Gertie looked wistful. Dick and Alice were going on to Denver that morning to return a month later for the little girls. All three were to drive into town with Dr. Morton to see them off. The mere thought of anyone going away made Gertie a little homesick. She went out to the chicken yard, where nine of the young prairie chickens were flourishing under the care of a much-deceived hen, who had adopted them with the mistaken notion that they were her own egg kin. The little mottled things seemed very much out of place among the domestic fowls. They were wild and shy and astonishingly fleet on their reed-like legs. Gertie loved to watch them. Two of the chicks had died the first night, and one, two days later. But the rest survived, and, 142in the course of time, flew away to join their wild mates.

“Dear me, I wonder what we can do next?” said Chicken Little, as they watched the train pull out with Dick waving from the rear platform.

Dick’s and Alice’s going seemed to have finished things, at least for the time being. Her question was answered as soon as she got home.

“Jane,” said her mother, “I have just received an invitation for you and the girls that I am a little doubtful about. Ernest and Sherm are invited, too, but not to remain for the night.”

“Stay all night? Where, Mother, where?”

“With Mamie Jenkins. The Jenkins family are hardly as refined as I could wish for your associates; still they are good religious people, if they are plain, and Katy and Gertie might enjoy going to a country party.”

“A party? O Mother, please let us go.”

“I don’t mind so much your coming to the party, but they want to have you stay overnight and attend a picnic some of the young people are getting up for the next afternoon.”

Katy was as eager as Jane for the festivity and Mrs. Morton was at length persuaded to pocket her scruples and permit the girls to accept Mamie’s invitation. Ernest and Sherm were also delighted at the prospect of a frolic. They were to take the 143girls over and leave them for the night, returning the next afternoon for the picnic, which was to start from the Jenkin’s farm.

But when the day of the party arrived, Gertie backed out, begging to be left at home with Mrs. Morton. The thought of meeting so many strangers frightened her.

“I doubt if she would enjoy it. She would be the youngest one there–most of them will be from fourteen to twenty. The neighbors live so far apart, they have to combine different ages in order to find guests enough for a party.”

At first, Chicken Little would not hear to Gertie’s remaining behind, but finding that she would really be happier at home, stopped urging her. Jane and Katy were soon joyfully planning what they should wear. They were to go in their party frocks, each taking another dress along for the morning and the picnic. Jane was to wear Alice’s gift. Katy had a dainty ruffled muslin with cherry-colored sash and hair ribbons.

“I was afraid I wasn’t going to have a single chance to wear it here,” she remarked naÏvely.

The boys were busy shining their shoes, and performing certain mysteries of shaving with very little perceptible change in their appearance. Ernest felt that he could not possibly go without a new necktie, but as no one was going to town before the event, 144he had to content himself with borrowing one from Frank.

It took the combined efforts of Marian and Gertie and Mrs. Morton to get the revellers dressed to their satisfaction. Gertie waited on the two girls as patiently as any maid. Marian was in great demand by the boys to coax in refractory cuff buttons and give a “tony” twist to the ties.

“Is tony the very latest, Ernest?”

“That’s what Sherm says. Just make the bow a little more perky, can’t you, Marian? I don’t want to look like a country Jake.”

“Ernest, you are just the boy to go to Annapolis; you are so fussy about your clothes.”

“Golly, I hope I do get to go. Father hasn’t heard from the Senator yet, but he may be away from home.”

Sherm was struggling with his tie, getting red and hot in the process. He had just tied it nearly to his satisfaction, when he carelessly gave it a jerk and had it all to do over again.

“CÆsar’s Ghost!” he exclaimed vengefully, “what do they make these things so pesky slippery for?”

Marian laughed and Sherm colored in embarrassment over his outburst.

“Please excuse me, but this is the fifth time I’ve tied the critter.”

145“Let me try.” Marian turned him to the light and had the bow nicely exact in no time.

The girls found their source of woe in their hair. Katy, having learned that most of the young people would be older than themselves, decided to put her hair up, and look grown up, too. Mrs. Morton was horrified and made Katy take it down. Katy, though rebellious, dared not oppose her hostess openly. She contented herself with taking a handful of hair pins along and putting it up after she reached Mamie’s. To be sure the heavy braids piled upon her small head looked rather queer, especially with her short skirts, which she could not contrive to lengthen. But Katy made up for this defect by an unwonted dignity, and actually persuaded a majority of the people she met that she was sixteen at the very least.

