CHICKEN LITTLE JANE AND DICK 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. Gasset 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.

She wanted to talk it over with her father but Dr. Morton had been called away some distance into the country to see a patient and had not returned. She relieved her mind to Katy and Gertie on the way to school that morning and they were satisfyingly indignant over Alice’s troubles, but had no suggestions to offer.

“Her uncle’s an old skinflint that’s what he is. He’s awful rich and owns a big stove factory all by himself. Father orders stoves from there. He and Mamma say it’s a shame he doesn’t do something for Alice when she’s his only brother’s child.”

The matter troubled Jane all day and she was still thinking about it when she started home from school. She was half way home before she remembered about going to the postoffice.

There was a letter from Frank and she was just starting homeward again with it clasped tight in her hand, when someone hailed her.

“Hello, Chicken Little Jane, are you postman today?”

It was Dick Harding.

“Going straight home? I’m going your way then. Here, let me carry your books.”

They passed a greenhouse en route and Dick asked Jane if she thought her mother would mind her going in with him a moment.

Chicken Little adored going through the greenhouse. She often stopped outside on her way to school to look at the flowers, but children were not encouraged inside. She wondered what Mr. Harding was going to do with the heliotrope and verbena he was selecting so lavishly. He was having the flowers made into two bouquets, one big and one little. Her curiosity was soon satisfied.

“Will you do something for me, Chicken Little?” he asked, after the stems had been securely wrapped in tinfoil and the bouquets adorned with their circlets of lace paper. “Will you give this to Miss Fletcher with Dick Harding’s compliments?” handing her the big one. “And will you please beg Miss Jane Morton to accept this with my best love?” Dick grinned as he presented the tiny cluster with an elaborate bow.

Chicken Little was in raptures but the commission to Alice recalled the latter’s troubles. Childlike she unburdened herself to Dick Harding.

She found him a most sympathetic listener.

“Come over here and sit down and tell me all about Alice. I heard something the other day about Gassett and the stock certificates, but I didn’t know Miss Fletcher was the heroine.”

Chicken Little’s account was a trifle disconnected and liberally interspersed with “Alice says” and “Father says,” but Dick Harding being a lawyer had no difficulty in arriving at the facts. He was vastly interested and asked many questions.

“This uncle’s name is Joseph Fletcher and he owns a factory in Cincinnati? That must be the Fletcher Iron Works.”

Dick Harding pondered awhile, whistling softly to himself.

“You say Alice is too proud to write to her uncle because he didn’t treat her mother right?”

“Yes, but she wants to go to school awfully so she can be like other folks.” This phrase of Alice’s had made a deep impression upon Jane.

“Poor little girl she’s certainly had a rough row to hoe and all alone in the world, too.” Dick was talking to himself rather than to Chicken Little.

He turned to her again presently after another period of meditation.

“Alice certainly deserves better things of the Fates, Jane, and I’ve been wondering if you and I couldn’t find a way to help her out. How would it do for you to write a letter to this Uncle Joseph and tell him about Alice just as you have told me. I expect it would be pretty hard work for a ten year old, but I could help you. What do you say?”

Chicken Little was overawed at the prospect of writing to a strange man, but she was very eager to help Alice.

“Could I write it with a pencil? Mother doesn’t like me to use ink ’cause I most always spill it.”

“A pencil is just the thing it will be easier to erase if you get something wrong. But, Chicken Little, I guess this would better be a little secret just between you and me for the present. I’ll tell your mother all about it myself some of these days. Do you think you could write the letter and have it ready by tomorrow afternoon? I’ll see you after school and take it and mail it if it’s all right.”

Chicken Little thought she could. Dick Harding gave her as explicit directions as he dared as to what she should say and what she should not say.

“Remember,” he added, “not a word of this to anybody especially to Alice.”

“I’ve probably got the youngster all mixed up with my fool directions, but I believe she might make an impression on the uncle, if she can only write as she talks. Bless her tender heart. Alice has one loyal friend if she is small,” he said to himself, unconsciously echoing Dr. Morton’s words.

Jane left Alice’s flowers in the entry while she delivered the letter to her mother, but she displayed her own tiny bouquet proudly.

“See what Mr. Harding gave me!”

“Mr. Harding is very kind. Was that what made you so late?”

“Yes, we stopped at the greenhouse to get them only I didn’t know he was going to get them he just asked me did I think you would mind if I went in there with him?”

