nse into her head, Dick. She is a born duck now
and is forever teasing to go wading," Mrs. Morton had replied.

"Why we'll have to call you Ducky Daddles instead of Chicken Little,"
said Dick.

Mrs. Morton repeated the incident to Mrs. Halford the following day.

"Children certainly do have the craziest notions. Chicken Little has
been fretting all spring to go out in the rain. I suspect several slight
colds she has had are due to experiments of that kind." Mrs. Morton
looked both amused and annoyed.

"Yes, Katy and Gertie have had the same craze--I guess it's natural. I
remember the spring rains used to have the same attraction for me when I
was a child. My father used to say children should be born
web-footed--they love water so. Puddles do look tempting. I think the
thing that cured me was one of those dashing spring showers that bring
the earthworms out. Some kind child made me believe they rained down. I
loathed the slimy things. You couldn't get me out doors, if it so much
as looked like rain, for weeks after. I kept imagining the crawly
things dropping down on my hair and face. Ugh! I remember just how I
felt even yet."

"That might be a good way to cure our would-be ducklings."

"No, I don't think so--fear is never the best way to cure a child, and I
like my girls to love rain as well as shine. But I've been wondering if
it might not be a good idea to let them go out once in a good hard
thunder shower just to get it out of their systems--though, of course,
there would be fear in that, too."

Some two weeks after this conversation between the mothers, Chicken
Little was spending Saturday morning at the Halfords'. The children were
playing keep house out under the gooseberry bushes. The bushes were very
old and tall. Mr. Halford kept them trimmed up underneath, forming leafy
aisles about three feet high. Here the little girls delighted to set up
their doll goods in the late spring and early summer.

They had everything arranged to their taste on this particular morning.
They had settled down in charge of a most extensive dolls' hospital,
using the aisles between the rows of bushes for wards and the green
gooseberries for pills--a most convenient arrangement because the supply
of medicine never gave out. But, alas, before Dr. Katy had time to
inspect a single ward, big drops began to patter down, and Gertie's
cherished Minnie, suffering from a terrible attack of pneumonia, was
well sprinkled before her anx