Part 16 (1/2)

”Alice Fletcher, Mr. Harding.”

Mr. Harding suggested that he should find them seats and bring them some supper. He found an empty sofa and Chicken Little settled down cozily between them. Here she rejoiced in unlimited sandwiches and cake and ice-cream until she suddenly remembered her promise to take Katy some wedding cake and started off on a foraging expedition.

Apparently d.i.c.k Harding and Alice did not miss her. They seemed to be having a very jolly half hour together. When Alice rose on the plea of helping Mrs. Morton, d.i.c.k Harding detained her to ask if he might come to see her. He was astonished at the confusion his simple request caused. Alice's face flushed, then turned pale, and her hands trembled as she toyed with her handkerchief. It was a full minute before she replied.

”I--I am afraid you don't understand, Mr. Harding. I am Mrs. Morton's hired girl.”

d.i.c.k Harding had not understood and he was very much surprised, but he was too entirely a gentleman to hurt her by revealing it.

”I should like to come, Miss Fletcher,--if it would not embarra.s.s you,”

he said warmly.

Alice seemed troubled. She looked up at him, as he stood there regarding her with friendly eyes.

”I'm afraid it would,” she answered. ”I should love to have you--but--it wouldn't be best--you understand.”

”Yes, Miss Fletcher, I do understand, and I honor you for your frankness, but I warn you I don't intend to let our acquaintance drop.

Good-night.”

Chicken Little's foraging was most successful. She secured enough wedding cake to furnish indigestion and dreams for a family of twelve, not to mention samples of other edibles, but she was horribly afraid her mother would see the bulging package in her coat pocket. It relieved her mind to catch Ernest filling his pockets, too.

”I am just taking a little something to the boys,” he apologized rather shame-facedly.

Ernest freed his mind on the subject of weddings the following morning at the breakfast table.

”I shouldn't mind the wedding,” he said thoughtfully between mouthfuls of buckwheat cakes and syrup, ”but what a man wants a girl tagging round all the time for, I can't see.”

Mrs. Morton looked horrified, and the doctor looked up from his paper long enough to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e ”What?” Chicken Little took up the cudgels: ”I'd like to have Marian round every single minute. I wish she was going to live with us.”

”Oh, Marian's all right, but I don't want any girl dearyin' me!” And Ernest relapsed into the buckwheats again.

CHAPTER VII

CHICKEN LITTLE JANE AND d.i.c.k HARDING PLAY PROVIDENCE

”Jane,” called Mrs. Morton as the child was starting back to school one noon a few days after the wedding, ”go by the postoffice on your way home and ask for the mail. There will probably be a letter from Frank or Marian on the afternoon train.”

”I will, Mother.” Chicken Little called back, but she came near forgetting it because she had something else on her mind. She never could keep two things on her mind at the same time successfully.

Alice had been very sober ever since the wedding. The night before Chicken Little had found her crying.

”It's nothing, dear. I'm just silly enough to be worrying because I can't be somebody,” she told Chicken Little. ”If I could only find a way to go to school two years so I could teach! I have been thinking of trying to work for my board, but Mary Miller did that and she had to work so hard she didn't have time to study and she got sick. I don't see how I could pay for my books and clothes either. Perhaps Uncle Joseph would lend me the money if I'd write to him--I could pay it back when I got to teaching. But I can't bear to, after the way he treated Mother.

She wrote to him when Father died asking him to help settle up Father's affairs. He sent her $500 and said that was all he could do for her--that he couldn't spare the time to come here--she could hire a lawyer. Mother never wrote to him again and we never heard from him afterwards. I've been told he still lives in Cincinnati and is very rich. Oh, dear, if I only could get that bank stock money--I wish Mr.

Ga.s.set would hurry up and do something.”

Alice poured out her troubles to the child for want of an older listener and Chicken Little sympathized acutely.