nt back to the beginning and painstakingly
dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's, a detail she had omitted in
the first writing. She deliberated for some time over the spelling. The
lines, too, ran up and down hill in an undignified manner. But Chicken
Little with a regretful sigh over these deficiencies, folded the sheets
and put them into the tiny envelope, copying carefully the address Dick
Harding had written out for her. Then she consigned the precious missive
to the depths of her Geography so she wouldn't forget it on the morrow.

It was duly delivered into Dick Harding's hands, inspected and approved.

"Bravo, Chicken Little, I couldn't have done better myself."

Jane's brown eyes had been fixed wistfully on his face while he read and
she wriggled painfully when he smiled once or twice during the perusal.

"I'm 'fraid it's pretty crooked--p'raps I could change the spelling if
you'd tell me. I didn't like to ask anybody 'cause they'd want to know
what for."

"We won't change a single thing, Chicken Little. See, we are going to
seal it right up--and pop--here goes the stamp. This letter shall be on
board that seven-thirty train for Cincinnati or my name isn't Dick
Harding. And if it doesn't make Mr. Joseph Fletcher do some thinking,
why he is a little meaner than most men--that's all."

Affairs in the Morton family went on uneventfully for the next ten days.
Chicken Little was busy in school and Mrs. Morton much occupied with
preparations for Christmas.

Ernest was full of certain Christmas schemes of his own to the decided
detriment of his lessons. He had purchased a scroll saw and patterns,
and was firmly resolved to present each individual member of the family
with his handiwork. Some of the designs he had selected were exceedingly
intricate and hard on the eyes, but he was not to be dissuaded from
using them and he toiled away all his spare moments at the fancy
brackets and towel rack. He had great difficulty in concealing the
various pieces from the persons for whom they were intended. He got so
cross about it that it soon became a family habit to cough loudly,
before approaching his room on any errand whatsoever.

The little girls soon caught the Christmas fever also. Alice helped Jane
with her mother's present, a book-mark on perforated cardboard done in
shades of green silk, which Chicken Little regarded as a great work of
art. She fussed away happily over it, tormenting Alice all the while
wit