Ernest and Jane hunted the room over, but the mice had disappeared.

When they fed Pete that night he seemed droopy and turned up his nose at his best beloved dainties.

"Has Pete been loose today?" asked Dr. Morton.

"Yes, but I don't think he went out of the front room upstairs," replied Mrs. Morton.

"Well, I'd be willing to wager Pete knows what became of the baby mice,"

laughed the doctor. "Trim him up with flowers, Chicken, and he'll make a nice green grave for the dear departed."

A few days later Jane and Gertie were playing paper dolls in one of the window recesses upstairs and remembering the mice decided to have a doll funeral. But a funeral required mourning and they couldn't find a sc.r.a.p of black paper. While they were rummaging, they came across their find of old newspapers, which Mrs. Morton had stacked up on a table till Dr.

Morton found time to look them over. Jane noticed that some of them had heavy black bands across the front page.

"Say, they'd be fine--we could paste them close together on white paper for the dresses and veils."

She started off to ask her mother's permission to use them.

"Why, I don't know whether your father wants any of them or not. He spoke as if he would like to save a few--you might take the ones the mice nibbled."

There were four or five of these and the children were soon busily engaged in cutting out the black strips. When Gertie unfolded the last one two letters fell out.

Jane pounced upon them with a shriek. "Oh, Gertie, do you s'pose?"

"Maybe they are--let's take them to your mother quick!"

The little girls pattered downstairs to Mrs. Morton, thrilled with excitement.

"Don't get so excited, children. Little ladies should learn to compose themselves."

She slowly put on her spectacles and deliberately examined the envelopes.

"They do seem to be addressed to Mr. Fletcher, but there isn't one chance in a hundred they are of any value. However, I'll turn them over to Mr. Harding."

"Oh, Mother, see what's inside, quick!"

"My dear little daughter, I have no right to read other people's letters. Mr. Harding is Alice's lawyer and it is his place not mine to examine these. You little girls may get your hats and take them down to Mr. Harding's office. I think I can trust you not to drop them."

The children surprised d.i.c.k Harding by rushing in waving the letters breathlessly. They had run about half the way in their zeal. He was a more satisfactory listener than Mrs. Morton--he was excited, too. It took him about four minutes to run through the letters, Chicken Little and Gertie explaining how they came to find them while he read.

The first letter he dropped impatiently, muttering, "No good." After a glance at the signature of the second he said "Ah" softly.

When he had finished it, he jumped up and seizing Chicken Little with one hand and Gertie by the other, spun them round the room so fast he made their heads swim.

"Blessed be paper dolls and little girls! One sentence in that letter will do the work or I am no lawyer! Go home and look through the other papers and see if you can find any more, though I don't believe we need them."

CHAPTER XIX

THINGS HAPPEN

If there had been any person left to get married, Chicken Little would have been sure the family was preparing for another wedding during the next few weeks. Her father and mother had their heads together over something most of the time. Once she found her mother crying and she seemed grave and worried.

"I wish people weren't always having secrets," Jane complained to Ernest.

"It won't be a secret very long, Sis. They'll tell you as soon as they really truly decide."

"Decide what?--tell me, Ernest."

"I can't because Father and Mother don't want it talked about, if they don't go."

"Go where? Ernest, tell me. You're just as mean as you can be--I always tell you things."

"Well, I know Mother is going to give in because Father's dead set on going. Cross your heart that you won't tell a living soul till Mother tells you."

Chicken Little crossed her heart emphatically. Ernest was quite as eager to tell as she was to hear and soon poured out his tale.

"Maybe we're going to Kansas with Frank and Marian to live on the ranch.

I hope we'll go. Father says I can have a horse and there's lots of hunting, quail and prairie chicken and plover--and a man killed some antelope about sixteen miles west of the ranch last winter. There are a few deer left, too, on the creek, Father says. Oh, I'm wild to go, but Mother doesn't want to a bit."

Chicken Little was dazed for a moment.

"Would we stay there always? Wouldn't I ever see Katy and Gertie and d.i.c.k Harding again? Why doesn't Mother want to go?"

"Goosie, you could come back here to visit. Father told Mother she should come back at the end of a year. And maybe you could have a pony.

I wouldn't mind your riding mine sometimes when I don't want him, after you learn how to ride. We'd be a whole day and night on the train.

Wouldn't that be jolly?"

"Oh, could I sleep in one of the little beds?"

"Of course, I told you we'd be all night on the train."

"Why doesn't Mother want to go?"

"She doesn't want to leave her friends and she doesn't want to live way off on a farm where there isn't any church close by and only a country school. What do you think, the school house has only one room and one teacher? You'd be in the same room with me. Father says he'll have to prepare me for college at home. I have to begin Latin next year. Gee, I bet Father'll make me study. He thinks if you haven't got a lesson perfect, you haven't got it at all."

Ernest was standing by the open window idly playing with the lace strap that looped the curtain back.

"Say, there's Frank and Marian coming in with father now. I wonder what's up. Bet they're going to settle the whole business right away."

The children listened until they heard the others go into the sitting room and carefully close the door behind them--hot weather as it was.

Ernest laughed when the door clicked.

"Family council--children and dogs and neighbors please keep out.

They'll talk till dinner time. I'm going over to see Sherm."