“Poor lad,” he said in response to her look, “his 217father is no better–will be a helpless invalid to the end, I judge, more from what Mrs. Dart doesn’t say than from what she does. I’m afraid their affairs are in bad shape. Dart’s illness must have cost enormously and they have had no man to look after their business. She writes that Sue is to be married quietly next month. She says they are sadly disappointed not to have Sherm home for this event, but feel that he will be better off to stay with us this winter, and she can hardly afford to have him come so far just for a short visit. There is something sort of queer about the letter–something mysterious, as if she were keeping the really important facts to herself. See what you make of it, Frank.”
He handed the letter to Frank, who had just walked in with Jilly perched on his shoulder.
Chicken Little did not wait for Frank’s verdict, she slipped out the door in search of Sherm. Her first guess was the stables and she made a hurried survey of stalls and hay mow. He was not there. She tried the orchard next, then the arbor. Perhaps he had taken one of the ponies and gone for a ride. No, she remembered both Calico and Caliph had whinnied as she went by their stalls. He might have walked down the lane. She went clear to the ford and hunted among the trees for a short distance up and down the bank. He was nowhere in sight. Coming back, she caught sight of the tops of the 218Weeping Willows and, remembering that Sherm sometimes went there Sundays with a book, she stole up quietly. He had thrown himself down on the ground under the interlacing branches. No, he was not crying–just lying perfectly still, staring up into the boughs above him with such misery in his face, it hurt her to see him.
She hardly knew what to do. She knew Ernest generally preferred to be let alone when things went wrong, but then Ernest had never come up against any real trouble. She suspected that Sherm’s was very real. Chicken Little watched him for several minutes, undecided. He did not stir. Finally, she decided she didn’t care whether Sherm wanted her round or not, she wasn’t going to go off and leave him to grieve all alone.
“Sherm,” she called softly. The boy raised up on his elbow. “What do you want?” he asked rather gruffly.
His manner didn’t suggest any longing for her society, but she persevered. “I won’t bother you but just a minute, Sherm, but I’m awful sorry–about your father–and college and everything.”
Sherm did not answer or look at her. The tender note of sympathy in her voice was imperilling his self-control. He didn’t mean to play the baby, especially before a girl. But the braver the boy was, the more Chicken Little burned to comfort him. She 219stood for a moment staring at him helplessly, the tears welling up into her own eyes. Then on a sudden impulse she dropped down beside him, and before he could protest, began to stroke his hair. Sherm tolerated the caressing fingers for a few minutes, but his pride would not let him accept even this comforting. He dabbed his eyes fiercely. “Don’t, Chicken Little, don’t! You’re a trump to stand by a fellow this way. I am all right–I just got to thinking about Father–and Sue’s going.”
Sherm would have carried it off beautifully if he hadn’t attempted a smile, but his heart was too sore to quite manage that. The smile vanished in a hasty gulp, and, burying his face on his arm, he had it out.
Chicken Little’s eyes were redder than Sherm’s when she got up to go back to the house. Sherm noticed her tear-stained appearance. “Wait a minute,” he ordered bruskly. He ran down to the spring stream just beyond the willows and soaking and rinsing out his handkerchief, brought it dripping to her. “Mop your eyes, Jane, they look awful. There–that’s better. I’ll be along pretty soon!”
Mrs. Morton had not considered it necessary to inform Katy and Gertie that she had also written to their mother, asking if their visit might be prolonged until the last of August. Mrs. Morton was firm in the opinion that every detail of children’s 220lives should be settled by their elders for their best good, and she expected the children to be properly thankful. Her expectations had not always been realized with her own children–all three having often very definite ideas of their own as to what they wanted and what they didn’t want. But in this instance she was not disappointed. The joy was general when Mrs. Halford wrote that the girls might remain until the twenty-eighth, when a business friend of Mr. Halford’s would be coming through Kansas City, and would meet the girls there and bring them on home. To be sure, Gertie had a bad half hour thinking how much longer it would be before she could see Mother, but she soon forgot all this in the bustle of preparation for Alice and Dick.