Chicken Little answered never a word, but the tears dripped faster and an observing person would have noticed that the child was digging her finger nails into her palms to keep back the sobs. But her family was too disgusted with her to be either sympathetic or observing. They scarcely noticed that she was loitering behind.
She had no definite purpose till she saw they were about to pass Dick Harding who was the center of an admiring group. This was more than she could stand, and dropping a little farther behind, she slipped into the crowd and started off in the opposite direction. No one missed her for a time as they all stopped to congratulate Dick. It was not until he inquired what the child had been trying to do in her reckless dash, that her absence was discovered.
“Oh, Frank, I am afraid we were too hard on her!” exclaimed Marian.
Frank himself looked anxious for it was fast growing dusk. He scanned the thinning crowd on the pond sharply—no little red figure was to be seen.
“She can’t have gone far!” he said now genuinely alarmed.
“Marian, you go on home with the children and I’ll find her.”
“Let me go with you—poor little girlie she was trying her small best to help me.” Harding was scanning the pond narrowly as he spoke.
“I believe she must be behind that big tree across there. She could hardly have got completely out of sight any place else.”
Dick Harding fastened on his skates and hurried across the pond to a big oak, which stood flanked by a clump of bushes close to the edge of the bank.
Sure enough, Chicken Little had flung herself down in the snow behind the tree, and was sobbing her heart out. He lifted her tenderly.