Country folk gather early and they found the fun well started when they arrived. The Jenkins family had come to the neighborhood about a year before from Iowa.

The farmhouse was new and rather more pretentious than most on the creek. Lace curtains with robust patterns draped the windows in fresh-starched folds. A green and red ingrain carpet covered the floor, while the entire Jenkins family–there were four olive branches–done in crayon by a local photographer, adorned the walls. It would be more 146truthful to say, adorned three walls. The fourth was sacred to a real oil painting in an unlimited gilt frame, which had come as a prize for extra subscriptions to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Mrs. Jenkins regarded this treasure almost with reverence. “I do think it is real uplifting to have a work of art in the house, don’t you, Mrs. Brown?” she had been heard to remark to a neighbor who failed to notice this gem. The family bible and a red plush photograph album rested on the marble-topped table, usually placed in the exact center of the room. To-night, it was pushed back against the wall to make more room for the games.

Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins were rigid Methodists and would not tolerate any such worldly amusement as dancing. Kissing games were substituted, and if, as the Jenkins believed, these were more elevating, they were certainly coarser and rougher than the dancing would have been.

Mamie had attended the Garland High School for one year and had acquired different ideas. She would have much preferred the dancing, but her parents were firm. Mamie deemed herself a full-fledged young lady at fifteen. Her highest ambitions were to have “style” and plenty of beaux.

Ernest and Sherm had to find a place to tie the horses. They lingered also a moment at the pump to wash the leathery smell of the harness from their 147hands–a fastidious touch that would have subjected them to much guying if the other boys had seen them.

So Chicken Little led Katy into the crowded room, unsupported. There was no hall or entry and they were plunged directly into the thick of the party. Many of the country lads and lasses were her mates at the district school and greeted her cordially, eyeing Katy, however, with frankly curious stares. Mrs. Jenkins relieved her embarrassment by taking them upstairs to remove their wraps. She introduced herself to Katy before Jane could get out the little speech of presentation her mother had urged her not to forget, since Katy, being a stranger, should be made to feel at home as quickly as possible. Chicken Little hated introducing people and had been dreading the ordeal, but kindly Mrs. Jenkins took Katy by the hand and presented her to the whole roomful at one fell swoop.

“This is Miss Katy Halford, young folks, and I want you all to introduce yourselves and see that she has a good time or she’ll think you are a lot of green country jays who haven’t any manners.”

“King William was King James’s son” was in full swing. The young folks made places for the two girls in the ring and promptly drew in Ernest and Sherm as soon as they entered. The lilting tune was sung lustily while the supposed victim in the center, 148a handsome lad of sixteen with bold, black eyes and dark curls, surveyed the girls, big and little, with an evident enjoyment of his privileges.

Several of the older boys interrupted their singing to give him advice.

“Take the city girl, Grant, buck up and show your manners.” “Bet you knew who you’d choose before you left home.” “Don’t let on that you don’t know which girl you want–Mamie’s biting her lips already to wash off that kiss.”

The boy returned or ignored this badinage as he saw fit.

Mamie, however, was indignantly protesting that he needn’t try to kiss her. Grant looked in her direction and smiled as the fateful instant arrived. Indeed, he started toward her, then mischievously whirled around and seizing Chicken Little, who was whispering to Katy that Grant was Mamie’s beau, kissed her with a resounding smack.

Chicken Little was taken so unawares that she had time neither to blush nor to protest or struggle, as was considered etiquette on such occasions. She didn’t even try to rub it off, as was also customary. She just looked at him with such a funny mixture of surprise and dismay that everybody roared, including Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins and some of the older neighbors who had come in to see the fun.

“Here, Chicken Little, you need practice,” and 149“Chicken Little acts as if she didn’t know what kisses were. You’ll have to have a rehearsal beforehand next time, Grant!” “Why, Grant? What’s the matter with the rest of us?” These comments were open and noisy.

