The Morton family were up early the next morning. Jane was in a state of prickly excitement between her delight over her wonderful pony, all her very own, and the expected pleasure of seeing Katy and Gertie.

“If the others have grown as much as you kids, we shan’t recognize them,” said Frank.

“Anyhow, we can tell which bunch to cut out by Alice and Dick,” Ernest answered.

Mrs. Morton was horrified. “Ernest, the idea of your talking about our friends as if they were cattle! I do trust you children will not mortify me before our guests by using such vulgar expressions.”

“Never mind, Mother,” Frank consoled her, “Alice and Dick will revel in these vulgar westernisms. 82See if they don’t. Why Mother, it’s by slang that a language is enriched, didn’t you know that?”

“That will do, Frank. I should think you would try to help me keep up correct standards instead of hindering. You will feel very differently when Jilly is a little older.”

The train was due at two-thirty at the neighboring town of Garland–the neighboring town being some nine miles distant. They decided to have an early dinner at home, then Dr. Morton would drive the spring wagon in for the guests, Frank would take the farm wagon for the trunks, while Jane and Ernest formed a sort of ornamental body guard on their new ponies.

“My, but you present an imposing appearance!” laughed Marian coming out to the road with Jilly to see them off.

“We do look rather patriarchal,” said Frank, glancing around at the impressive array. “If we only had you and Mother mounted on donkeys, the reception committee would be complete. I will do my best to apologize for your absence.”

“If you are late, send Jane on ahead, they can see her a mile off on that calico pony.”

“The piebald is conspicuous,” said the Doctor, “I guess Captain Clarke picked him out for the Chicken so her mother could see her from afar.”

Chicken Little ignored this pleasantry. “Thank 83you for saying calico, Marian. I was just wondering what to call him and that will do beautifully.”

“Oh, have some mercy on the poor beast,” put in Ernest. “Think of his having to answer to the name of Calico. Why don’t you call him gingham apron or something really choice?”

“Allee samee, his name’s Calico. If you want to call yours, Star of the Night or Aladdin or something high falutin, you just can.” Jane set her lips firmly. She didn’t specially care for Calico but she wasn’t going to be laughed out of it.

“That will do, children, it’s time to be off.” Dr. Morton suited the action to the word by clucking to the team of bays he drove, and the procession started.

They reached the station in good time. Both Ernest and Chicken Little wanted to stay on their mounts and dash up beside the train, but their father forbade it.

“Those ponies have never been properly introduced to an engine, and I don’t wish to take you back in baskets. You can show off sufficiently going home.”

So the ponies were left with the teams at a safe distance from the railroad.

The train was twenty minutes late and it seemed an age to Chicken Little. “I don’t see why you always have to wait for nice things, while the unpleasant 84ones come along without ever being asked,” she complained.

“What about the ponies? Do you class them with the unpleasant things?” queried her father. “But here comes the train.”

Jane watched it puff in with a roar and a rattle and sundry bangs, her eyes strained for the first glimpse of Katy and Gertie, Alice and Dick. She really didn’t know which one she wanted to see worst.

“Bet Sherm will be the first one out,” said Ernest.

“Bet you Katy will!”

But it was Dick who hailed them first, before he turned to help down the little girls. Alice came next, with Sherm who was still rather bashful, bringing up the rear loaded down with satchels and lunch baskets. Katy and Gertie fell upon Chicken Little instantly and Alice had to embrace the whole bunch, because they kept on hugging and kissing Jane, laughing hysterically.

“Here, where do I come in?” Dick rescued Jane from her friends and gave her a resounding smack himself. After which he held up his hands and exclaimed: “Say, Doctor Morton, what do you feed these infants on to make them grow so fast? Jane’s a half head taller than either Katie or Gertie and we thought Sherm would surely top Ernest. In fact, we had our money on him to beat any of your 85mushroom Kansas effects, but Holy Smoke, I have to look up to Ernest myself.”

Alice and Katie and Gertie were looking at Jane’s riding habit, Gertie in considerable alarm.

“We don’t have to ride to the ranch on horseback, do we?”

Before the doctor could reassure them, Frank replied gravely:

“Of course, what did you expect in Kansas? We’ve brought six horses and we thought two of the girls could ride in front of Dick and myself. It’s only nine miles and the horses don’t gallop all the way.”

The girls looked panic-stricken, even Alice seemed a little dazed, Frank was so very plausible. Dick helped him on delightfully.

“I told you, Alice, you’d better put your riding habit in your satchel. I suppose the horses are gentle, Frank.”

“Oh, they don’t often throw anyone that’s used to them. Naturally, they’re a little gayer in summer when they’re in the pasture so much.”

Ernest could not resist adding his bit. “I was thrown three times last week, would you like to try my pony, Katy?”

This revealed the game to Alice.

“You awful fibbers, don’t you believe a word they say, girls.”

