"Thank G.o.d, we got here in time!" Captain Clarke e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed fervently, raising Marian's head and dashing water in her face to restore her.

"We're so shut in by the timber at our place, I didn't dream the fire was in this part of the country till one of the hands went up in the pasture. We mounted and came double quick, I tell you. And we'd have got here quicker, if I'd known what straits you were in. You're a plucky lot! Easy there, Mrs. Morton, you are all right, and the fire is safe to smoke out at its leisure. Here, drink a drop of this whiskey."

Sherm had gathered up Chicken Little and carried her beyond the smoke, then dropped down beside her with a sigh to recover his breath. He felt numb and so dazed he hardly heeded what the Captain was saying.

"Pretty well done for, yourself, aren't you, lad?" one of the men inquired. "You sure knew exactly what to do, if you are a tenderfoot."

Sherm roused himself enough to twist the corners of his mouth into his wonted smile.

"Me? I didn't do anything--Chicken Little was the boss of this gang."

CHAPTER XVII

THE LOST OYSTER SUPPER

Thanksgiving came and went its turkey-lined way rather lonesomely.

Christmas preparations also lacked their usual zest.

"Everything seems to have caved in round where Ernest was," Chicken Little confided to Marian. "You see, we always talked everything over and planned our Christmas together. Sherm takes Ernest's place in lots of ways, but, of course, he isn't interested in what I'm making for Mother, or in helping me make $5.25 go clear round the family and piece out for Katy and Gertie besides."

"If sympathy is all you need, Jane, I can lend you a listening ear."

Marian crocheted another scallop.

"I'd be thankful for a few suggestions, too, I can't think of anything to send Ernest. When he has to have everything regulation, and the government furnishes him with every single thing it wants him to have, why--it's awful."

"Yes, I agree with you--I've been racking my brains for Ernest, too.

Mother is patiently knitting him a m.u.f.fler, which I know he won't be permitted to wear, but I haven't the heart to discourage her--she gets so much comfort out of it. Uncle Sam should be more considerate of fond female relatives. He might at least tolerate a few tidies and hand-painted shovels or a home-made necktie."

"Or a throw or a plush table cover with chenille embroidery. Mamie Jenkins is making one for Mr. Clay. He will be too cross for words. He loathes Mamie, though he tries not to show it, and plush is his special abomination. He says it reminds him of caterpillar's fuzz." Chicken Little's eyes danced maliciously.

Marian looked at her young sister-in-law meditatively.

"Mamie doesn't seem to be dear to your heart just now. Is she too popular or too affected or too dressy?"

"Oh, she's just too utterly too too all around. I do have lots of fun with her--she can be awfully nice when she wants to be, but----"

"But?"

"Oh, I don't know--she swells up so, lots of times over things I'd be ashamed to tell--they're so silly."

"Yes, I guess Mamie's pretty cheap, but as long as you make friends with her, don't rap her behind her back. It was all right to tell me--I quizzed you anyhow. I wish you didn't see so much of her."

"Why, she's the only girl at school I can go with, who is anywhere near my own age. The Kearns twins aren't even clean--I don't like to go near them."

"I shouldn't think you would. Our public school system has its drawbacks as well as its virtues. Well, Jane, be nice to Mamie, but don't--don't be like her."

"You needn't worry; she's going to town to school after Christmas, so I sha'n't see much more of her."

Mrs. Morton was still far from well, and she hung on Ernest's letters almost pathetically. Ernest, boy fashion, was inclined to write long letters when he had something interesting to tell and preserve a stony silence when he didn't. Life at the academy was monotonous and he had to work hard to keep up with his studies. Further, his father and Frank suspected he was having many disagreeable experiences which he kept from his family. These were still the days of rough hazing at the academy and Ernest, being a western boy, big and strong and independent, was likely to attract his full share of this unpleasant nagging. He revealed something of his experiences in a letter to Sherm. Sherm showed the letter to Chicken Little and Chicken Little, vaguely worried, told her father. Dr. Morton talked it over with Frank.

"There isn't a thing you can do about it, Father. Most of it does the boys more good than harm anyway. I talked to a West Pointer once about the hazing there. He said some of it was pretty annoying and at times decidedly rough, but that if a fellow behaved himself and took it good-naturedly they soon let him alone. He said it was the best training he had ever known for curing a growing boy of the big head. Don't worry--Ernest has sense--he's all right."

