Chapter 4

CHICKEN LITTLE JANE AND HER MOTHER

Family prayers were hardly decently over the morning after the picnic before Jane Morton climbed into her father's lap armed with a fine tooth comb and a stiff hair brush.

"I'm going to comb your hair," she announced ingratiatingly.

Dr. Morton dearly loved to have his shaggy curly head brushed, and scratched with the fine comb, and it was Jane's office to be comber-in-chief--a duty she was prone to shirk if she could.

"What are you after, Humbug--a new doll?"

"No," she replied in an injured tone. "I just wanted to know what a cestificut is."

"A what?"

"A cestificut--those kind of papers we found in the cave."

"Oh, a certificate. Why Chicken Little a certificate--I don't know whether I can make you understand. There are several kind of certificates, but those were bank certificates."

Chicken Little looked decidedly puzzled.

"Those pieces of paper showed that Alice's father once owned part of the National Bank here."

"Doesn't he own it now?"

"Mr. Fletcher is dead, as you know, and the question is whether they belong to Alice as her father's heir. That is what we were talking about last night. But don't bother your small head about such things."

Jane combed away industriously for several minutes giving him sundry pats and smoothing his forehead deftly.

"Alice says if they was really hers she could sell them and go to school and be like other people. I think Alice is like other people now--don't you?"

"Alice--like other people?" Dr. Morton had been lost in the depths of his newspaper. "Alice is all right--a very worthy girl--but I doubt if she has any more chance of getting hold of that bank stock than the man in the moon. The papers were evidently stolen from Gassett's house along with the silver. It does look queer that they are still in Donald Fletcher's name, but people are mighty careless sometimes about business affairs--though it isn't like Gassett--he looks out for his own pretty carefully."

"Is there anything you could do about it, Father?" asked Mrs. Morton who had come in and overheard this last remark. "Alice seems very much wrought up and I promised her I would speak to you."

"Why, I told her last night if I were in her place I'd just hold on to the papers and see if Gassett inquires for them and if he does, make him prove his right to them. It's up to him to show they are his."

"Are they very valuable?"

"Yes, they are worth about five thousand dollars. It would be a windfall for Alice, all right."

Mrs. Morton considered.

"Well, I don't know what a girl in her position would do with that much money if she had it." Mrs. Morton was English and very firm in the belief that class distinctions were a part of the Divine plan.

"Chicken Little here says she'd go to school," Dr. Morton replied.

"Go to school! Why, Alice is twenty. Well, I think she'd better be content in the station to which the Lord has called her, myself," said Mrs. Morton dismissing the subject easily.

Chicken Little had been listening to her elders with the liveliest interest. She could not quite understand it all but she had done her best. Hurt by her mother's indifferent tone, she burst out indignantly:

"The Lord didn't put Alice in any station--she hasn't been on a train since her mother died. She told me so and she wants to go to school just awful."

"That will do, Jane; you don't know what you are talking about. I didn't mean a railroad station--I meant that if the Lord intended Alice to be a servant she should try to be contented." Mrs. Morton spoke severely, pursing her lips up tight in a little way she had when annoyed.

But Jane was not to be suppressed.

"Yes, but it wasn't the Lord--it was Mr. Gassett's stealing their money. Alice said it would make her mother cry right up in Heaven if she knew she was a hired girl. And I just know the Lord wouldn't do such a thing!"

"Steady, steady--don't get so excited, Chicken Little Jane," soothed her father, amused at the tempest. "Alice has one staunch friend evidently. Here are some peppermints--you can go and divide with Alice to even up for her hard luck. If we find anything can be done about that money, I'll promise to help her. Will that content you, little daughter?"

Jane gave her father a grateful hug and departed to give Alice a decidedly garbled account of what Dr. Morton was going to do.

"Bless the child's kind heart," said the doctor, looking after her tenderly.

"You do spoil that child dreadfully, Father, the idea of her mixing up in a business matter like this. I'm afraid I've let her see too much of Alice, but she is an excellent servant."

"Alice is a treasure, Mother, and she isn't hurting Jane any--that is plain to be seen. Let them alone--the friendship is good for both of them."

Chicken Little came home from school a few days later, bursting with news.

