm who chuckled openly. Captain Clarke looked from one to the other inquiringly. The others were completely mystified.
“Well, I’d just like to know what you two are up to.” Katy wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“Can’t a fellow laugh without having to give an account of himself?” Sherm parried, still trying to stave off the mirth that possessed him.
Chicken Little’s face was sweetly sober. “He’s appreciating my–skill–the rest of you don’t seem to realize what a feat—” A sound, something between a crow and a suppressed steam whistle interrupted her. Sherm whooped until he was red in the face. Chicken Little regarded him reproachfully, but continued: “You see most anybody can hit the chicken they aim at, but it takes a fine shot to hit one you didn’t know was there.” She grinned mischievously up at the Captain who grinned back delightedly.
“Really, Chicken Little?”
“Really.” She joined in the general laugh.
“What did you want to tell for?” Sherm had enjoyed having the joke to himself.
She didn’t answer then, but later she whispered: “Because the Captain–I didn’t want him praising me that way!”
Noon found them fifteen miles from home with120a bag of six snipe and ten prairie chickens, and appetites that fairly clamored. Frank found an ideal camping place in a grove of walnut trees beside a small creek.
“I camped here once two years ago and there’s a fine spring somewhere near. Come along, Katie, we’ll go hunt it. Ernest, picket the horses–there’s oats under the back seat. And Sherm, if you’ll just start a fire for the coffee.”
Marian and Alice spread the luncheon out on a long tablecloth laid over the dust robes on the ground. Gertie and Chicken Little fed the little grouse with some moistened bread crumbs, finding it difficult at first to induce them to eat. But they would swallow, when the girls pried open their tiny beaks and stuck a crumb inside. Captain Clarke showed them how, and patiently helped them until each tiny craw was at least partly filled.
Marian and Alice watched him furtively.
“He is gentle as a woman,” Alice whispered, “and his face lights up wonderfully when he smiles, though it is stern usually.”
“Yes, I can see now why Jane is so fascinated. Do you know his smile is very much like Sherm’s? See–no, just wait a minute. Now–watch his upper lip–his mouth twists crooked exactly like Sherm’s. Chicken Little spoke of his baby’s picture having the same smile.” Marian dropped her121eyes hastily as the Captain chanced to turn in their direction.
“I imagine lots of people have that kind of a smile only we never noticed them,” replied Alice.
“Of course, I didn’t mean to suggest anything. Will you cut the lemon cake?”
After the luncheon was eaten, the shady grove tempted them to linger on with its woodsy coolness. The younger folk dragging the Captain, a willing victim, along with them, went off on an exploring expedition while the others stretched out luxuriously on the coarse grass that grew rank along the slope.
It was four o’clock before they could tear themselves away for the homeward ride.
“You’d better hurry,” Frank called to the stragglers, “it will be almost dark before we get home even if we don’t stop to shoot.”
They picked up a few quail on the divide soon after they started, but their zest for the sport seemed to have waned. Chicken Little declined to try any further.
“I know, it’s the baby grouse,” said Katy.
“Yes,” said Captain Clarke, “I think the baby grouse have rather taken the zip out of it for all of us.”
The moon was just peeping above the tree tops as they crossed the home ford. A huge grotesque shadow of the horses and wagon with its load, was122reflected upon the silvered surface of a deep pool just beyond the ripples where they had stopped to let the horses drink. The blacks having satisfied their thirst, began to dash the water about with their hoofs.
“They love it, don’t they?” Katy watched them.
“Yes,” said the Captain thoughtfully, “I guess every living thing enjoys this beautiful world of ours–when it is given the chance.”