Alice smiled but went on fluting the edge of an apple pie with a fork.
“Please tell me some more, Alice. Did your mother get awful hungry? Was that why you brought us some supper?”
“How do you know I brought you any supper?”
“’Cause. It was you—wasn’t it, Alice?”
“Yes, Jane, and I expect your mother would be very angry with me if she knew. But I can’t bear to have anybody go hungry since Mother—and I know how it feels myself—there’s Katy whistling, you’d better run along.”
Katy’s smooth brown head appeared above the high board fence on her side of the alley that divided the Morton and Halford places. Chicken Little promptly mounted the top of their fence by the aid of a convenient wood pile.
Few days passed in which the children did not visit across the alley. They were not permitted to go outside their own yards without leave, but no embargo had been placed upon the fences. So they sweetened the days when permission to visit was denied by consoling each other across the alley. The result of this conference sent Chicken Little scurrying in to her mother.
Mrs. Morton sat by one of the long French windows with a small writing desk on her lap, busily writing a letter.
“Um—n—yes—what did you say?”
“May I have ten cents, Mother? We’re going to start a millinery store and you can get a lot of the loveliest little roses and forget-me-nots down to Mrs. Smith’s for ten cents. They fall off the wreaths you know. Grace Dart has promised to buy a hat and Katy’s Cousin Mary said maybe she would, and it’s Saturday and we can work all day—say, will you, Mother?”