When Dick Harding appeared they ducked down modestly behind the bannisters and yelled at him.
“I thought you were coming to the station tomorrow,” Chicken Little reproached him.
“I am, Miss Morton, wild horses couldn’t keep me away, but I wanted to have a little visit with your father and mother tonight. I will see you off tomorrow.”
Chicken Little was awake early the next morning in spite of their late hours. The child had been wakeful, partly because she was unused to sleeping with anyone, partly because the unknown life ahead was beginning to oppress her vaguely.
Katy and Gertie were still sleeping peacefully so she wriggled out quietly and dressing herself, slipped over into the dear old yard she was so soon to leave for good. She took a last swing under the old apple trees, digging the tips of her toes into the worn place in the sod and listening to the birds in the branches overhead. There was a little choke in her throat as she stared at the alley fence, and the fence corner by the street where the remains of her last play house were still strewn about. She didn’t like this new feeling, and getting out of the swing, she went over among the flower beds to cheer herself up. There a riot of autumn blossoms sparkled with dew drops in the early morning sunshine.
“I’ll pick some pansies and mignonette for mother,” she said half aloud, “she loves them so.”
She picked till her hands were full of the purple and yellow and white flower faces and the fragrant green spikes. Then she laid her cluster down in the shade and fell to making morning-glory ladies with larkspur hats to match their gowns. A whistle from the fence disturbed her. She looked up and saw Pat Casey waving to her.
“I’ve got something for you.”
She went to the fence.
“Hold your skirt,” Pat commanded. She did so and Pat dropped in a handful of big yellow plums.