Ernest took all this coarse bantering at his young sister’s expense good-naturedly. He knew no offence was intended. He had been present at a number of these rural frolics. But Sherm, town-bred and unaccustomed to this form of amusement, was distinctly displeased both at the kiss and the talk. He got Chicken Little off to one side as soon as he could.

“Say, Chicken Little, don’t let the boys kiss you.”

Chicken Little looked concerned. “I don’t like them to, Sherm, but I can’t help it if I play–and they’d think I was awfully stuck up and rude if I refused.”

“Does your mother know they have this sort of games?”

Chicken Little made a little grimace. “Don’t go and be grown-up and horrid, Sherm. Everybody does it here. They’ll stop this pretty soon and play clap in and clap out or forfeits.”

Her big brown eyes were lifted so innocently and sweetly that Sherm couldn’t say any more, but he felt a curious desire to fight every time a big boy so much as stared at Jane.

“She’s such a kid!” he explained the feeling to 150himself, “and Ernest isn’t looking after her at all.”

Katy entered into the romping heart and soul. Katy was playing young lady. Her pink cheeks and laughing eyes and little flirtatious ways were very popular with the boys–so popular that Mamie was vexed because many of her mates seemed to have eyes only for the city girl, as she called her behind her back.

Mamie eased her mind by treating her special friends haughtily. She got even with the recreant Grant by choosing Ernest the very first time in Post Office. She even put some of the girls up to boycotting the boys who were hanging round Katy, for one entire game, persuading them to choose Ernest and Sherm alternately till the others were jealously wrathful without being quite sure whether it was accident or conspiracy. Considering his scruples about kissing, Sherm submitted most meekly. He had the grace to color when Chicken Little remarked carelessly: “It wasn’t so bad as you thought it would be, was it, Sherm?”

“Oh, it’s different with boys,” he retorted loftily. “Little girls like you don’t understand.”

“Little girls! I suppose you think yourself a man grown. You needn’t feel so big because you’re most seventeen. I heard Dick say a boy of seventeen wasn’t really any older than a girl of fifteen, because 151girls grow up quicker. So there, you’re not much more than a year older than I am!”

Sherm’s “little girl” rankled not only that evening but for weeks afterwards. She told Katy and Mamie in strict confidence after they had gone upstairs that night.

“I’d show him if I were you, Jane,” advised Mamie the experienced.

Chicken Little needed no urging, but she was in doubt how to proceed.

“My, I wish I was awfully beautiful and grown up. I’d make him fall so many billions deep in love with me he couldn’t squeak.” Jane felt positively vindictive whenever she thought of Sherm’s patronizing tone. She had neglected to mention to the girls the little conversation that had preceded her remark to Sherm. She didn’t consider it necessary to tell everything she knew.

Mamie tittered. “Pooh, you sound as if you had been reading Sir Walter Scott. They don’t do things that way nowadays. When I was in town last winter at school I had lots of boys gone on me, and I’m not a raving, tearing beauty either.”

Mamie looked as if she expected her guests to contradict her, but they were too much impressed with her conquests to do anything so rude. A little disappointed, but finding their absorbed expressions encouraging, Mamie preceded to retail her adventures. 152Boiled down, these were mainly a box of candy and various walks taken at recesses and noons, with an occasional escort to a party. They were sufficiently thrilling to the others, who had never been permitted even such mild forms of dissipation.

“My, wouldn’t I catch it if Papa ever caught me walking with a boy!”

Katy painted the paternal wrath with a real relish. It seemed to furnish an adequate excuse for her having nothing to relate and put her on a little pinnacle of superior breeding as well. Her parents looked after her. It was only more ordinary people who permitted their daughters to run about at fifteen.

Mamie was keen enough to realize this and she promptly resented Katy’s patronizing tone.

“Oh, Pa would have been mad, too, if he had known. But I was staying with my aunt. She didn’t care what I did, just so I was on time to meals and didn’t run around after dark.”

Katy was determined to keep up her end. “We used to have wonderful times at the church oyster suppers. One night last winter Dr. Wade–you don’t remember him, Chicken Little, he’s only been in Centerville about a year. Well, he took me in for oysters and bought me candy and three turns at the grab bag. And he is a grown-up man–he’s been a doctor for over two years.”