“Well, that was very nice run along I want to read my letter.”

Chicken Little hurried away to take Alice her flowers.

“For me really?” demanded Alice: “Who sent them?”

“He asked me would I give them to you with Dick Harding’s compliments.”

The telltale “he” brought a flush to Alice’s face and the “Dick Harding” deepened it. Alice buried her face in the fragrant posy to hide her embarrassment.

“Did he say anything else, Jane?”

“Yes, he said a lot. He asked me how you were and how Mamma was and if we’d heard from Frank and Marian. He asked a lot about you ” Chicken Little caught herself just in time. “I think he’s just beautiful don’t you, Alice? He walked most home with me and carried my books just like I was grown up.”

Alice hugged her by way of reply.

“I told him how you always saved the cookies for us and how Ernest said you were a brick and he said Ernest evidently had good taste.”

Alice’s face took on several expressions during this recital. When the child had finished, she said gravely:

“Jane, will you do me a favor?”

Chicken Little was all attention.

“Please don’t say anything to the other children about what Mr. Harding said or about his sending me the flowers will you?”

Chicken Little readily promised though she looked disappointed. Secrets certainly had their drawbacks.

She put her own flowers in water in one of her mother’s best vases, a white hand holding a snowy tulip, and stood off to admire the effect. Then she soberly hunted up a box of tiny, vivid pink note paper, a much treasured possession, and set to work on the fateful letter. She selected the front parlor as the most secluded spot she could find, the front parlor being reserved for visitors and holidays exclusively.

Its quiet this evening was almost oppressive. Jane stared about the room seeking inspiration in vain. The old mahogany chairs upholstered in hair cloth were shinily forbidding. The globes of wax flowers and fruit that adorned two small marble-topped tables, were equally cold. The silver water set suggested ice water, and the “Death of Wesley” which monopolized one wall could hardly be considered cheering. Chicken Little shivered, and taking an ottoman, ensconced herself between the lace curtains at a west window where the late autumn sunshine was still streaming in.

She sucked the end of the lead pencil meditatively.

“Dear Mister Fletcher,” she wrote, then paused for ideas. Writing to Uncle Joseph she found was a very different matter from talking to Dick Harding. She was picturing Mr. Fletcher in her mind as a cross between a minister and a tame bear. But Jane had a bulldog grit that carried her over hard places, and she finally achieved a letter.

“I guess you’ll be surprised to hear from me but I want you to know bout Alice. Katy says your too stuck up is why you wont do anything for Alice. But I thought mebbe you didn’t know how bad she wants to go to school. Alice says if she could go to school for two years she could teach and pay you back. She wants to go to school so she can be like other people stead of being a hired girl. Shes an awful nice hired girl. Mother says so and shes prittiern anybody cept Marian. I love her heaps. Alice says mebbe you would lend her the money only she wont ask you cause you weren’t nice to her mother and she got awful hungry sometimes. Please Mister Fletcher let Alice go to school cause she cries when she thinks nobody’s looking. She thought mebbe she could get some money for the cestificuts but Mr. Gassett wont do anything.

“Respeckfully,
“Jane Morton.

“P. S. Most everybody calls me Chicken Little. P’r’aps you’d better put it on the letter.
“J. M.”

It took two entire sheets of the pink note paper to hold this communication. Chicken Little opened and shut her cramped hand regarding it with mingled satisfaction and distrust. She had never written so long a letter before. She went back to the beginning and painstakingly dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s, a detail she had omitted in the first writing. She deliberated for some time over the spelling. The lines, too, ran up and down hill in an undignified manner. But Chicken Little with a regretful sigh over these deficiencies, folded the sheets and put them into the tiny envelope, copying carefully the address Dick Harding had written out for her. Then she consigned the precious missive to the depths of her Geography so she wouldn’t forget it on the morrow.

It was duly delivered into Dick Harding’s hands, inspected and approved.

“Bravo, Chicken Little, I couldn’t have done better myself.”

Jane’s brown eyes had been fixed wistfully on his face while he read and she wriggled painfully when he smiled once or twice during the perusal.

“I’m ’fraid it’s pretty crooked p’raps I could change the spelling if you’d tell me. I didn’t like to ask anybody ’cause they’d want to know what for.”

“We won’t change a single thing, Chicken Little. See, we are going to seal it right up and pop here goes the stamp. This letter shall be on board that seven-thirty train for Cincinnati or my name isn’t Dick Harding. And if it doesn’t make Mr. Joseph Fletcher do some thinking, why he is a little meaner than most men that’s all.”

