CHICKEN LITTLE JANE’S BIRTHDAY

February was birthday month in the Morton family. Jane’s came first on the thirteenth, Ernest’s on the twenty-second, and Mrs. Morton came near having a birthday only once in four years, for hers was on the twenty-eighth.

“My, I’d hate to be born on the thirteenth. Cousin May says thirteen is awfully unlucky,” said Katy impressively, when Chicken Little told her the fateful date.

“Yes, but you see I was born on Sunday, too, and Sunday’s the very luckiest day there is to be born on.”

“Yes, Jane, ’Blithe and bonny and good and gay, is the child who is born on the Sabbath day,’” chanted Marian, who was sitting by the window sewing. “You have something to live up to, little sister, if you are all that.”

“I’m glad my birthday isn’t coming on Sunday this year,” said Jane thoughtfully. “It did one year and I couldn’t have a party or nothing. I do think Sunday is the inconvenientest day I wish God hadn’t ever thought to make it!”

“But we need one day of rest,” said Marian, struggling with a laugh.

“Ye es, but I think we get enough rest sleeping nights; I think Sundays are awful tiring, you have to work so hard remembering what you can’t do.”

“I like Sundays,” said Gertie, “’cause Father’s home and he reads to us Sunday afternoons.”

“Father takes a nap, you can hear him all over the house and Mother tells us to be quiet so we won’t wake him. ’Sides your mother lets you do more things.”

“I guess your folks are religiouser than ours,” said Katy complacently.

“You think it is more religious to sleep Sunday afternoons, Katy?” interposed Marian smiling.

“Well, you can’t do anything bad when you are asleep,” replied Katy a little confused, but bound to stick to her point.

“Not a bad idea whenever I am tempted to be bad after this, I’ll take a nap and throw the devil off the track that way.”

“My mother says it isn’t nice to talk about the devil.” Katy looked so gravely disapproving that Marian had hard work to keep her face straight.

“Oh, excuse me I’ll be careful not to mention his Satanic majesty again. Well, Chicken Little, are you going to have a birthday party this year?”

“Not a really party, but Mother said I could have Katy and Gertie and Grace Dart come to tea. There’s going to be a sure enough birthday cake with candles and my name and age in pink frosting and we’re going to have chocolate creams and all the dolls.”

“I shall bring Violet she’s got a new dress and she’s just had her hair glued on I curled it on the curling iron,” said Gertie.

“I’m going to bring my nigger Dinah and you can play she helps wait on the table,” put in Katy.

“Dear me, is that the latest thing in dolldom, to have the guests wait on the table?” quizzed Marian.

“I guess it would be all right to play she did,” Jane responded with a grin.

“Your mother’s birthday comes soon. What are you going to give her, Jane?”

“Yes, and Ernest’s too, his is the twenty-second.”

“And Valentine’s day comes the fourteenth just the day after your birthday.”

“Yes, Father says I was intended for a valentine only I was mailed too soon. I was just wondering what I could give Mother, Marian, and Ernest. I’ve only got sixteen cents. I don’t think birthdays ought to come so near Christmas.”

“Sixteen cents isn’t much for two presents, is it? We’ll have to put our thinking caps on. Let me see. How would you like to make Mother a little tidy for her rocking chair? I think I have a piece of honey-comb canvas left that would be just about the right size you might do a Greek border with rose-colored worsted. It’s fast work. You could do it easily.”

“Oh, Marian, you do think of the nicest things!” and Chicken Little got up impulsively to give her a grateful hug.

“But Ernest will be harder he wouldn’t care for fancy work.”

“He wants a new base ball an awfully hard one like Carol’s.”

“Frank can get him that. I’ll tell you, Chicken Little, I believe he’d like a nice strong bag for his marbles it won’t be long till marble time now. But, perhaps, we can think up something else.”

“I wisht you’d come to my tea party, Marian.”

“I’d be charmed to, and I’ll bring my old doll, Seraphina. She is huge and hasn’t any nose left and only one eye. Will she be welcome in this wounded state or had we better put her in a hospital?”

“Oh, Marian, will you? I’d love to see her.”

“She’s down in the bottom of a trunk, but I am sure she would be delighted to get out in the world again. What are you looking at with those big eyes of yours, Katy?”

“I was just thinking she must be awful old.”

