Chicken Little Jane Part 6

"Carol and Sherm going?"

The cookies had limbered up Ernest's tongue.

"Yep," he answered, but suddenly remembered himself when his small sister began to giggle.

"Bet we're going hazel-nutting. Ernest, tell me."

"Sha'n't tell you another thing and you might as well let up."

"If I can get you off the sofa will you?"

The old haircloth sofa had been a famous battle ground between the children for the past two years, and many a frolic they had had on its slippery length. Ernest would entrench himself firmly in its depths and Chicken Little would tug at arms or legs or head indiscriminately in an effort to dislodge him. She not infrequently succeeded, for while he was much the stronger, the old sofa was so slippery it was difficult to cling to it.

Chicken Little did not wait for an answer now. She made a grab at his head which he defended vigorously. A sharp tussle ensued. She got his legs on the floor twice, but he still clung to the back with his hands.

"Huh, girls are no good!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed breathlessly.

Chicken Little's only reply was a dash at the clinging hands.

"No you don't!"

But he spoke too soon. Chicken Little pried one hand loose and throwing her weight on the other arm before he could recover his hold, rolled him triumphantly off on the floor.

"Anyway, I didn't promise to tell," he crowed.

Sat.u.r.day morning was a testimonial to the weather man's good nature. It was glorious with a little frosty tang to the air and a belt of blue haze over the distant woods.

Sister Sue couldn't go, but Mrs. Morton generously permitted Alice to supply her place, and Frank Morton was to take them out to Duck Creek some three miles away and call for them again after office hours in the afternoon. The children were wild with excitement. Alice had fried chicken before breakfast, and there had been such hunting for bags and baskets that Frank said if they filled half of them, the horses wouldn't be able to drag the crowd and their plunder home.

The old carriage fairly bristled with heads and waving arms as they drove off. Chicken Little sat squeezed in with Katy, Sherm and Carol on the back seat uncomfortable but happy. Even timid Gertie chattered in her excitement.

The youngsters had dressed up especially for the occasion. Sherm was resplendent in a scarlet and white baseball cap that set off his red hair to advantage. Ernest took his straw hat because he said it shaded his eyes, and much reading had made his eyes sensitive. Katy and Gertie, just alike, were trim in blue gingham with smart little blue bows on their flying pig-tails. And Jane was brown, hair, eyes, and tanned skin as well as her dress, with a red coat like a frosted sumach leaf on top.

Carol felt quite grown up in an old hunting jacket of his father's. He had stuck two homemade arrows in his belt as a final touch.

Duck Creek was ablaze with autumn leaves and the hazel thickets were full of the tempting gray-brown cl.u.s.ters, though the nuts themselves when cracked seemed a trifle green.

"They don't taste like the hazel nuts you buy," said Katy.

"'Cause they're not dry yet, Goosie." This from Sherman.

"Bet you never picked a hazel nut before!" put in Ernest.

"Well, I've been hickory-nutting three times, and I guess you've never seen Niagara Falls and I have!" boasted Katy by way of keeping her self-respect.

The children worked busily all morning only stopping now and then to chase the squirrels who came scolding the intruders for taking their winter stores. By noon Alice declared they had more nuts than they could stow away in the old carriage, if they hoped to get in themselves.

Sherm and Gertie found a tempting persimmon tree and there were some wry-looking faces till Alice showed them how to find the fruit the frost had sweetened. After that the persimmons became immensely popular, and dresses and jackets alike were liberally stained with the mushy orange pulp to which samples of the picnic dinner were added later. They spread their feast out in the sunshine, using the sacks of nuts for seats, and waging war on intrusive ants and whole colonies of welcoming flies.

"I don't see what the Lord made so many flies for," said Sherm disgustedly fishing one daintily out of the b.u.t.ter by the tips of its wings.

"My, they are thick!" said Alice. "Cover up the cake, Chicken Little."

"What shall we do now?" inquired Carol relaxing after the hard labor of eating three pieces of chicken, two hard-boiled eggs, a generous wedge of pie, and two chunks of cake.

"Do?--I should think you'd need a rest, Carol," Alice replied slyly. She had been mentally thanking her stars she didn't have to cook for Carol very often.

"I say we hunt that old cave," suggested Sherm.

"Huh, Frank says he used to hunt for that confounded old cave when he was a boy till he wore out enough shoe leather to have one dug."

"I don't care--my father says there used to be one somewhere along here, but he guesses the mouth must have got covered up when Duck Creek changed its course. You know the creek used to flow on the other side of the island there. But when they had that tarnation big freshet about twenty years ago, it cut through this side too and made the island."

"Yes, I remember hearing my father tell about that flood--it was before the war," said Alice with interest. "A lot of people got drowned and they say some of the Seventh Day Adventists thought the end of the world had come."

"Maybe the cave got washed out," hazarded Carol who was beginning to feel that Alice's advice to rest sounded good. He felt sleepy.

"Couldn't have--Father said it was quite a ways up the bank. Said he explored it once when he was a boy. He talks about coming out to hunt for it himself, but he won't," explained Sherm.

"There's a lot about a big cave in Kentucky in our Geography," put in Katy who hated to be left out of anything.

"Yep--the Mammoth," said Ernest. "Well, come on, Sherm, let's us have a try at it."

"Let us go, too, Ern," piped Chicken Little.

"No you don't--you'd get all tired out and want to come back."

Chicken Little opened her mouth to protest but Alice interposed.

"We will think up something nice to do here. We might hunt for it over on that wooded bank. n.o.body seems to know where it was--it's just as likely to be one place as another."

"We might find some bitter-sweet berries. Mother said she wished we'd bring her some if we saw any." Gertie was getting to her feet stiffly, her legs cramped from being doubled under her.

"Yes," added Katy, "she wants some sumach leaves, too. You boys can just go off by yourselves. I bet we have the most fun."

Carol had pillowed his curly head on a bag of nuts and was deaf to the other boy's urging to "Come Along." He was fast asleep before they were fairly out of sight.

Alice said they'd leave him as a guard for the nuts and wraps. She set off with the little girls in the opposite direction from that taken by the boys.

"Wouldn't it be fun if we could find the cave?" exclaimed Chicken Little, who had been studying over the glorious possibility for several minutes.

"Why, yes, you might find an Aladdin's lamp there," replied Alice teasingly.

Jane was not to be discouraged. "We might find something. Let's play we do anyway. What'd you like to find, Katy?"

Katy considered.

"I'd like to find all those silver spoons and watches the burglars stole from the Jones' and Ga.s.setts' last month. Then we'd get the twenty-five dollars reward and I could buy a lot of things."

Alice laughed.