Affairs in the Morton family went on uneventfully for the next ten days. Chicken Little was busy in school and Mrs. Morton much occupied with preparations for Christmas.

Ernest was full of certain Christmas schemes of his own to the decided detriment of his lessons. He had purchased a scroll saw and patterns, and was firmly resolved to present each individual member of the family with his handiwork. Some of the designs he had selected were exceedingly intricate and hard on the eyes, but he was not to be dissuaded from using them and he toiled away all his spare moments at the fancy brackets and towel rack. He had great difficulty in concealing the various pieces from the persons for whom they were intended. He got so cross about it that it soon became a family habit to cough loudly, before approaching his room on any errand whatsoever.

The little girls soon caught the Christmas fever also. Alice helped Jane with her mother’s present, a book-mark on perforated cardboard done in shades of green silk, which Chicken Little regarded as a great work of art. She fussed away happily over it, tormenting Alice all the while with guesses as to what her mother was to give her. She had exploded the Santa Claus fiction two years before.

“Alice, do you s’pose she will get me that wax doll? There’s a perfect dear down at Wolf’s. It has blue eyes that shut and real hair oh, it’s just as yellow. I never saw such yellow hair, but Mr. Wolf said it was really hair. Oh, do you think she’ll get that for me? Alice, I wish you’d just tell her that’s what I want.”

A few days later she rushed in pink with excitement.

“Alice, it’s gone! Do you s’pose Mother got it? Katy says she thinks Grace Dart’s mother bought it for her. I’m going to ask Sherm. Maybe he’d know. Oh, I do hope Mother got it!”

Another source of excitement was the Sunday School cantata to be given Christmas eve, in which Jane and Gertie were both to have the parts of fairies and Sherm a small rôle. The little girls trotted obediently back and forth to rehearsals, proud to be in it, but Sherm was in open rebellion, the said rehearsals taking away most of his time with the boys. Katy scoffed openly at the fairies, not having been asked to be one herself.

“Pooh, you won’t look like fairies if you do have a lot of spangled tarlatan. Fairies are just as tiny and they have weenty mites of feet!” and Katy pointed this last remark by a withering glance at Chicken Little’s feet which were beginning to be much too big for the rest of her, and were encased in stout boots with tiny copper rims on the toes which she heartily loathed. Dr. Morton had insisted upon these as being the only proper foot-gear for children in winter, and many were the jibes Jane suffered from her schoolmates because of them. Katy and Gertie wore lovely button boots, shapely if not sensible.

“You don’t need to talk, Katy Halford, my feet aren’t much bigger than yours, and I’m going to wear my white shoes and Miss Gray said I’d look lovely, so there!”

Katy, who was swinging on the gate looking down on her small sister and Chicken Little on the sidewalk outside, took three entrancing swings before replying:

“Well, maybe, but Miss Gray don’t look so awful nice herself and your hair isn’t a speck curly and I never did see a fairy with straight hair.”

Jane was sure she had, and Gertie said pretend fairies didn’t have to be exactly like really fairies, but Jane was troubled and resolved to consult Alice immediately.

Alice guessed Katy had been up to mischief purposely.

“Nonsense, Katy’s just talking about the little flower fairies. Get your Grimm and I’ll show you all sorts. Of course, fairies are not all alike any more than little girls. I’m sure you and Gertie will make darling fairies, so don’t you worry.”

But Alice decided to give Katy a lesson, that young lady boasting a year and a half’s advantage over Chicken Little and Gertie was rather too fond of lording it over them. She bided her time and did not have long to wait. Katy came over a few days later proud as a peacock over a minute pair of kid gloves, the first she had owned. Jane and Gertie followed, admiring and not a little envious.

“See, Alice,” Katy struck an attitude with both hands spread out ostentatiously.

Alice saw and hardened her heart.

“What’s the matter with your hands, Katy?”

Katy’s face lost its satisfied smirk, but she held her hands for a closer inspection.

“Kid gloves, aren’t they scrumptious? Don’t you wish you had some, girls? I’d a lot rather have kid gloves than be in your old cantata.”

Chicken Little started to protest, but Alice anticipated her.

“They make your hands look awfully big, Katy!”

Katy’s face fell. She had lovely tiny hands and was proud of them. She looked anxiously at the gloves then took one off and put the bare hand beside the gloved one, surveying them critically.