“She is frightfully almost as old as I am. My aunt brought her to me from Paris when I was just seven. She was elegant then all pink silk ruffles with a little wreath of forget-me-nots in her hair. I crowed over all the children I knew because she was so fine, but I must be getting home. Children dear, I wonder if your mothers would mind if you ran down to the postoffice to mail this letter for me. I want it to get off on the five o’clock train.”

Chicken Little’s boasted luck seemed about to fail her entirely on her birthday morning. She got up late and was so excited over her little remembrances that she almost forgot to get ready for school. She ran as hard as she could, so hard she had a stitch in her side, but the last child in the line was disappearing inside the school-house door, when she was still half a block away.

She knew what that meant. Miss Brown had a harsh rule for tardy pupils they stayed one-half hour after school, rain or shine. And to stay in a half hour on one’s birthday with a party on foot was unthinkable. Why it would be most dark when she got home! And her mother well, maybe her mother wouldn’t say very much since it was her birthday, but Jane wasn’t keen about hearing what she would say.

She dragged herself reluctantly up the stairs, taking an unnecessarily long time to hang up her wraps and it was fully five minutes past nine when she took her seat. Miss Brown looked severe.

“You understand this means thirty minutes after school. I have told you I will not tolerate tardiness.”

Chicken Little didn’t try to catch up with Katy and Gertie going home that noon. She plodded along soberly by herself with such a forlorn air that Dick Harding, just behind her on his way to his own lunch, was struck by it, and overtook her to find out what was amiss now.

“Have to stay after school on a birthday well, that is tough. I see plainly you need the services of a lawyer. I guess I’ll have to take this under advisement and see what can be done. You know it’s my turn to help you out. Clear up that solemn face, Chicken Little, that’s better I see the smile coming. I’ll tell you wait by the school gate when you come back from dinner and I’ll think up some way to mend matters.”

Chicken Little hurried through her dinner and back to school, posting herself expectantly to watch for Dick Harding. She did not have long to wait. Mr. Harding had hurried, too, on her account.

“I have been considering this, Jane. I don’t believe it would be quite fair to the other pupils to persuade Miss Brown to let you off, as I at first thought of doing. Do you think it would?”

Richard Harding regarded the child keenly, curious to see whether she would see the point.

Chicken Little looked up at him soberly.

“No, I guess it’s just as bad to be late on your birthday as any other time. And I s’pose if Miss Brown let me go she’d have to let the rest go, too. And I guess there wouldn’t be any rule if she did that.”

“Right you are, but I think I have a plan that won’t be unfair to anybody and will still keep the birthday intact. We couldn’t have the birthday hurt you know, Chicken Little. It’s such a little young birthday it might cry!” Dick Harding smiled down at her whimsically and Jane smiled understandingly back.

“Why don’t you ask me what my plan is? You haven’t the proper amount of feminine curiosity.”

Chicken Little smiled again a confiding little smile.

“How would it do, Chicken Little Jane, if I should get a cutter with two gray horses and lots of bells real noisy bells and call for your guests first, then come here to the school after you? We could go for a nice sleigh ride before that supper party.”

Chicken Little’s face lit up as instantaneously as if someone had just turned on an electric light before it. She gave one blissful “Oh” then stopped. “If Mother ?” she said.

“‘If Mother’ is all attended to. I met your father and he said he would make it all right with your mother. So if Miss Jane Morton will do me the honor to ride with me this afternoon, I shall consider the matter settled.” Dick Harding made an elaborate bow.

Jane still beamed but found words difficult.

“I’m waiting, Miss Morton, you’d better hurry I think the bell is going to ring.”

The child glanced back at the school house apprehensively.

“Course I want to awfully, and Mr. Harding,” Chicken Little reached up to whisper something and the tall man bent down.

“I love you most as well as Brother Frank.”

“Thank you, dear I’ve never had a little sister. Don’t you think I might adopt a little piece of you?”

“That’s what Alice said. She said little sisters were so nice and cuddly I think you and Alice are a lot alike, Mr. Harding.”

“I’m flattered in what way?”

“’Cause you she why I guess ’cause you and she both know how little girls feel inside and you’re so comforting.”

“Much obliged, little sister, I know Miss Alice deserves that nice compliment and I hope I do. Are you lonesome without her?”

“Yes, only when I’m with you it always seems as if she were close by, too.”

“Happy thought! Perhaps, it’s because I’m partial to being in her neighborhood myself. There goes the bell I’ll be here at 4:30 sharp.”

