spending money than was good for me anyhow."

The little girls began to pound vigorously on the door.

"We might tell them we lost it," suggested Carol desperately.

"No, we won't!" retorted Ernest. "I'm not that kind, thank you, to spend
the kids' money and then lie about it! Nope, we're up against it and
we'll have to take our medicine," Ernest marched straight to the door
and flung it open.

"What you boys up to?"

"Where's our money?"

"Did you get the hat to her all right?"

The little girls stood in an accusing half-circle and fired their
questions in a broadside.

Ernest put the facts as diplomatically as possible. Sherman and Carol
backed him up manfully, promising to pay back with the very first money
they could get their hands on.

For an instant the children were stunned. Ernest remembered the look of
sorrowful amazement on his little sister's face long after the whipping
his father gave him for the offense had been forgotten. Chicken Little
adored Ernest and he knew it.

She didn't say a word. She just looked. Gertie started to cry, but Katy
flared up and turned red as a little turkey cock.

"I think that's the meanest thing I ever knew anybody to do--it's just
plain stealing, so it is! I'm going right straight to tell your mother,
Ernest Morton--I hear her coming!"

Chicken Little tried to stop her, but Katy was half way down the
staircase before she reached the head. A moment later they heard her
shrill little voice and the grieved tones of Mrs. Morton in response.

Presently Mrs. Morton came puffing up the stairs. The boys fidgetted
uneasily. Ernest began twisting his scalp lock again and Carol hitched
up his suspenders to keep up his courage. He alone was guiltless of
taking the money, but it did not occur to him to desert his companions
in distress. As for Sherm, his face got so red by the time Mrs. Morton's
step sounded outside the door, that his freckles looked like the brown
seeds on a strawberry.

Mrs. Morton entered majestic and angry; her black lace shawl slipping
from her shoulders unnoticed in her haste.

"Boys, what is this I hear?" The inquiry that followed was long
remembered by all concerned. Chicken Little did not utter one word till
her mother declared it her painful duty to tell their father. Then she
plucked her mother's dress and whispered: "Please don't, Mother, I'll
pay it back for him out of my share from the store, he's awful 'shamed."

Mrs. Morton smiled at the