“It strikes me Carol is getting mighty fresh.”
Chicken Little stole a surprised glance at Sherm.
“I don’t see anything fresh about that–I think it 387nice of him to remember me so long. My, I used to think Carol was the most wonderful thing. I hung a May basket to him the last spring we were in Centerville.”
“You did? Why, I thought I got yours. Who hung mine?”
“Gertie. I guess she won’t mind if I tell–it’s been so long.”
Sherm whistled. After a little he inquired rather sheepishly:
“Say, Chicken Little, you don’t like Carol best now, do you?”
Chicken Little looked up hastily. She was disgusted to feel her face growing hot. “Why, Sherm–I haven’t seen Carol for four years. I don’t know what I should think of him now.” Then, seeing the hurt look in Sherm’s eyes, she added: “I guess I’d have to like him pretty awfully well, if I did.”
Captain Clarke was gone two weeks and he had added only two facts to those they had been able to piece together. He had accidentally run across an old friend. This friend had supposed him dead all these years, and could scarcely believe his own eyes when he saw him. From him, he learned that his wife had also believed him dead before she would consent to leave New York. This friend told him he had suspected that her money was running low and 388had offered to help her, but she refused. He thought, after hearing the Captain’s story, that she must have had barely enough left to take her home, and that this explained why she was walking to the wharf instead of taking a hack, the day she was run down.