Chicken Little was not the only unfortunate that afternoon. Two small boys were late at noon and Miss Brown set them all to writing long lists from their spellers as soon as the other children filed out. Chicken Little watched the clock anxiously, starting up at every distant tinkle of sleigh bells. It was a glorious clear crisp afternoon and the jingle of bells sounded at frequent intervals.

Her excitement rose as half-past four approached. Finally, just as the clock chimed the half hour, an answering chime tinkled in the distance and two or three minutes later, ceased suddenly in front of the school building.

Chicken Little ran quickly down the walk and there they all were. Dick Harding had a lovely double-seated cutter with white horses and two gay strings of sleigh bells on each horse. Packed snugly in under the bright colored robes were Katy and Gertie and Grace and sister Marian and the entire family of dolls. Dick Harding had insisted on the dolls. He said he never approved of parents leaving their offspring at home to cry their eyes out, while they went skylarking.

Katy had secured the place next to their host and Chicken Little looked enviously as she started to climb in. But Dick Harding made room for her beside him, saying finally:

“I believe I am to have the honor of having Miss Morton and the birthday sit beside me.”

A shadow of disappointment crossed Katy’s face. Marian made a little sign to Jane and the child responded bravely.

“I guess Katy ought to have the best place ’cause she’s company.”

“The queen has spoken,” replied Dick Harding with an approving smile. “Perhaps, I might hold the birthday on my lap.”

“I wouldn’t trust him with it Jane. Young lawyers always want to be older than they are,” laughed Marian.

Jane made an elaborate pretense of handing over the birthday.

“You see Chicken Little Jane has a better opinion of me than you,” retorted Dick. “Miss Morton, which way shall we go?”

The children were riotously happy. Mr. Harding let each child choose a direction to turn, and they whirled around corners and drove by each small guest’s home in great state, so that mothers and sisters might see.

Bright hoods and caps and coats made the sleigh load look like a nosegay and Dick Harding treated them all with an exaggerated courtesy that kept them merry.

They landed at the Morton front gate at six o’clock. It was quite dark but the street lamps were lit and the cheer of gas and firelight streamed out from the old gabled house invitingly.

“This was a mighty sweet thing to do, Dick,” said Marian as he helped her out.

“The pleasure is mine,” he responded gallantly, “further I’m going to claim a toll of one kiss and a half from every passenger under twelve years of age.”

The toll was paid promptly. He was most exacting as to the half kiss, demanding full measure. Marian insisted that the dolls came under the ruling, too, but he begged off. He said he felt it would be taking unfair advantage of their extreme youth.

But Chicken Little and Katy were too much for him. They declared that Marian’s doll was older than any of them. So Mr. Harding duly took a peck at Seraphina’s pallid cheek to the huge delight of the children.

The hot biscuit and chicken tasted doubly delicious after the long ride in the sharp air. Grace Dart took two servings of quince preserves but declined the apple butter saying she could get that at home.

At the close of the repast Dr. and Mrs. Morton and Frank and Ernest came in to share the birthday cake. Ernest was the only one who could blow out all the candles at one fell swoop. When the last morsel had vanished Chicken Little had another surprise. Dr. Morton went out into the hall and pulled a large white envelope out of his overcoat pocket addressed to “Miss Jane Morton.” It was postmarked Cincinnati.

“Oh, it’s something from Alice I just know open it quick!”

“Bet it’s a valentine,” guessed Ernest.

“Yes, it looks like one of those beautiful lacy ones with hearts and doves on it,” said Katy.

It not only looked, it was the very fluffiest, laciest one Jane had ever seen, with marvellous cupids and hearts, and forget-me-nots and true lover’s knots of blue ribbon. In a little white envelope inside was a tiny gold ring.

Chicken Little gave one squeal of ecstasy:

“Isn’t it cunning I always wanted a ring. Whatever do you s’pose made Alice think of it?”

“She didn’t,” said Mrs. Morton, “the valentine is from Alice, but her Uncle Joseph sent the ring. It seems he liked your letter and when Alice mentioned getting the valentine he wanted to send something too. You’ll have to write him another letter to thank him.”

“That reminds me that I saw Gassett on the street this morning. He looks pretty badly still,” remarked Dr. Morton.

“Well, he can’t get Alice’s papers now ’cause she’s got them way off in Cincinnati,” said Chicken Little.

“Huh, that doesn’t make any difference they could make her send them back,” Ernest replied.

Chicken Little turned to her father.

“No need to borrow trouble, Chicken, Alice has an Uncle Joseph to look after her now, anyway. Has it been a happy birthday, pet?”