“I know I’ll be lots stronger on a farm,” she declared. “I shall have chickens and make butter. You can all come out and spend the summers—won’t that be grand?”
Dr. Morton had offered to buy a ranch for Frank taking over their cozy Centerville home in part payment. Ernest had been taken into the family councils and understood all this. He was a reserved serious lad who could be depended upon not to talk. But Chicken Little was not so favored. She knew only that Father was going on a long journey out west, and she did not concern herself as to his errand.
During the weeks of worry over Ernest’s eyes and the deeper anxiety over Marian’s tragic weakness, Chicken Little was left much to her own devices. Mrs. Morton was too overburdened and harassed to give the child the usual care and oversight. Sewing lessons were dropped entirely and practising was so irregular that her music teacher was in despair. Fortunately the days were short and Jane didn’t have much time out of school hours to get into mischief. While Ernest was shut in, she spent most of her play time faithfully trying to amuse him. But after he got out she proved the truth of the old adage of Satan and the idle hands.
Mrs. Morton always watched Chicken Little’s reading most carefully for the child bade fair to be as much of a bookworm as Ernest. She was never permitted to borrow books from other children without having Mother look them over.
Miss Brown’s room at school was cursed with the usual abnormal pupil in a silly overgrown girl called Sary Myers. Sary’s parents were shiftless and ignorant people and though Sary was almost fifteen years old, and a woman in size, she was still among children of ten and eleven.
She was a good-natured girl, always willing to pet and humor the little girls, and they liked her in a half contemptuous patronizing way. Sary came to school one day with a book done up carefully in a newspaper. She was very mysterious about it taking it out of her desk when Miss Brown’s back was turned, pointing to it with smirks and nods till the little girls were so curious, they could hardly wait for recess to see the wonderful volume.