86“Honest Injun,” said Ernest, “I was.”

“It’s the truth,” Frank confirmed.

Poor little Gertie, who was already beginning to realize that she was very far from home and in a strange land besides, commenced to cry.

Dr. Morton came promptly to the rescue.

“That’ll do, boys. Save your joking till our guests are rested from their journey at least. Frank, you and Dick look up the trunks while Ernest and Sherm help me bring up the wagons. It’s all right, dear,” he put his arm reassuringly around Gertie, “you shall ride in one of the most comfortable of vehicles if we haven’t a carriage to offer you. You mustn’t pay any attention to their teasing.”

After the first two miles of their homeward journey, Chicken Little gave up her pony to Sherm and climbed in with the girls. Ernest offered to change saddles, but Sherm declared he didn’t mind the side saddle and cheerfully bore all the jokes the party cut at his expense. Dr. Morton watched him approvingly. “Good stuff,” he said to himself, as Sherm returned the sallies without wincing. The boy’s long legs dangling from the side saddle were a comical sight. Sherm, if not quite so tall as Ernest, was rather better proportioned and delightfully supple and muscular. He was the same matter-of-fact, straight-forward boy he had always been, 87but his father’s long illness had sobered him, though he could be hilarious, as he was proving now.

“Say, Sherm,” Katy prodded, “why don’t you borrow Jane’s riding skirt too?”

“Yes, Sherm, go the lengths–you’d make a beautiful girl,” teased Alice.

Sherm laughed. “Chicken Little may have something to say to that!”

“I thought you’d be making excuses.”

Sherm was not to be bluffed. “Not much, hand it over, Chicken Little.”

“You never can get into it, Sherm.”

“What’ll you bet?”

“It’ll be too small around the waist.”

Dr. Morton stopped and Jane hastily slipped off the skirt, presenting rather a funny appearance herself with her habit basque and the blue lawn dress showing beneath. Sherm dismounted, turning Calico over to Ernest to hold. The entire party shouted when Jane reached up on tiptoe to throw the clumsy skirt over his head. Sherm neglected to hold it, and the shot in the hem promptly dropped it to the ground.

“Gee,” exclaimed Sherm, “the cranky thing seems to have a mind of its own.”

“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 88brothers 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 buttoned and Sherm heaved a sigh of relief–a disastrous sigh–it sent the button 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.

89He was a sight for the gods when he finally remounted. But he carried it off with a dash, assuming various kittenish airs and coquetries, even waving saucily at two cowboys who passed them and turned to stare in bewilderment at his bizarre costume.

The ride home passed 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 90is 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 Dick 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.”

91“But he had awfully good marks,” added Gertie, “and Prof. Slocum 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 Dick 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.

Dick 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 appetite before 92you have been here many days, Alice. You’ll be busy satisfying your own. You will find country air a marvellous tonic,” Dr. Morton assured 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?” Dick’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.”

“Dick, 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 93week, 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?”

“Dick, 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? Dick 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.”

“We’ve got a package for you, too, but I don’t know what’s in it. Mother wouldn’t let us see. Let’s go unpack quick, Gertie, and find out.”

“And I want to show my trousseau! Shall I get it out to-night, Mrs. Morton, or wait till morning?”

“To-night, Alice,” spoke up Marian, “I want to see it and I’ll be busy in the morning. I am pining to see some pretty clothes.”

94Dick had already vanished into the upper regions and he called down airily: “Doors open, ladies. World renowned aggregation of feminine wearing apparel, including one pair of the very latest hoops and the youngest thing in bustles, now on exhibition.”

Mrs. Morton looked shocked, and Marian and Alice tried to control their amusement. “The heathen, I warned him to be good.” Alice laughed in spite of herself with an apologetic glance at Mrs. Morton. The girls had bolted upstairs at the first words of Dick’s invitation.

“Come on, Mother, don’t mind Dick’s nonsense,” said Marian, linking her arm in hers and gently drawing her up. “It will do you good to see Alice’s pretty things.”

Dick held the door open for them with a deep salaam. Alice held up a finger warningly with an imperceptible gesture in Mrs. Morton’s direction. He shrugged his shoulders repentantly.

“Now, Alice, if you’ll just dig out my particular parcel I’ll vamoose. Women complain that men never take an interest in their affairs and then if a misguided chap tries to act intelligent, he is snubbed.” Dick’s tone sounded injured.

Alice kissed the tip of his ear and shoved him out of the way. “You’re so big, Dick, there’s never room for anyone else when you’re around.”

95Alice deftly opened trays and lids, pulling out protecting papers; she handed Dick a large flat parcel.

Dick received it with his hand on his heart, then striking an oratorical attitude, addressed Jane in the formal tone he used in court.