153Katy would hardly have told this story if Gertie had been there. She neglected to mention that Dr. Wade had kindly included Gertie and five other young girls in these courtesies. Or that he had remarked to Mrs. Halford that he loved to be with children because he missed his own brothers and sisters sadly. But Gertie was not present to mar the effect of this story with further particulars. Mamie began to rack her brain for forgotten attentions worthy to be classed with this superb generosity. Poor Chicken Little was hopelessly out-classed. Nothing more thrilling than being singled out in games and Blackman at school had happened to her.

“Grant Stowe said you had the prettiest eyes of any girl here to-night. I heard him tell Jennie Brown so when she asked him whether he liked blue eyes or brown best. She is the awfulest thing–always fishing for compliments.”

This was generous of Mamie, for Grant was the one who had passed her by so recently. But Katy’s eyes were also distanced and Mamie had been very much thrilled by hearing that Ernest might go to Annapolis. Further, he had chosen her twice that evening. She felt amiably disposed toward Ernest’s sister.

When the tales of past glories were exhausted, the conversation grew intermittent, being punctuated by frequent yawns. They were just on the point of 154dropping off to sleep when Mamie suddenly opened her eyes and sat up in bed with a jerk.

“Music! Don’t you hear it? I shouldn’t wonder if some of the boys were out serenading. Oh, I do hope they’ll come here.”

Katy and Chicken Little listened breathlessly.

“It is!”

“Yes, and it’s coming nearer.”

All three hopped out of bed and crouched down by the window. The moon was setting, but there was still a faint radiance. The strains were growing more distinct.

“I bet it’s Grant Stowe and his two cousins from the Prairie Hill district. They are staying all night with him and are going to the picnic to-morrow. Don’t you remember that red-headed boy?”

“It sounds like a banjo and guitar,” said Katy. “Oh, I do love a guitar. It always makes me think of ‘Gaily the troubadour.’” Katy gave a wriggle of delight at this romantic ending to the night’s festivities. She was already planning to tell the girls at home about the wonderful serenade.

The tinkle tinkle of the thin notes grew stronger and clearer and they found that a third instrument, which had puzzled them, was a mouth organ.

“I didn’t suppose anybody could really make music with a mouth organ, but it goes nicely with the others.” Chicken Little, like Katy, was more excited 155over the serenade than the party. It seemed so delightfully young ladyfied.

The trio had one awful moment, for the music seemed to be dying away and still there was no human in sight. Suddenly it stopped altogether. They listened and waited–not a sound rewarded them.

“I think it’s downright mean if they’ve gone by.” Mamie’s tone was more than injured.

The words were hardly out of her mouth when a stealthy foot-fall came directly beneath their window, and guitar, mandolin, and mouth organ burst forth into “My Bonnie,” supported after the opening strains by half a dozen boyish voices.

The boys had crept in so close to the wall of the house that the girls had not discovered them. The young ladies ducked at the first sound, and hastily slipped their dresses over their night gowns so they could look out again.

“O dear,” said Mamie, “I almost forgot my curl papers.”

They were arrayed in time to reward the serenaders with a vigorous clapping of hands, Father and Mother Jenkins joining in from the window of their bedroom downstairs.

“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” floated up next, followed by “Over the Garden Wall,” which, if not 156choice, had the distinction of being sung in New York, as Grant Stowe proudly informed them.

It was three o’clock past, before they finally settled down in bed once more. Faint suggestions of dawn were already apparent.

“It’s not much use to go to bed, Father always gets up at six,” mourned Mamie.

A brilliant idea struck Katy. “Suppose we stay up all night. Grace Dart said she did once when her father was so sick, and she said it was the most wonderful thing to see the sun rise when you hadn’t been to bed at all.”

This proposal met with instant favor. They clambered out of bed and lit the small oil lamp, wrapping themselves in quilts and petticoats impartially, for the air was growing chilly. The next three hours were the longest any of the three had ever known. In spite of fortune telling, and a thrilling story which Mamie read in tragic whispers, the minutes shuffled along like hours. Yawns interrupted almost every sentence and much mutual prodding and sharp reproaches were necessary to keep their heavy eyes open. They were too sleepy to care whether the sun rose in the usual sedate way or pirouetted up chasing a star. In fact, they forgot all about the expected sunrise. They wanted just two things–sleep and something to eat.

