"You kids were all right, but I didn't care for all that singing. I wish they'd have something lively like fencing. Carol said he saw a man over at Mattoon, the time he went with his father, who was a wonder. Wish I could learn."

"I don't believe Father would let you, but I'll help tease if you want me to."

"Frank knows how a little--he showed me."

"Frank and Marian are coming over for breakfast in the morning, so we can have our presents all together. Say, let's hang our stockings up."

"Pshaw, we're too old for that--we never get anything in them but candy or oranges--and I don't think Mother wants us to any more."

"I don't care--it's fun. Come on!"

Jane got one of Ernest's socks and her own longest stocking. They were busy fastening them to the ends of the marble mantel when Alice came in.

Alice had not returned with the others, d.i.c.k Harding having undertaken to see her safely home.

"Oh, children," she exclaimed, distressed, "I've lost one of my brown gloves. I wish you'd look for it for me first thing in the morning--it must be near the gate somewhere. And it's time for you to go to bed now.

I guess your mother didn't hear you come in or she would have called you."

"Bet I beat you up in the morning," teased Ernest as they started upstairs.

"Bet you don't. Say, Ernest, please wake me up when you do. I'm awful tired and maybe I won't wake up early. I want to help fix the presents."

"All right, Sis, I will." Ernest gave her a little pat. He was very fond of this only sister but didn't care to show it in public.

But Ernest proved as sound a sleeper as Jane in the morning. Alice had breakfast almost ready and the family table bulged with numerous brown and white paper packages--this was before the epidemic of tissue paper and baby ribbon--when Dr. Morton's cheery "Merry Christmas, Sleepy-heads!" routed them out.

A chorus of "Merry Christmases" responded. Ernest's was vigorous and Chicken Little's sleepy, but Frank and Marian, just coming in the side door, called l.u.s.tily, and Mrs. Morton chimed in with one for each individual member of the family.

Chicken Little flew down the stairs in her nightgown to have a peep at the fascinating table. She entirely forgot her stocking, which was perhaps just as well, for when she did investigate it after breakfast, she found only a piece of kindling neatly wrapped inside.

"I told you Mother thought we were too old!" reminded Ernest.

But the table was all that could be desired. Chicken Little began cautiously feeling the packages at her place till her mother discovered her and sent her upstairs to dress.

"Oh, Ernest, there was one funny little flat box just like the one Katy's bracelet came in. You don't s'pose--do you?" And she gave one ecstatic jump in antic.i.p.ation of the glorious possibility.

Chicken Little's hair went back with a sweep under the round rubber comb, tangles and all. She really couldn't take time to comb it--and her plaid dress had every other b.u.t.ton carefully unfastened. Brother Frank remarked that the front elevation was more attractive than the rear, and Marian rushed her off upstairs to make her tidy.

Chicken Little's own contributions to the pile of gifts were made triumphantly after she had driven every other member of the family out of the dining room. She tucked her packages clear down at the bottom of each pile with the exception of Ernest's present. It crowned the heap because she couldn't wait to have him open it. Her father had given her the money for a pocket microscope which Ernest had been coveting for months.

Mrs. Morton made Alice set a place for herself and share their family festival. Dr. Morton could scarcely finish saying grace before there was a general falling to at the parcels. For some reason Dr. Morton had a prejudice against Christmas trees, and it was always the family custom to have the gifts at the breakfast table.

Chicken Little waited just long enough to see Ernest's face light up over the microscope before she pounced joyously upon her biggest parcel which certainly looked like a doll.

The rest of the family suspended operations to watch her as she lifted the lid of the box, her face aglow with antic.i.p.ation. She gave one long satisfied look at the contents in perfect silence then voiced her delight in a series of little shrieks.

"Oh Mother!--it is! Oh, the darling!--and it can talk! I didn't know it could talk! And see those red shoes--and isn't that the dearest dress?

Oh--Mother!" Chicken Little jumped up from her chair to fling herself on her mother's neck in a grateful hug.

But there were more joys. One _was_ a gold bracelet--from Frank and Marian. Alice had made a nightgown and a fascinating coat for Miss Dolly, and Ernest had bought a marvelous trunk for the young lady.

Ernest's brackets proved to be really charming and the young workman was well repaid for his hours of toil by the general admiration. Mother and Father declared themselves delighted with Jane's painfully wrought book-mark and penwiper, and Alice was more than happy over the substantial coat and the family's gift to her in antic.i.p.ation of her journey. For Alice was to go to Uncle Joseph's. It had been arranged that she should leave soon after New Year's.

