“She’s got you there, Mother,” said Dr. Morton, laughing. “Come on, Frank, we must be getting downtown.”
If Mrs. Morton was still English in her ideas, Chicken Little was intensely American, and while Mrs. Morton was a most loving and conscientious mother, she could never understand her rebellious small daughter. Many unpleasant scenes occurred in her effort to bring up the child in the ways of her forefathers.
Chicken Little was an athletic child before the days when it was proper for little girls to be athletic, and Mrs. Morton mourned greatly over her tomboy propensities. She did her best to overcome these by crowding the child’s playtime full of all the little womanly arts possible. But her efforts, if praiseworthy, were hardly successful, especially her attempts to teach her to sew.
These lessons usually began Saturday morning.
“Chicken Little, when you finish your practicing, I want you to come to my room and do a square of your patchwork. You know I let you off last Saturday to go nutting.”
“Oh, Mother, please, the boys are making a little furnace out in the back yard and they said we girls might help them roast apples and potatoes—and Alice is going to let us have some doughnuts. And please, Mother, don’t make me do that nasty old patchwork.”
“But, child, you must learn to sew. I should think you would enjoy that pretty patchwork—I got those bright silk scraps on purpose to please you. Why my mother made a shirt for her father when she was no older than you, and you can’t take five stitches neatly. Besides, I don’t think it is good for little girls to play with the boys so much. It teaches them to be rough—girls should be little ladies.”
Mrs. Morton pursed her lips in the prim little expression that was Jane’s despair.
The child’s eyes flashed rebelliously.