“But you promised, Mother.”
“I don’t care if I did; you’ve been a very naughty little girl and——”
“But you promised and you’ll be telling a wrong story your ownself if you don’t let me. And you never told me I couldn’t cut pieces off my hair-ribbons—and I asked you for some old ones and you said: ‘Run along and don’t bother’.” Chicken Little faced her mother flushed and defiant.
Mrs. Morton’s face was equally red with exasperation. The child’s logic was not easy to gainsay.
“Very well,” she said with asperity, “you may go after your practicing, as I said, but you will be punished later. You understand—later!”
It was in a more chastened frame of mind, that Chicken Little joined the others in the back yard after her practice hour was over. She had spent so much of the hour wondering what her mother was going to do to her, that the hour had really slipped away rather quickly.
The three boys had the brick part of the furnace all done when she appeared. They were carefully fitting into place the rusty piece of stove-pipe which was the crowning glory of the structure. Katy and Gertie were seated on an old barrel turned over on its side, watching the process. They made room for Chicken Little between them.