“I don’t think so,” she said pluckily after a moment gulping down her disappointment.

Alice couldn’t bear that hurt look in the child’s face even in a good cause and speedily relented.

“Neither do I, Katy, those gloves are fine! I was only teasing. But, Katy, that’s the way you talked to Jane and Gertie about being fairies. ’Twasn’t real kind was it, Katy? You know how it feels yourself now.”

Katy didn’t say anything but she understood and she remembered. She was a shrewd child and a generous one when her sympathies were aroused.

One morning, a few days later, Alice was dusting the sitting room and talking with Mrs. Morton who was seated by the window sewing. Suddenly Mrs. Morton, glancing up, saw a man entering the front gate.

“Why, I do believe it’s Mr. Gassett.”

Alice came to the window to verify the fact.

There was no room for doubt. It was Mr. Gassett ponderously climbing the steps of the terrace.

“Dear me,” said Mrs. Morton, “I suppose he has come about those papers. I do wish Dr. Morton were here. I never could understand business matters. Go to the door, Alice; he is ringing.”

Alice felt a little shaky as she opened the door to confront the family enemy. She was a trifle reassured to discover that Mr. Gassett also looked embarrassed.

“Ah, Alice, how fortunate you are the very person I wished to see.”

“Will you step into the sitting room, Mr. Gassett?”

“Ah umm, it is hardly worth while. I can explain my errand here.”

Mr. Gassett was not eager to encounter any member of the Morton family. But Alice was shrewd enough to realize that it would be just as well to have someone else present at this interview so she politely insisted.

At sight of Mrs. Morton, Mr. Gassett removed his hat, which he seemed previously to have forgotten.

“How do you do, Madam, a beautiful winter day. I am sorry to disturb you I just had a little matter of business with your servant.”

Alice’s eyes flashed at the word servant and Mrs. Morton looked annoyed. Despite her firm belief in class distinctions, she had grown fond of Alice and “servant” seemed unnecessarily offensive. She drew herself up coldly.

“Yes, Mr. Gassett?”

Mr. Gassett opened his errand rather haltingly. Mrs. Morton’s dignity oppressed him.

He had been told, he said, that some stolen stock certificates had been found with the silver, which he understood Alice was keeping under the mistaken idea that she had some claim to them because her father had not endorsed them over to Mr. Gassett personally. The bank had waited some weeks hoping she would find out her mistake and return them to their rightful owner, himself. She had not done so and it was his painful duty to come and demand his property.

Mr. Gassett shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked at Mrs. Morton.

Alice also looked as Mrs. Morton, who motioned her to answer for herself.

“Mr. Gassett, I shall not give up those certificates till you have proved your right to them.”

“But, my girl, don’t you understand those certificates were stolen from my house? I should think my word would be sufficient,” said Mr. Gassett pompously.

“I am not denying they were stolen from your house, Mr. Gassett, but I wish you to explain how my father’s certificates came to be in your possession.”

“Explain nothing!” Mr. Gassett’s temper was rising. “If you knew anything about business you could see that your father had signed away his claim to them by putting his name on the back.”

“There is nothing to show that he signed them over to you, Mr. Gassett. My father died believing he owned that stock he told my mother so. After his death we hunted high and low for it, but it could not be found. My mother asked you if the certificates were in the store safe, but you denied all knowledge of them yet you had them all the time and they did not appear in the settlement of Father’s estate. It looks very queer if they were yours that you did not say so to my mother at the time. No, I shall not give them up until you prove your right to them.”

Mr. Gassett’s face was a very expressive one. It was red with wrath by the time Alice had finished her little speech.

“Hoighty-toighty, my girl, you’d better think twice before you go to insulting your betters. Your mother’s dead and what you remember as a half-grown girl won’t go very far in a court of law. Your father made over those certificates to me as security for a debt. It was none of your mother’s business whether I had them or not. They were endorsed in blank because he hoped to pay the debt and get them back, I suppose.”

“You mean he had paid the debt, but carelessly left those valuable papers in the store safe supposing you were an honest man!”

Alice spoke hastily, scarcely daring to hope herself that she had hit the truth.

If Mr. Gassett’s face had been red before, it was purple now. He fairly glared at Alice.

“You shall answer for this, you minx. You’ll not find it so pleasant being dragged into court. I’ll give you one more chance to hand over those papers peaceably and if you don’t, I’ll have the law on you. As for you,” including Mrs. Morton in his rage, “I’m surprised that you should encourage your servant to insult a gentleman in your own home.”

