321“No, I didn’t suppose, so I brought the red scarf Mother gave me Christmas, for your ears. They’d be frosted sure without anything. Did you think your pride would keep you warm, Chicken Little?”
Chicken Little was inclined to resent this delicate attention; Sherm seemed to be putting her in the same class her mother had. But her ears were already beginning to tingle as they left the timber and got the full force of the wind on the open prairie. Sherm was swinging the bays along at a good pace. The cutter glided smoothly over the frozen snow. She submitted meekly while he awkwardly wrapped the muffler over her cap with his free hand. The soft wool was deliciously comfortable. She neglected, however, to mention this fact to him.
“Too stubborn to own up, Lady Jane?”
Jane stole a glance at the quizzical face turned in her direction. Then she evaded shamelessly.
“Sherm, don’t you just adore to skate?”
Chicken Little was in a pulsing state of excitement that evening as she listened to the pretty, lilting music and watched gorgeously clad young people, many of whom she recognized, moving demurely about the little stage. To others it was merely a very creditable amateur performance; to Chicken Little, it opened a whole new world of ideas and imagining. She had been to a theatre but twice in 322her whole life, once to Uncle Tom’s Cabin and once to a horrible presentation of Hamlet, which resulted in her disliking the play to the day of her death. She loved the light and color and harmony of it all. She delighted in it so much that she sighed because it would be so soon over.
“What are you sighing for, Jane? Don’t you like it?” her hostess inquired.
Chicken Little gave a little wriggle of joy. “Like it? I just love it–it’s like butterflies keeping house. Don’t you wish everything was like that–pretty and gay, with all the lovers getting things straightened out right?”
“Dear me, Jane, do you get all that out of this poor little comic opera? I must have you come in to all our amateur things if you love music so.”