“Your mother’s birthday comes soon. What are you going to give her, Jane?”
“Yes, and Ernest’s too, his is the twenty-second.”
“And Valentine’s day comes the fourteenth—just the day after your birthday.”
“Yes, Father says I was intended for a valentine only I was mailed too soon. I was just wondering what I could give Mother, Marian,—and Ernest. I’ve only got sixteen cents. I don’t think birthdays ought to come so near Christmas.”
“Sixteen cents isn’t much for two presents, is it? We’ll have to put our thinking caps on. Let me see. How would you like to make Mother a little tidy for her rocking chair? I think I have a piece of honey-comb canvas left that would be just about the right size—you might do a Greek border with rose-colored worsted. It’s fast work. You could do it easily.”
“Oh, Marian, you do think of the nicest things!” and Chicken Little got up impulsively to give her a grateful hug.
“But Ernest will be harder—he wouldn’t care for fancy work.”
“He wants a new base ball—an awfully hard one like Carol’s.”
“Frank can get him that. I’ll tell you, Chicken Little, I believe he’d like a nice strong bag for his marbles—it won’t be long till marble time now. But, perhaps, we can think up something else.”
“I wisht you’d come to my tea party, Marian.”