“This is Alice’s affair, Mr. Gassett,” replied Mrs. Morton coldly. “She has a perfect right to say what she thinks. I did not arrange to have this interview take place here you will remember.”

It was plain to the others that Mrs. Morton was on Alice’s side.

This unspoken sympathy acted like a tonic on the girl. She drew herself up in a remarkably good imitation of Mrs. Morton’s grand manner.

“I’ve nothing more to say, Mr. Gassett.”

Mr. Gassett did not take the trouble to say good-by. He clapped his hat on his head and banged out the front door.

Mrs. Morton seemed paralyzed with astonishment.

“And he is a member of our church! Alice, I believe you are right I believe he did steal them. He didn’t act like an honest man.”

So Alice won one more friend in the Morton family.

They poured the tale into Dr. Morton’s ears when he came home to dinner.

“Well, Alice, I’m afraid you have a law suit on your hands. Have you kept your father’s papers?”

“Yes, I’ve got a box full of old letters and papers.”

“She’ll have to have a lawyer, won’t she?” asked Mrs. Morton anxiously.

“Oh, dear, how can I ever pay one?” Alice clasped her hands in despair at this new thought.

“You might get someone to take the case on a contingent fee. You don’t understand do you? Lawyers often take cases for poor clients with the understanding that they are to have part of the money if they win the case, but get no pay if they lose it.”

“Oh, that would be fine! Do you suppose I could get somebody that way?”

Chicken Little and Ernest had been interested listeners.

“Dick Harding’s a lawyer,” observed Ernest.

“He is and a mighty good one for a young chap,” replied his father.

“Yes, and he’s awful sorry for Alice, too. He said she was a plucky girl,” Chicken Little broke in.

Alice blushed and Dr. Morton laughed.

“Here’s a lawyer ready to your hand, Alice. But Gassett may think better of his threat when he cools off, though I think you may look for trouble.”

The following evening Dr. Morton handed a letter to Alice.

“O dear me,” she said, “do you suppose it’s from Mr. Gassett? No, it’s from Cincinnati. Why it has ‘Fletcher Iron Works’ in the corner I wonder you don’t suppose it could be from Uncle Joseph, do you?”

“Maybe he’s dead and has left you something, Alice,” suggested Dr. Morton.

Alice hurriedly opened the envelope, her amazement increasing as she read.

“Why, I can’t understand why how strange! Chicken Little Jane, did you write to Uncle Joseph?” she demanded, turning suddenly to Jane.

Poor Chicken Little sadly needed Dick Harding for reinforcements during the next three minutes. The entire family turned astonished and accusing eyes upon her, and it was plain to be seen by her flushed and startled face that she was guilty.

But before either Dr. or Mrs. Morton could demand an explanation, Alice had dropped down beside her and was hugging her tight, half laughing, half crying.

“Oh, you darling, how did you ever happen to think of it? Oh, I’m so happy I can go to school all I want to, he says. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me as long as I live, Chicken Little.”

When Alice quieted down, it took the combined efforts of herself and Chicken Little to explain the situation to Dr. and Mrs. Morton.

Dick Harding had guessed off Uncle Joseph’s character pretty shrewdly. The latter’s pride had been touched at the idea of his brother’s child working out.

“I am sorry,” he wrote, “you had so little confidence in me that you would not write me of your difficulties! I was inexpressibly shocked to learn that your mother suffered want. I supposed her family would look out for you both she had two brothers living the last I knew. At the time of your father’s death I was extremely hard up myself and thought they were better able to care for her than I was.”

“They were both killed during the war,” Alice stopped reading the letter to explain.

“I am sending you money for clothes and railroad fare, and I trust you will let the past be bygones and come at once to make your home with us. You shall go to school till you are thirty if you want to. Tell Chicken Little Katy was right. I am stuck up too stuck up to want my only niece to suffer. Tell her, too, I owe her a debt of gratitude for her frank letter that I shall try to pay at some future time.”

“But Chicken Little Jane, how did you know where to send the letter, and what made you think of writing to Mr. Fletcher in the first place?” demanded Mrs. Morton, puzzled.

“Why Dick Harding said ” Chicken Little got no further.

“Dick Harding!” interrupted Dr. Morton. “Oh, I see,” and throwing back his head, he laughed uproariously.