The call to breakfast was even sweeter than the 157serenade had been. Father and Mother Jenkins were concerned at their jaded appearance.

“Seems like parties don’t agree with you young ones none too well. I reckon we won’t have them very often,” Father Jenkins remarked tartly. His own eyes smarted from loss of sleep.

“I don’t believe you ought to go to the picnic this afternoon if you are feeling so played out,” Mother Jenkins added. “Your Ma will think I haven’t taken good care of you. It was them good-for-nothing boys a-coming that wore you plumb out.”

Generous cups of strong coffee–a luxury not permitted to either Chicken Little or Katy at home–woke them up and they got through the morning nicely. Not for worlds would they have missed that picnic.

But even the coffee could not carry them through the afternoon. They were the butts of the entire party on account of their dullness and heavy eyes.

Ernest expressed his disgust with his sister openly. “Well, I think Mother’d better keep you at home till you’re old enough not to be such a baby.” Jane had been nodding in spite of herself.

“Looks to me as if you girls had stayed up all night!” exclaimed Grant Stowe.

Mamie roused enough to retort: “Well, I guess you didn’t get any too much sleep yourself.”

“We can keep awake if we didn’t. But if it has 158this kind of effect on you, we’ll leave you out the next time we go serenading.”

It had been arranged that they should catch fish for the picnic supper. The girls had brought a huge frying pan and the butter and corn meal to cook them in. As soon as the teams were cared for, the boys got out fishing tackle and bait and the party broke up into small groups for the fishing. Grant Stowe offered to help Chicken Little with her line. She found this courtesy on his part embarrassing, for Katy and Mamie exchanged looks, and she was so utterly sleepy, that she would have preferred Ernest or Sherm so she wouldn’t be expected to talk. Chicken Little had gone to school with Grant the preceding winter. He was always a leader in their school games and a great favorite.

Grant found a snug place beside a deep pool that promised catfish at the very least, and might be expected to yield a few trout. He made her comfortable on the spreading roots of an elm growing upward with difficulty from a steep bank. Grant smiled at her as he handed her the rod and tossed the baited hook into the stillest part of the pool.

“There, you ought to get a bite soon. This is one of the best places on the creek for catfish. Say, what did you girls do to yourselves that you are so used up to-day? You didn’t take a five-mile walk or anything after we left, did you?”

159Jane laughed. “Don’t you wish you knew?”

“Oh, I’ll find out, but I wish you’d tell me.” Grant looked at her from under his long black lashes. His tone was distinctly wheedling.

Chicken Little laughed again and shook her head.

Grant threw his own line in, seating himself a little lower down on the bank; and quiet reigned for several minutes.

But the boy was determined to get the secret from her. After a tedious silence, he began in a low tone so that he would not disturb the fish: “You know, Chicken Little, I always did think you were the prettiest girl in school, but you were such a kid you never took the trouble to look at a fellow. Seems to me you might be nice now and tell me what you did.”

He neglected to mention the fact that he had bet Mamie a silk handkerchief against a plate of taffy that he would find out what they had been up to before night. He received no response.

“Oh, come now, be a trump and tell a fellow.”

He glanced around this time with a tenderly reproachful look. This tenderness speedily vanished. Jane was peacefully asleep, her head supported against the tree trunk.

The boy’s face flushed wrathfully for an instant, but he had a saving sense of humor. “Serves me right for trying to get the best of a kid, I guess,” he said to himself. He let her sleep on undisturbed 160until the sound of voices announced the approach of some of the others, when he hastily wakened her. He did not intend to be laughed at for the rest of the day.

Chicken Little found it hard to wake up and was heavy-eyed and stupid the remainder of the afternoon. Fortunately for her and Katy, Ernest had orders from his mother to be home by dark.

Patient Gertie was waiting expectantly to hear about the good times, but she could hardly extract three words from either of the revellers. Parties and boys and finery were all stale, but their neatly made bed looked like heaven.