The cherry trees seemed full as ever after they had gathered all Marian wanted, and in the evening Mrs. Morton sent Chicken Little out to gather more for her. Marian offered to help her, and they were once more aloft in the trees when Mr. Benton returned from town.

Marian began to chuckle.

"He'll think we have been here all day, Jane. Let's pretend we have."

"Dear me, Mr. Benton, back so soon. How fast the day has gone by. Jane, you must be awfully hungry, I hadn't realized it was so late!"

"Well now, time does beat everything for speed, but I 'lowed it was only our ancestors as lived in trees all the time, Mrs. Morton. But then I've heard they're gettin' a lot of new-fangled ways down east. You're not calculatin' to take up your residence permanent like in them cherry trees, are you? In case you don't want the cottage any more, we might move it over to our place just by way of being neighborly."

"Thank you, Mr. Benton, I'll remember your kind offer if it ever gets in our way."

It was not many days before the mail brought a grateful letter from Mrs.

Halford, and ecstatic ones from the girls, in reply to Mrs. Morton's invitation. They would arrive with Alice and d.i.c.k and Sherm--for Sherm was coming, too--on the twentieth.

"Not quite two weeks. That means we must begin getting ready at once, and you mustn't think because we have a servant coming, that you won't need to help, Jane. One girl can't do all the work for so many."

Chicken Little had not yet said she was sorry and her Mother was inclined to be severe with her in consequence. Mrs. Morton was rather worried, too, because she had seemed pale and listless for two or three days past. But when she asked if she were not feeling well, Chicken Little had replied carelessly:

"Why, I'm all right, Mother."

They were hurrying to get the cherry crop cared for before the guests arrived. There would be enough to do after they came to keep them all busy without preserving, Mrs. Morton declared. One day when they were seeding cherries, Marian noticed that Jane was eating only half ripe ones.

"What on earth are you eating those green things for, child?"

"Oh, just for fun."

"Well, it won't be funny if you eat many of them. I don't know anything that'll make you sick quicker than green cherries. They're acid enough when they're ripe."

In the hurry of preparing for the guests, Marian thought nothing further about it. Three nights later, Dr. Morton wakened them at midnight to know if they had any calomel. "The Chicken's mighty sick," he said. "And I gave the last I had to Mrs. Benton for Mary."

"I haven't any calomel, Father, but I've got some castor oil," Marian announced after some rummaging.

"That will go hard with Jane, she loathes it. But she'll have to take it down I guess. I can't imagine what ails her, she's vomiting and has a high fever."

A sudden recollection struck Marian.

"Maybe she has been eating too many cherries."

"Ripe cherries oughtn't to hurt her and they have been plentiful so long, I shouldn't think she would overeat."

"But I have seen her eating them when they weren't ripe. I believe that's what is the matter."

"I hope so, I have been a little afraid of scarlet fever from her symptoms." Dr. Morton seemed relieved.

When he had gone, Marian turned to Frank. She had been recalling several things and putting them together.

"Frank Morton, I verily believe that sister of yours has been eating half-ripe cherries for a penance."

"Penance? Penance for what?"

"I don't exactly know, but it has something to do with her running off to the Captain's."

"Well, if she's as big a fool as all that, she deserves to have a stomach ache. Come, stop worrying."

"But Frank, I'm afraid I'm the guilty one who suggested the idea to her.

Goodness knows, I hadn't the slightest intention of doing so." Marian related the whole story.

"Well, Sis certainly gets queer notions into her head, but it may not be that at all. Anyhow, you can't do anything to-night."

A very pallid forlorn girl sat propped up in bed about noon the following day. The family, having discovered that it was nothing serious, and that she had probably brought it on by her own folly, were not sympathetic.

"What in the d.i.c.kens did you want to go and eat green cherries for, when there were pounds and pounds of ripe ones going to waste on the trees?"

Ernest's look of utter disgust was hard to bear.

Frank came over with a handful of minute green walnuts interspersed with a choice a.s.sortment of gooseberries and green plums. He handed them to her with a mocking bow.

"In case you get hungry, Jane dear, I thought you might like to have a supply of your favorite food on hand."

Chicken Little thanked him s.p.u.n.kily, but when the door closed behind him, she buried her face in the pillow and mourned over her woes.

"I'll never try to be good again, so there, and I think they're all just as mean as can be."

Her pillow was getting wetter and wetter and her spirits closer and closer to zero, when the door gently opened and her father came in.

"Why Chicken Little, crying? This won't do. Come, tell Father what's the matter. You aren't feeling worse, are you?"

Chicken Little swallowed hard and did her best to choke back the tears, but the tears having been distinctly encouraged for the past ten minutes had too good a start to be easily checked. Dr. Morton gathered her into his arms and patted and soothed her till she was able to summon a moist smile.

"Hurry up and tell me now--a trouble shared is a trouble half cured, you know."

But Jane was beginning to be ashamed of herself.

"'Tisn't anything really, Father, only I feel so miserable and the boys have been making fun of me."

"Making fun, what about?"

"Oh, just because."

"Because what, out with it!"

"Because I ate green cherries, I suppose."

"How long have you been eating green cherries, Jane?"

Jane considered. "Most a week."

"And don't you think you deserve to be laughed at, for doing anything so foolish?"

"They didn't laugh at the monks--and they were grown-up men."