"Mrs. Gassett came out to the gate when I was going by this morning and said she heard we had found some papers along with the silver, and she said they'd lost some and maybe they was theirs. I just told her there was some papers with big red things on them but they belonged to Alice's father and Alice was awful glad to find them 'cause her----"

"Chicken Little Jane, you didn't go tell all that to Mrs. Gassett!" Ernest interrupted with the horrified surprise of one who is far removed from such childish blunders.

Chicken Little looked from Ernest to her father piteously.

"You didn't say I wasn't to tell, Papa."

"No dear, I knew with six children in possession of a secret, it was no use trying to keep it. There is no harm done, Chicken Little. What did Mrs. Gassett say?"

"She just said 'Humph' real mad and she turned her old fat back and waddled off to the house. My, I'm glad I am not fat like her."

"Didn't say thank you for finding her silver, eh?" asked Dr. Morton.

"Catch Sister Gassett saying thank you," put in Frank Morton. "They say she's a worse old skinflint than her husband. I've been told the Gassett girls don't get enough to eat let alone decent clothes."

"Come Frank," said his mother reprovingly. "You forget that the Gassetts are members of our church."

"Didn't I say Sister Gassett, Mother?" asked Frank with a twinkle in his eye.

Mrs. Morton was not blessed with a keen sense of humor and she reproved once more.

"Yes, but it isn't quite fitting for you to call an older person Sister, especially when you are not a church member yourself."

Frank subsided with a shy glance at his father.

Ernest seized the opportunity to impart his budget, though with a mouth rather too full of beefsteak and potatoes to make his words intelligible.

"Carol says--(swallow)--that old Gassett tackled him--(swallow)----"

"Ernest!"

Dr. and Mrs. Morton started in together, but Mrs. Morton finished.

"Don't try to talk with your mouth full."

Ernest hurriedly disposed of his food and resumed.

"Carol says old Gassett tackled him about those stock certificates and he just told him we didn't find any papers with his name on. If we had, we'd have returned them along with the silver."

"That was a mighty smart-Alecky speech," said his father. "Carol should learn to be more respectful to his elders."

"I don't see what this younger generation is coming to," said Mrs. Morton plaintively. "I can't see where children learn such bad manners."

"Probably corrupted by their elder brothers, Mother dear," retorted Frank. "But, changing the subject, I am curious to see what Gassett will do."

"Yes, I am curious about his first move myself. Perhaps, he'll come up here and demand the papers of Mother or maybe he'll send a lawyer."

"Well, for my part I think the sensible thing to do would be to send him the papers and stop all this fuss," Mrs. Morton replied.

"Why, Mother!" Ernest started up indignantly.

"You forget, Mother, that those papers happen to be worth five thousand dollars," said Frank, lifting his eyebrows.

Jane looked from the boys to her mother in horrified amazement.

"They are Alice's papers, Mother, so there!"

"We don't know whether they are Alice's or not, my dear, and little girls should be seen and not heard."

"But they've got Alice's father's name on them!" Jane's mental crater was seething and no snubbing could keep it from boiling over. "I just guess you wouldn't like it if somebody took something that belonged to your little girl."

"She's got you there, Mother," said Dr. Morton, laughing. "Come on, Frank, we must be getting downtown."

* * * * *

If Mrs. Morton was still English in her ideas, Chicken Little was intensely American, and while Mrs. Morton was a most loving and conscientious mother, she could never understand her rebellious small daughter. Many unpleasant scenes occurred in her effort to bring up the child in the ways of her forefathers.

Chicken Little was an athletic child before the days when it was proper for little girls to be athletic, and Mrs. Morton mourned greatly over her tomboy propensities. She did her best to overcome these by crowding the child's playtime full of all the little womanly arts possible. But her efforts, if praiseworthy, were hardly successful, especially her attempts to teach her to sew.

These lessons usually began Saturday morning.

"Chicken Little, when you finish your practicing, I want you to come to my room and do a square of your patchwork. You know I let you off last Saturday to go nutting."

"Oh, Mother, please, the boys are making a little furnace out in the back yard and they said we girls might help them roast apples and potatoes--and Alice is going to let us have some doughnuts. And please, Mother, don't make me do that nasty old patchwork."

"But, child, you must learn to sew. I should think you would enjoy that pretty patchwork--I got those bright silk scraps on purpose to please you. Why my mother made a shirt for her father when she was no older than you, and you can't take five stitches neatly. Besides, I don't think it is good for little girls to play with the boys so much. It teaches them to be rough--girls should be little ladies."

