on hand."

Chicken Little thanked him spunkily, but when the door closed behind
him, she buried her face in the pillow and mourned over her woes.

"I'll never try to be good again, so there, and I think they're all just
as mean as can be."

Her pillow was getting wetter and wetter and her spirits closer and
closer to zero, when the door gently opened and her father came in.

"Why Chicken Little, crying? This won't do. Come, tell Father what's the
matter. You aren't feeling worse, are you?"

Chicken Little swallowed hard and did her best to choke back the tears,
but the tears having been distinctly encouraged for the past ten minutes
had too good a start to be easily checked. Dr. Morton gathered her into
his arms and patted and soothed her till she was able to summon a moist
smile.

"Hurry up and tell me now--a trouble shared is a trouble half cured, you
know."

But Jane was beginning to be ashamed of herself.

"'Tisn't anything really, Father, only I feel so miserable and the boys
have been making fun of me."

"Making fun, what about?"

"Oh, just because."

"Because what, out with it!"

"Because I ate green cherries, I suppose."

"How long have you been eating green cherries, Jane?"

Jane considered. "Most a week."

"And don't you think you deserve to be laughed at, for doing anything so
foolish?"

"They didn't laugh at the monks--and they were grown-up men."

"Monks? What do you mean?"

"Well, I just guess they did things that made them sicker than eating
green cherries, and I didn't intend to eat enough to make me sick, but I
didn't seem to feel any sorrier and----"

Chicken Little was stopped suddenly by the expression of her Father's
face. He tried to control himself but the laugh would come.

When they had finally got the atmosphere cleared a bit, he inquired,
still smiling: "Well, are you sorry now you went to the Captain's?"

Chicken Little smiled back. "No, I'm just sorry I grieved Mother."

"Then suppose we vote this penance idea a failure and don't try it
again."

The next few days were so full of the bustle of preparation that Jane
soon forgot she had ever been sick. Further, there was a mystery on
foot. She and Ernest had not been permitted to accept the Captain's
invitation to dinner for reasons that Mrs. Morton explained with great
care to that gentleman. But he had been invited over to dine with them.
He was so reserved and silent on this occasion that both Mrs. Morton and