The family at the ranch had a quiet holiday week. The day after New Year’s, Jane was invited to come to town and stay over night to attend an amateur performance of Fatinitza, a light opera the young people had staged for the benefit of a struggling musical society. Chicken Little was excitedly eager to go. Mrs. Morton deliberated for some time before she gave her consent. Marian and Frank and Sherm all teased in her behalf, before it was won.
Sherm drove her in, and Frank, having business in town the following day with a cattle buyer from Kansas City, volunteered to bring her home. Jane wore her Christmas present, a crimson cashmere with fine knife plaitings of crimson satin for its adorning. Frank lent her his sealskin cap and she felt very grand, and looked piquantly radiant, as she revolved for her mother’s inspection before slipping into her big coat. Sherm, standing waiting, inspected her, too.
“Scrumptious, Lady Jane, you look like that red bird I’ve been trying to catch out in the evergreen by the gate.”
Mrs. Morton shook her head disapprovingly. “No compliments, Sherm, Jane is just a little girl and she must remember that pretty is as pretty does. 320Don’t forget, dear, to thank Mrs. Webb for her hospitality when you come away. Are you sure your ears are clean?”
“Oh, Mother, I’m not a baby!” Chicken Little protested indignantly. “You talk as if I were about five years old.”
“My dear daughter, your mother will speak to you as she sees fit. Have you got the high overshoes? I think, perhaps, you’d better take Father’s muffler. Sherm, have you both buffalo robes?”
Chicken Little relieved her feelings by making a little moue at Sherm. He winked discreetly in return.
“Why,” she said disgustedly after they were started, “won’t mothers ever let you grow up? I am a whole inch taller than Mother now, and half the time she treats me as if I didn’t have the sense of a chicken.”
“Well, you see you’re the only girl in the family, and you’ve been the littlest chicken so long your mother kind of likes to shut her eyes to all those extra inches you’ve been collecting. By the way, Miss Morton, I don’t notice that muffler your mother mentioned, and I think you’ll be cold enough before we get to town to wish you had it.”
“You don’t suppose I was going to wear that clumsy thing? I can snuggle down under the robes if I get cold.”