They passed a greenhouse en route and Dick asked Jane if she thought her mother would mind her going in with him a moment.
Chicken Little adored going through the greenhouse. She often stopped outside on her way to school to look at the flowers, but children were not encouraged inside. She wondered what Mr. Harding was going to do with the heliotrope and verbena he was selecting so lavishly. He was having the flowers made into two bouquets, one big and one little. Her curiosity was soon satisfied.
“Will you do something for me, Chicken Little?” he asked, after the stems had been securely wrapped in tinfoil and the bouquets adorned with their circlets of lace paper. “Will you give this to Miss Fletcher with Dick Harding’s compliments?” handing her the big one. “And will you please beg Miss Jane Morton to accept this with my best love?” Dick grinned as he presented the tiny cluster with an elaborate bow.
Chicken Little was in raptures but the commission to Alice recalled the latter’s troubles. Childlike she unburdened herself to Dick Harding.
She found him a most sympathetic listener.
“Come over here and sit down and tell me all about Alice. I heard something the other day about Gassett and the stock certificates, but I didn’t know Miss Fletcher was the heroine.”
Chicken Little’s account was a trifle disconnected and liberally interspersed with “Alice says” and “Father says,” but Dick Harding being a lawyer had no difficulty in arriving at the facts. He was vastly interested and asked many questions.
“This uncle’s name is Joseph Fletcher and he owns a factory in Cincinnati? That must be the Fletcher Iron Works.”
Dick Harding pondered awhile, whistling softly to himself.
“You say Alice is too proud to write to her uncle because he didn’t treat her mother right?”