“Well, I just guess they did things that made them sicker than eating green cherries, and I didn’t intend to eat enough to make me sick, but I didn’t seem to feel any sorrier and—”
Chicken Little was stopped suddenly by the expression of her Father’s face. He tried to control himself but the laugh would come.
When they had finally got the atmosphere cleared a bit, he inquired, still smiling: “Well, are you sorry now you went to the Captain’s?”
Chicken Little smiled back. “No, I’m just sorry I grieved Mother.”
“Then suppose we vote this penance idea a failure and don’t try it again.”
The next few days were so full of the bustle of preparation that Jane soon forgot she had ever been sick. Further, there was a mystery on foot. She and Ernest had not been permitted to accept the Captain’s invitation to dinner for reasons that Mrs. Morton explained with great care to that gentleman. 74But he had been invited over to dine with them. He was so reserved and silent on this occasion that both Mrs. Morton and Marian wondered at Jane’s devotion. After dinner he had a long conversation with Dr. Morton and Ernest, and no teasing on Jane’s part could extract the faintest hint from either as to what it had been about.
“It was about your going to Annapolis, I bet.”
“Nope, you’re a long way off. We didn’t say anything more than what you and Mother heard. Father’s written to the Senator. Captain Clarke got him all enthused; the Captain promised to write, too. But you’ll never guess the other, and it has something to do with you.”
She had been obliged to give it up. Ernest had at length reached an age where he could keep a secret. The exasperating part of it was that Ernest was going over to Captain Clarke’s every evening and she wasn’t asked once. Her pride was so hurt that she came near being sorry she had gone to see the Captain.
The evening before the fateful twentieth, Mrs. Morton and Jane were putting the last touches on the guest room and on Chicken Little’s own chamber, which Katy and Gertie were to share with her. The fresh fluted muslin curtains were looped back primly. The guest room had been freshly papered with a dainty floral design, in which corn flowers 75and wheat ears clustered with faint hued impossible blossoms, known only to designers. Both rooms looked fresh and cool and summery, and the windows opening out upon the garden and orchard revealed also wide stretches of the prairie beyond.