Alice had another surprise later in the morning. A box of gloves arrived on top of which reposed the brown glove she had lost the preceding evening. No card was enclosed, but evidently none was needed for Alice blushed rosy red at sight of the brown glove and hugged the package close as she carried it upstairs.

"I wish Christmas came every day," sighed Chicken Little happily as she tumbled into bed that night almost too tired to undress.

But no one wished it the next day. Everybody was tired and cross and found it hard to settle down to common daily duties after the prolonged Christmas excitement.

Chicken Little went over to see Katy and Gertie in the morning but promptly quarreled with Katy over the respective merits of their Christmas presents. Katy had some new coral beads with a gold clasp that she considered put Chicken Little's bracelet entirely in the shade so Chicken Little gathered up her playthings and went home in high dudgeon, and had to nurse her wrath in lonely state till evening.

Ernest went skating with the boys in the morning. The three cronies distinguished themselves by promptly getting into trouble with a crowd of Irish boys, who lived beyond the railroad in the new addition.

The Irish boys resented a certain irritating air of superiority that Ernest and his friends a.s.sumed and began a series of petty annoyances, b.u.mping into them or crossing from the side just in front while they were racing. The boys contented themselves at first with warning off their tormentors by highhanded threats but the other lads outnumbering them grew more and more daring, till finally a boy named Pat Casey, deliberately tripped Carol, sending him sprawling on the ice. He was pretty badly shaken up and broke a skate strap. The trio considered this insult past endurance and a free-for-all fight ensued.

The trio were game, but they were outnumbered and would have fared badly if two older boys hadn't come to the rescue and driven the other gang off the pond. The Irish boys vowed vengeance and Ernest and his friends deciding that caution was the better part of valor, started for home.

Ernest's nose had bled freely and Sherm had a black eye, while Carol plaintively declared that every inch of his fat anatomy was black and blue.

They slipped into the kitchen at Morton's and got Alice to patch them up. After a good dinner their courage rose. Ernest had been ordered to split wood for an hour in the afternoon and the other boys took turns with him at the axe, while the three planned vengeance on their enemies.

"I saw Pat and Mike Dolan slinking past your house when I came over,"

reported Sherm excitedly. "I bet they're up to some devilment, I just wish they'd show their ugly mugs here--I guess we'd fix 'em!"

Sherm's wish was answered with startling promptness for at that moment the "ugly mugs" just mentioned appeared over the alley fence, and their owners uttered hoots of derision. The boys bolted with one accord for the fence, but their enemies were half-way down the alley, delivering a volley of cat calls and yells as they ran. The trio vaulted the fence and pursued in vain. The others were too quick for them.

They took turns acting as sentinel at the fence for the next hour, but there was no further disturbance. Late in the afternoon as Ernest and Carol were nearing the Morton home after an errand downtown, they were met by a broadside of snow b.a.l.l.s as they were pa.s.sing an alley. It was growing dusk and the alley was shadowy, but they had no doubt as to the perpetrators of this fresh insult, and grabbing handfuls of snow, they promptly charged the offenders. They proved to be the same Pat and Mike.

"Here take this!--and this!" yelled Carol as he stuffed an icy ma.s.s down Pat's neck and administered a stout kick in the shins as nearly simultaneously as he could manage.

Ernest was equally successful in accounting for Mike and the enemy went away spitting and threatening.

"You da.s.sen't show your faces out of doors tonight--allee samee!" was their parting taunt as they retreated.

As a matter of fact neither Ernest nor Carol were allowed to do much showing of their faces out of doors after dark unless they had some business, their parents being firm in the belief that thirteen and fourteen year old boys should be at home after night. But this slur on their courage was not to be borne.

"I'll ask Mother if we can't make some hickory-nut candy tonight, then we can slip out and watch for them," suggested Ernest after a few moments study.

"Bully, that'll work! Mother will be glad to have me out of the way because Susy's having a party."

It took some tact on Ernest's part before he secured the necessary permission, for Mrs. Morton felt that early to bed after Christmas dissipation would be wiser for all the children.

Chicken Little promptly demanded that Katy and Gertie be included, but Ernest was obdurate, threatening to shut her out if she teased.

Sherm and Carol arrived before the Mortons had finished tea; they shot in the side door with a swiftness that looked as if they were glad to be inside. Their words, however, belied any lack of courage. Sherm was armed with a baseball bat.

"I came round by Front Street," he said, "I just thought I'd see if any of the gang were hanging round. I knew they wouldn't dare tackle me when I had this." He caressed his weapon lovingly.

Carol had a bag of the hardest snow b.a.l.l.s he had been able to manufacture.