"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 pernickety brothers 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 b.u.t.toned and Sherm heaved a sigh of relief--a disastrous sigh--it sent the b.u.t.ton 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.

He was a sight for the G.o.ds when he finally remounted. But he carried it off with a dash, a.s.suming various kittenish airs and coquetries, even waving saucily at two cowboys who pa.s.sed them and turned to stare in bewilderment at his bizarre costume.

The ride home pa.s.sed 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 she is 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 d.i.c.k 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."

"But he had awfully good marks," added Gertie, "and Prof. Sloc.u.m 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 d.i.c.k 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.

d.i.c.k 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 appet.i.te before you have been here many days, Alice. You'll be busy satisfying your own. You will find country air a marvellous tonic," Dr. Morton a.s.sured 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?" d.i.c.k'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."

"d.i.c.k, 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 next week, 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?"

"d.i.c.k, 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? d.i.c.k 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."