“My dear, you are not a boy,” Mrs. Morton replied with a dignity that was final.
“I don’t care,” said Chicken Little when the trio got out doors, “it’s not one bit fair to let boys do so many more things than girls! You just wait, if I ever have a daughter she’s going to do every single thing her brother does. So there!”
Sherm overheard and later in the day when he and Jane were talking together, he remarked: “Chicken Little, I don’t think it is exactly fair either to hold the girls in so much tighter than boys, but your mother is right, allee samee. I have heard the fellows talk often enough to know they think a lot more of a girl who isn’t slangy, than of one who is. 200Of course, mild ones like ‘Oh dear’ don’t matter, but you see a man kind of likes to have a girl, well–different.” Sherm was getting in a little beyond his depth.
The girls carried two pails of sour milk and a great basket of parings to their greedy pigs and watched them feed without interest.
“The only reason I’m glad to go home is I won’t have to feed these horrid pigs any more. I never saw anything grow and eat like they do. They ought to be worth a lot of money after all the stuff they’ve eaten.” Katy kicked her toe against the log pen to emphasize her remarks.
“I don’t think they’re worth so very much yet.” Chicken Little was regarding them with no very friendly eye.
“I wouldn’t mind so much if they weren’t getting so ugly and smelly,” said Gertie plaintively.
Frank, happening by just then, was amused to see their disgusted expressions.
“Say, Frank, how soon will these pigs be big enough to go in the corral with the others?”
Frank’s eyes twinkled. He came up and scanned the ten muddy, impudent pigs, who were already coming up to the sides of the pen, grunting for more. “Well,” he said judicially, “I think perhaps you will be rid of them inside of two or three months, but they’ll eat a lot more from now on.”