To Chicken Little, Ernest confided, two weeks before Christmas, that he was getting confoundedly tired of having the same things to eat week after week. "Say, Sis, if you and Mother would cook me up a lot of goodies for Christmas, I'd like it better than anything you could do.

Send lots, so I can treat--a turkey and fixings."

This letter did more for Mrs. Morton's health than the doctor's tonic.

She tied on her ap.r.o.n and set to making fruit cake and cookies and every delicious and indigestible compound she could think of that would stand packing and a four-days' journey. Chicken Little and Sherm spent their evenings making candy and picking out walnut meats to send. Dr. Morton made the nine-mile trip to town on the coldest day of the season to insure Ernest's getting the box on the very day before Christmas.

The family at the ranch had a quiet holiday week. The day after New Year's, Jane was invited to come to town and stay over night to attend an amateur performance of Fatinitza, a light opera the young people had staged for the benefit of a struggling musical society. Chicken Little was excitedly eager to go. Mrs. Morton deliberated for some time before she gave her consent. Marian and Frank and Sherm all teased in her behalf, before it was won.

Sherm drove her in, and Frank, having business in town the following day with a cattle buyer from Kansas City, volunteered to bring her home.

Jane wore her Christmas present, a crimson cashmere with fine knife plaitings of crimson satin for its adorning. Frank lent her his sealskin cap and she felt very grand, and looked piquantly radiant, as she revolved for her mother's inspection before slipping into her big coat.

Sherm, standing waiting, inspected her, too.

"Scrumptious, Lady Jane, you look like that red bird I've been trying to catch out in the evergreen by the gate."

Mrs. Morton shook her head disapprovingly. "No compliments, Sherm, Jane is just a little girl and she must remember that pretty is as pretty does. Don't forget, dear, to thank Mrs. Webb for her hospitality when you come away. Are you sure your ears are clean?"

"Oh, Mother, I'm not a baby!" Chicken Little protested indignantly. "You talk as if I were about five years old."

"My dear daughter, your mother will speak to you as she sees fit. Have you got the high overshoes? I think, perhaps, you'd better take Father's m.u.f.fler. Sherm, have you both buffalo robes?"

Chicken Little relieved her feelings by making a little moue at Sherm.

He winked discreetly in return.

"Why," she said disgustedly after they were started, "won't mothers ever let you grow up? I am a whole inch taller than Mother now, and half the time she treats me as if I didn't have the sense of a chicken."

"Well, you see you're the only girl in the family, and you've been the littlest chicken so long your mother kind of likes to shut her eyes to all those extra inches you've been collecting. By the way, Miss Morton, I don't notice that m.u.f.fler your mother mentioned, and I think you'll be cold enough before we get to town to wish you had it."

"You don't suppose I was going to wear that clumsy thing? I can snuggle down under the robes if I get cold."

"No, I didn't suppose, so I brought the red scarf Mother gave me Christmas, for your ears. They'd be frosted sure without anything. Did you think your pride would keep you warm, Chicken Little?"

Chicken Little was inclined to resent this delicate attention; Sherm seemed to be putting her in the same cla.s.s her mother had. But her ears were already beginning to tingle as they left the timber and got the full force of the wind on the open prairie. Sherm was swinging the bays along at a good pace. The cutter glided smoothly over the frozen snow.

She submitted meekly while he awkwardly wrapped the m.u.f.fler over her cap with his free hand. The soft wool was deliciously comfortable. She neglected, however, to mention this fact to him.

"Too stubborn to own up, Lady Jane?"

Jane stole a glance at the quizzical face turned in her direction. Then she evaded shamelessly.

"Sherm, don't you just adore to skate?"

Chicken Little was in a pulsing state of excitement that evening as she listened to the pretty, lilting music and watched gorgeously clad young people, many of whom she recognized, moving demurely about the little stage. To others it was merely a very creditable amateur performance; to Chicken Little, it opened a whole new world of ideas and imagining. She had been to a theatre but twice in her whole life, once to Uncle Tom's Cabin and once to a horrible presentation of Hamlet, which resulted in her disliking the play to the day of her death. She loved the light and color and harmony of it all. She delighted in it so much that she sighed because it would be so soon over.