“Ladies, Miss Chicken Little Jane Morton, I have the great honor on this suspicious occasion to present to you on behalf of my unworthy self, a slight testimonial of my deep respect and undying affection–Alice, stop winking at Marian–Mrs. Morton, is it fitting for a wife to stop the flow of her husband’s eloquence by winking? I wish you’d take Alice in hand. I think she needs some lessons in the proprieties. As I was saying, I wish to present this trifle to you, and the only expression of gratitude I desire in return, is thirty kisses to be delivered one daily, on or before the twelfth hour of each day, to which witness my seal and hand.”

With another bow, he resigned the parcel to Chicken Little.

She promptly tendered one kiss in advance. Then stripped off the papers with eager fingers. A charming white leghorn hat appeared. It was faced with pale blue and trimmed with knots of apple blossoms and black velvet ribbon.

“How charming!” exclaimed Mrs. Morton.

96“Dick, I didn’t suppose you had such good taste!” added Marian.

“Try it on quick, Chicken Little.”

Chicken Little’s shining eyes and clear, fair skin fitted like a charm under the pale blue.

Dick was jubilant. “I saw that hat in a shop window and I thought it looked exactly like Chicken Little. Who says a man can’t pick out a hat?”

He departed without waiting for any disparaging remarks.

Alice’s present came next, a charming muslin with sash and hair ribbons the exact shade of the blue hat facing.

“If it only fits, Jane. I left some to let out in the hem, but you are bigger every way than I thought. I tried it on Katie.”

“Changing it a little at the waist will make it perfect,” Marian reassured her.

“Oh, I am so glad it is snug, and just the right length, Alice. Mother–” Chicken Little stopped suddenly, she couldn’t be criticising mother before company. “You see I grow so dreadfully fast that Mother has to make everything too big so it’ll last a while.”

Marian supplemented this explanation later to Alice.

“Poor child, Mother Morton does make her clothes too big! And it doesn’t do a bit of good 97for they hang on her the whole season and by the next they’re either worn or faded–and she generally manages to out-grow them, in spite of their bigness.”

The girl’s parcel was found to contain candy and a duck of a fan.

But Alice’s wedding things soon put everything else in the shade. The dainty sets of underwear with their complicated puffs and insertings, frilled petticoats, silk and muslin and poplin gowns, hats and parasols, lay in a rainbow colored heap on the bed and chairs.

“Alice,” said Marian, caressing some of the dainty lingerie, “who is going to iron all these puffs and ruffles? It would take hours to do them right, especially the petticoats.”

“I know, Marian–I asked Aunt Clara the same question. And do you know what I have done?”

Her audience looked interested.

“I just went down town the minute I got to Centerville and got some nice strong muslin and I’ve been making it up perfectly plain except for a tiny edge. They are heaps more comfortable–and I wear these others for best. Why, I couldn’t keep a maid and hurl all that stuff at her every week!”

“Are they wearing hoops pretty generally?” Mrs. Morton inquired as Alice laughingly held a pair up for inspection.

98“Yes, and bustles too. See this buff poplin with the panniers just has to have a bustle. Thank goodness they’re young yet, as Dick says, but I suppose they’ll keep on getting bigger.”

“Oh, I should think they’d be so hot and horrid.”

“They are, but the hoops are delightfully cool, only you have to be on your guard with the treacherous things or they swing up in front when you sit down, in a most mortifying fashion.”

“I have a pair to wear with my muslin dresses–it makes them stand out beautifully,” said Katy complacently. “But Mother wouldn’t let Gertie have any. She said she was too young.”

“I didn’t want the old things,” Gertie protested. “And you wouldn’t have got yours if you hadn’t teased perfectly awful, and I heard Mother say she guessed you’d soon be sick enough of them.”

“I agree entirely with your mother, Gertie, I consider them unsuitable for little girls. But they do set off a handsome dress to advantage. I remember during the war we used to wear such large ones we could hardly get through a door with them.”

“Mother Morton, I bet you were a lot more frivolous than we are now.” Marian put her hand lovingly on the wrinkled one that was smoothing the folds of a rich silk.

Mrs. Morton smiled. “Well, we had our pretty things. Alice’s dresses are lovely, but she hasn’t 99anything more elegant than my second day dress. It was a brown and silver silk brocade with thread lace chemisette and under sleeves. And my next best was apple green and pink changeable, trimmed in yards and yards of narrow black velvet ribbon all sewed on by hand.”

“How I should love to have seen them!” Alice smiled wistfully. “You know I didn’t have any of my mother’s things.”

“Come on, girls, it’s getting late, let’s help Alice put her treasures away. They couldn’t be nicer, Alice, and I think you are going to be a very happy woman to make up for that desolate girlhood of yours.”

Marian was already folding the garments. They were soon laid away snugly in trunk and closet and drawers, and the whole family packed off to bed to be ready for the early farm breakfast on the morrow.