She could hardly wait to get home and assure brother Frank of the miraculous fact. He seemed deeply interested. When he went to see Marian that evening he remarked:
“Why this unfair discrimination? Don’t you love me as well as you do Jane?”
And blushing Marian displayed her wealth of hair to a second audience no less admiring than the first.
It seemed to Chicken Little that the day of the wedding would never come. She bubbled about it till each individual member of the Morton family, including the sympathetic Alice, wished she hadn’t been told. Ernest, who was secretly almost as excited as Jane, though he considered it the manly thing to pretend that he wasn’t, listened eagerly to all her facts, but got tired of her questions.
“Girls and women are always fussing about clothes. Mother says I’ve got to wear a stiff collar,” he complained. “Anyway, I hope they’ll have a lot to eat.”
“Oh, I know they will,” said Chicken Little. “Jennie Gates said they were cooking and packing all the time at her house this week. She says Frank gave her a quarter. I wish he’d give me a quarter.”
“Ah, he’s just makin’ up with Marian’s family. You don’t have to be paid to like Marian—you think she’s the only person on the earth now.”
As the wedding day approached, Chicken Little became more and more concerned about Alice’s being left at home. She broached the subject to her mother again but was dismissed with a curt:
“It is impossible, my dear. I gave Alice the opportunity to be present and she refused. I fear she is getting notions very much above her position.”
The child was not content. She decided to tackle her brother Frank. She met him at the front gate one evening about three days before the wedding, and poured out her tale of woe. Frank considered, then patted her on the head and promised to talk it over with Marian.