"I would respectfully inform you that your dear friend Alice Fletcher is no more--there ain't no such person. She made a n.o.ble end in white satin covered with sticky out things, and her stylish aunt's lace curtain. She looked very lovely, what I could see of her through the curtain. My dear Miss Morton, I beseech you when you get married, don't wear a window curtain. Because if you do the groom and the sympathizing friends can't see how hard you are taking it.

Alice didn't look mournful when the plaguey thing was removed, but her aunt wept copiously at the train and took all the starch out of Alice's fresh linen collar. And Alice said it would be a sight, if I mussed it. I don't see the connection, do you? Dear Chicken Little, I thought about you all the time I wasn't thinking about Alice, because I remembered a certain other wedding where the dearest small girl in the world introduced me to the dearest big girl in the world. I thought also of the little partner who wrote a certain letter and of many other things--I didn't even forget the baby mice, Chicken Little! Alice says she would like to have your name on her diploma along with the president's because--well, you know why. And they tell us you are Chicken Big now. Thirteen going on, is a frightful age! The worst of it is you can never stop 'going on.' I suppose I need not expect to be asked to any doll parties, but, Jane, wouldn't you--couldn't you, take me fishing when we come? I will promise to be as grown up as possible.

"Yours,

"d.i.c.k."

"P. S. Do you still read Mary Jane Holmes?"

"Well, it is evident d.i.c.k Harding is the same old d.i.c.k, all right. Three years and getting married don't seem to have changed him a particle,"

laughed Marian.

"Three years isn't a lifetime," retorted Dr. Morton, "if it does seem 'quite a spell' to young people. Thank heaven, it has changed you, Marian, from a fragile, pale invalid to a hearty, rosy woman! Dr.

Allerton knew what he was about when he sent you to a farm to get well."

"Yes, I can't be thankful enough, Father Morton, and I don't forget how kind it was of you all to come out so far with us."

"Mother is the only one who deserves any thanks--the rest of us were crazy to come. We were tickled to death to have an excuse, eh, Chicken Little?" He tweaked her ear for emphasis.

"Oh, I love the farm, Father, only I wish Ernest could go away to school. He's awfully worried for fear you won't feel able to send him to college this fall. He studies every minute when he isn't too tired." Dr.

Morton's face grew grave.

"Yes, it's time for the boy to have a better chance. I wanted him to go last year, but the drought and the low price of cattle made it impossible. And I don't quite know how it will be this fall yet."

"There mustn't be any if about it this fall, Father. Ernest is working too hard here and now is the time for his education if he is ever to have one," Mrs. Morton spoke decidedly.

"I know all that, Mother, but college takes ready money, and money is mighty scarce these days. He's pretty well prepared for college. I've seen to that, if we do live on a Kansas ranch."

"It isn't just the studies, though, Father Morton," said Marian. "Ernest needs companionship. He doesn't take to most of the boys around here, and I don't blame him. They're a coa.r.s.e lot, most of them. The McBroom boys are all right, but they live so far off and are kept so busy with farm work, he never sees them except after church once a month or at the lyceums in winter."

"Marian's just right, Father. The boy needs the right kind of a.s.sociations; his manners and his English have both deteriorated here,"

added Mrs. Morton.

"Perhaps, Mother, but the boy is st.u.r.dy and well and his eyes are strong once more, and he is going to make a more worth while man on account of this very farm life you despise. But he does need companions. I wonder if we couldn't get Carol or Sherm out here for the summer along with the rest."

"Father, do have some mercy on me. I can't care for such a family!" Mrs.

Morton gasped at this further adding to her burdens.

Marian studied for a moment.

"Mother, if you want to ask him, I'll take Sherm, and Ernest, too, while d.i.c.k and Alice are here. I'd rather have Sherm than Carol, and Mother said in her letter that the Dart's were having a sad time this year. Mr.

Dart has been ill for so long."

Chicken Little had listened in tense silence to this conversation, but she couldn't keep still any longer.

"You are going to ask Katy and Gertie, aren't you, Mother?"

