Jane had a bright idea.
“Captain Clarke,” she spoke rather hesitatingly.
“Yes?”
“Would you mind–of course it sounds awful of me to ask you–but–it’d be so much easier for me with Mother if you’d just tell her, oh, what you said about my being a comfort and not bothering.”
Chicken Little was both ashamed and eager.
The Captain threw back his head and laughed until the tears came into his eyes.
61“My dear, I’ll make this call all right with your mother, never fear, for I want you to come again. I am going to ask her if you and Ernest can’t both honor me by coming to dinner next Sunday.”
He was as good as his word but when Chicken Little went to bed her mother said sorrowfully: “Chicken Little, I shan’t scold you because I promised Captain Clarke I would let you off this time–but I didn’t think you would do such a thing–behind my back, too.”
And her mother had asked Katy and Gertie! She had told her after she came home that evening.
