d I'm going to sit here till I make a grass basket for
Jilly."

* * * * *

September and October slipped away quietly, their warm, hazy days gay
with turning leaves and spicily fragrant with the drying vegetation and
ripening fruits. Chicken Little found school under Mr. Clay unwontedly
interesting. He departed from the regulation mixture of three parts
study and one part recitation and tried to lead his pupils' thoughts out
into the world a little. Indeed, some of his innovations were regarded
with suspicion by certain fathers and mothers in the district. When he
advised his advanced history class to read historical novels and
Shakespeare in connection with their work, there was much shaking of
heads. But when he took advantage of the coming election to waken an
interest in politics, the district board waited on him. If the visit of
the school board silenced Mr. Clay, it did not discourage his charges,
and partisanship ran high. The favorite method of boosting one's
candidates being to write their names on the blackboard at recesses and
noons, and then stand guard to prevent the opposing faction from erasing
them.

The fun grew furious. The Mortons were staunch Republicans, and Chicken
Little strove valiantly to write "Garfield and Arthur" earlier and
oftener than the Democrats, led by Grant Stowe and Mamie Price, could
replace them with "Hancock and English."

Grant was the biggest and strongest and bossiest lad in school. His
favorite method of settling the enemy was to pick them up bodily and set
them outside the schoolhouse door while he rubbed out their ticket. Or
better still, to hold the door while Mamie or some other democrat turned
the entire front board into a waving sea of "Hancocks and Englishes."

The Republicans were in the lead as to numbers, but they were mostly the
younger children. But few of the older boys could be spared from the
farm work to enter school so early in the fall. So Chicken Little
captained her side, aided by quiet suggestions from Mr. Clay who did not
wish to take sides openly.

Many were the ruses employed to capture the blackboards. Jane stayed one
evening after school to have things ready for the morrow, but, alas,
Grant Stowe was in the habit of waiting to walk a piece home with her.
He waited down the road till he grew suspicious, and, coming back,
caught her in the act.

He took swift revenge, none too generously, by forcing her