“Well now, them Jane birds ain’t so bad.” Mr. Benton remarked eating the fruit with a relish.
The morning sped by briskly. Jilly created a diversion by getting her small self into trouble. Marian noticed that she was picking something off the tree trunk and putting it into the pocket of her little ruffled apron.
66“What’s Jilly getting there? Can you see, Chicken Little?”
Chicken Little twisted and peered until she could take a good look.
“Why–Marian, I do believe it’s ants! The silly baby–they’ll bite her!”
Marian hurried down the tree to rescue her offspring, but not before Jilly set up a wail of anguish.
“Naughty sings bite Jilly!” she moaned, as her Mother picked the small tormentors off her arms and bare legs. But Jilly was a sunny child, and as soon as the pain eased, found a smile and remarked complacently: “Ants bite Jilly, too bad, too bad!”
Jane braced herself firmly in a crotch where the red fruit was thickest and picked mechanically while she unburdened her mind of the previous day’s doings. She chattered about her adventures till Marian could have repeated every word of her conversation with the Captain off by heart, and might have given a pretty accurate inventory of his possessions, or at least the portion of them that Jane had seen.
Marian was genuinely interested and liked to hear Chicken Little tell it all, but she wondered what Mrs. Morton had thought about the junketing.
“But what did your Mother say, dear?” she asked finally.