ss and silver. Some of Chicken Little's own
clove pinks, mingled with feathery larkspur and ribbon grass, filled a
silver bowl in the center of the table.

"How did you keep them fresh so long?" Chicken Little asked curiously.

"Wing Fan performed some kind of an incantation over them. You'll have
to ask him."

Wing was delighted to have Jane notice them. "Velly easy keep--put some
away in box with ice all same butter."

Captain Clarke had been the first person on the creek to put up ice for
summer use and Wing was the proud possessor of a roomy ice box.

"It seems like home to have ice again." Katy was stirring the sugar in
her tea for the sheer satisfaction of hearing the ice tinkle against the
sides of the glass. A sudden thought disturbed her. "Though there
couldn't be anything nicer than your spring house for keeping things. I
don't believe our melons at home ever got so nice and cold all through
as yours do down in the spring stream."

"That's a wonderful spring you have over on the place." Captain Clarke
came to Katy's rescue. "And that big oak above it is the finest tree in
this part of the country. I'll venture it has a history if we only knew
it."

"Yes, Father is very proud of the old oak. He says it is at least two
hundred years old. He wouldn't take anything for it," Ernest replied.

"Everybody calls Kansas a new country," said Sherm, "but I guess it is
pretty old in some ways. Kansas had a lot of history during the war."

"Yes, and lots of the people who helped make the history are living down
at Garland now. The old Santa Fe trail runs clear across our ranch. You
can tell it still--though it hasn't been traveled for almost twenty
years--by the ruts and washouts. And even where the ground wasn't cut up
by the countless wheels, it was packed so hard the blue stem has never
grown there since. It is all covered with that fuzzy buffalo grass. In
winter this turns a lighter brown than the prairie grass and you can see
the trail for miles, distinctly." Ernest loved history and politics.

"What was the Santa Fe trail? I have heard you speak of the trail so
much and I never knew what you meant." Katy asked eagerly.

The Captain answered: "The old trans-continental wagon road to the gold
fields of California. You know there was a time when Kansas didn't have
anything so civilized as a railroad and people traveled by wagon and
horseback--even on foot, all the way to the coast."

"Yes," added Ernest, "an