“Decide what?—tell me, Ernest.”
“I can’t because Father and Mother don’t want it talked about, if they don’t go.”
“Go where? Ernest, tell me. You’re just as mean as you can be—I always tell you things.”
“Well, I know mother is going to give in because Father’s dead set on going. Cross your heart that you won’t tell a living soul till mother tells you.”
Chicken Little crossed her heart emphatically. Ernest was quite as eager to tell as she was to hear and soon poured out his tale.
“Maybe we’re going to Kansas with Frank and Marian to live on the ranch. I hope we’ll go. Father says I can have a horse and there’s lots of hunting, quail and prairie chicken and plover—and a man killed some antelope about sixteen miles west of the ranch last winter. There are a few deer left, too, on the creek, Father says. Oh, I’m wild to go, but mother doesn’t want to a bit.”
Chicken Little was dazed for a moment.
“Would we stay there always? Wouldn’t I ever see Katy and Gertie and Dick Harding again? Why doesn’t mother want to go?”
“Goosie, you could come back here to visit. Father told mother she should come back at the end of a year. And maybe you could have a pony. I wouldn’t mind your riding mine sometimes when I don’t want him, after you learn how to ride. We’d be a whole day and night on the train. Wouldn’t that be jolly?”
“Oh, could I sleep in one of the little beds?”