Mrs. Morton smiled but made no reply.

"You'll have to go to work and help Mother if you want any favors, Jane," her father admonished.

The following week apparently wrought an amazing change in Chicken Little. She let novels severely alone--even her precious set of Waverly beckoned in vain from the bookcase shelves. She waited upon her mother hand and foot. She set the table without being asked, and brought up the milk and b.u.t.ter from the spring house before Mrs. Morton was half ready for them. Indeed, she was so unnecessarily prompt that the b.u.t.ter was usually soft and messy before the meal was ready. She even practiced five minutes over the hour every day for good measure, conscientiously informing her mother each time.

"Bet you can't hold out much longer, Sis," scoffed Ernest, amused at her efforts to be virtuous. "You're just doing it to coax Mother into inviting Katy and Gertie."

"I just bet I can, Ernest Morton. Of course I want her to invite Katy and Gertie, but I'm no old cheat, I thank you, I'm going to help the best I can all summer if she asks 'em."

"And if she doesn't?"

"Don't you dare hint such a thing--she's going to--I think you're real hateful! I just don't care whether you get to go to college or not."

"Maybe I don't want to."

Something in Ernest's tone made Jane glance up in surprise.

"Don't want to? Why, you've been daffy about it--you haven't thought about anything else for a year!"

"That's so, too, but I guess I can change my mind, can't I?"

Ernest lounged on the edge of the table and looked at his sister teasingly.

He was almost six feet tall, slim and muscular, with the unruly lock of hair sticking up in defiance of all brushing as of old, and a skin that was still girlishly smooth though he shaved religiously every Sunday morning to the family's secret amus.e.m.e.nt. The results of this rite were painfully meager. Both Chicken Little and Frank chaffed him unmercifully about it. Jane loved to pa.s.s her hands over his chin and shriek fiendishly:

"Ernest, I believe I felt one. I think--really, I think you'll cut 'em by Christmas!" A lively race usually followed this insult.

Frank was even meaner. He came into Ernest's room one morning while he was shaving and gravely pretending to pick up a hog's stiff bristle from the carpet, held it out to him.

"Why Ernest, you're really growing quite a beard!"

But Ernest was a man in many ways if he had but little need of a razor.

Seeing other boys so seldom and being thrown so much with men had made him rather old for his years and more than ordinarily capable and self-reliant. He loved horses and was clever in managing them, breaking in many a colt that had tried the patience and courage of his elders.

But his day dream for the past twelve months had been college. He had confided all his hopes and fears to Chicken Little. The love between the two was very tender, the more so that they had so few companions of their own ages.

So Chicken Little, knowing that he had fairly lived and breathed and slept and eaten college during many months, might be pardoned for her amazement at his mysterious words.

"Ernest, tell me--what's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter--I've got a new idea, that's all."

"What is it? Where'd you get it?"

"From the old captain. Say, you just ought to see his place--it's the queerest lay-out. Snug and neat as a pin. He's tried to arrange everything the way it is on shipboard. He's got a Chinaman or a j.a.p, I don't know which, for a servant. He is the first one I ever saw, though they say there are lots of them in Kansas City. This chap can work all right. We had the best supper the evening Frank and I went over for hay."

"My, I wish I could see it. Do you suppose Father would take me over some time?"

"I don't know. They say he hates women--won't have one around."

"Pshaw, you're making that up, but what's the idea? Oh, you old hateful, you're just teasing--I can tell by your eyes!"

"Honest Injun, I'm not any such thing, only you interrupt so you don't give me a chance. You know the Captain has been at sea for twenty-five years--never'd quit only his asthma got so bad the doctor told him he'd have to go to a dry climate, and bundled him off here to Kansas. Well, he seemed to take a shine to me, and he asked me a lot of questions about what I was going to do. Finally, he wanted to know why I didn't try to get into the Naval Academy instead of going to college. Said if he had a son--and do you know, he turned kind of white when he said that, perhaps he's lost a boy or something--he'd send him there."