ke butter. You can all come out and spend the
summers--won't that be grand?"

Dr. Morton had offered to buy a ranch for Frank taking over their cozy
Centerville home in part payment. Ernest had been taken into the family
councils and understood all this. He was a reserved serious lad who
could be depended upon not to talk. But Chicken Little was not so
favored. She knew only that Father was going on a long journey out west,
and she did not concern herself as to his errand.

CHAPTER XIII

FORBIDDEN BOOKS AND CANDY HEARTS

During the weeks of worry over Ernest's eyes and the deeper anxiety over
Marian's tragic weakness, Chicken Little was left much to her own
devices. Mrs. Morton was too overburdened and harassed to give the child
the usual care and oversight. Sewing lessons were dropped entirely and
practising was so irregular that her music teacher was in despair.
Fortunately the days were short and Jane didn't have much time out of
school hours to get into mischief. While Ernest was shut in, she spent
most of her play time faithfully trying to amuse him. But after he got
out she proved the truth of the old adage of Satan and the idle hands.

Mrs. Morton always watched Chicken Little's reading most carefully for
the child bade fair to be as much of a bookworm as Ernest. She was
never permitted to borrow books from other children without having
Mother look them over.

Miss Brown's room at school was cursed with the usual abnormal pupil in
a silly overgrown girl called Sary Myers. Sary's parents were shiftless
and ignorant people and though Sary was almost fifteen years old, and a
woman in size, she was still among children of ten and eleven.

She was a good-natured girl, always willing to pet and humor the little
girls, and they liked her in a half contemptuous patronizing way. Sary
came to school one day with a book done up carefully in a newspaper. She
was very mysterious about it taking it out of her desk when Miss Brown's
back was turned, pointing to it with smirks and nods till the little
girls were so curious, they could hardly wait for recess to see the
wonderful volume.

At recess it went the rounds, Sary assuring them that it was a grand
story with lots about love and getting married, and that there was a
woman in it who treated a girl just terrible.

Chicken Little was not in the least interested in love or lovers, but
she was not proof against Sary's mysterious manner. She promptly begged
th