Mrs. Morton pursed her lips in the prim little expression that was Jane's despair.

The child's eyes flashed rebelliously.

"I don't want to be a little lady!" she said sullenly. "Mrs. Halford likes to have Katy and Gertie play with the boys 'cause they haven't got any brothers and she thinks it's good for them--so there!"

"Why Jane!"

"I don't care--I don't see why boys should have all the fun! You let Ernest do most everything he wants to--and you won't let me do hardly anything--and I don't think it's a bit fair--and I just hate this old patchwork!" Chicken Little flung herself down on the floor in a tempest of wrath.

Mrs. Morton's usually placid face became severe.

"Get up this minute and come here!"

Chicken Little reluctantly obeyed.

"Child, do you want to be a perfect little know-nothing? I am grieved and pained that my only little daughter has such ideas. I can't see where you get them. Katy and Gertie both sew very nicely for their ages and----"

"Yes," interrupted the child between sobs, "but their mother lets them learn on rainy days and in the summer when it's too hot to play out doors. She doesn't keep them in all morning on Saturday!"

"You have all afternoon to play."

"But we can't roast apples--the boys are going to the ball game--and they're building the furnace right now and I want to see them. Katy and Gertie are up on the alley fence calling me. Oh! Mother, can't I go? Please, please, Mother!"

Mrs. Morton looked perplexed for a moment, then straightened herself resolutely.

"No, daughter, you have been a very rebellious little girl. I can't encourage such conduct. But if you will practice your hour faithfully, I'll let you put off the sewing till two o'clock this afternoon--on condition that you promise to sit down without making any fuss and finish that square today. Bring it here and let me see if you are doing it right."

Jane fidgeted and looked at her mother uneasily.

"I don't know 'zackly where it is," she objected.

"Go hunt it."

Chicken Little went slowly, evidently oppressed by thought.

She returned in about three minutes with three much mussed pieces of silk sewn together, from which dangled a needle by a remarkably long and dirty silk thread.

Her mother examined it with disfavor.

"Where are your other pieces?" she inquired sternly.

Chicken Little answered in a most ladylike small voice.

"I--I used them."

"Used them?--what for?"

"For--silk ravellings."

"Silk ravellings?--what on earth do you mean?"

"We keep them in our Geographies and Grace Dart had the most colors--and you wouldn't give me any old ribbons--so I used them."

"Jane Morton, what are you talking about?"

"Jane Morton" looked out the window and squirmed uneasily. "I just told you," she said pettishly.

"Bring your Geography here!"

Chicken Little obeyed and Mrs. Morton hastily opened it. About every third page revealed cloud-like fluffs of silk ravellings in all the colors of the rainbow. The entire Geography was so occupied as an album for these delectable bits of color that it was difficult to see how it could be used for study purposes.

"Well, I never!" Mrs. Morton regarded all ejaculations as unladylike, but the occasion seemed to require emphasis.

"Where did you get all these?--and what do you want them for?"

"'Cause all the girls have them. I took some of the pieces left from the millinery store----"

"Yes?"

"And I cut some weenty bits of my hair ribbons and I traded for some of the mixy ones--and the quilt pieces."

Chicken Little shut her lips tight with an air of finality.

"Go get your hair-ribbons."

Chicken Little obeyed slowly.

The ribbons were shortened anywhere from one inch to a quarter of a yard. Some looked as if she had taken the ribbon and left the "weenty" piece.

Mrs. Morton's face was a study. For a moment she seemed to be struck speechless. It was only a moment.

"Your ribbons are ruined--I never saw such a child! You knew better than that and you shall be punished severely. Go right to your practising now and I'll think this matter over. But--you cannot help the boys with the furnace."

"But you promised, Mother."

"I don't care if I did; you've been a very naughty little girl and----"

"But you promised and you'll be telling a wrong story your ownself if you don't let me. And you never told me I couldn't cut pieces off my hair-ribbons--and I asked you for some old ones and you said: 'Run along and don't bother'." Chicken Little faced her mother flushed and defiant.

Mrs. Morton's face was equally red with exasperation. The child's logic was not easy to gainsay.

"Very well," she said with asperity, "you may go after your practicing, as I said, but you will be punished later. You understand--later!"