me back to live in it, Alice?"

Alice blushed and Dick Harding looked confused.

"I hope to--some day," she answered softly.

Uncle Joseph and Alice went back to Cincinnati on the fifteenth of
August. The next two weeks were busy ones in the Morton home. The old
gabled house was in the dire throes of packing.

Chicken Little could not remember any previous moving and she thoroughly
enjoyed the excitement despite the fact that her mother looked worried,
and her father was cross when she got in his way. She watched him fill
box after box with books, for Dr. Morton had a large professional
library besides the family books which ran into the hundreds. She loved
to see the crates and barrels swallow up dishes and crockery like hungry
monsters with wide-open jaws. She found even the wrapping of chair legs
with excelsior, and the crating of bureau and tables, interesting.

"Looks just like they were put in cages," remarked Katy, peering through
the slats at a lonesome-looking, marble-topped stand.

Gertie gazed about at the stripped walls and windows and gave a little
shiver. "I don't like it--it looks like you were gone, Chicken Little."

The house certainly had a forlorn look and an empty ring. Pete sat on
his perch grim and curious. He seemed to regard the bustle and hammering
as a personal affront.

"It seems almost foolish to take Pete along," Mrs. Morton remarked as
she passed him one morning. "You will have so many pets on the ranch?
Why don't you give him to Katy and Gertie?"

"But, Mother, Pete wouldn't like it. He'd be lonesome without his
Chicken Little--wouldn't you, Pete?"

Pete was not in a good humor. "Go off and die," he croaked morosely.

The family laughed at Jane's discomfiture.

As the time approached for them to go, the talk of leaving the parrot
behind became more serious. It was already apparent that the family
would be overburdened with hand baggage and Pete would be difficult to
care for on the train.

Mrs. Morton's globes of wax flowers and fruit were proving a
complication. It seemed impossible to pack the fragile handiwork and the
delicate glass shades so there would be any hope of their reaching
Kansas safely.

"Confound them," exclaimed Frank in desperation, "I wish Mother could be
persuaded to part with the old things. They always did make the cold
chills go up and down my back. I guess I have been cautioned 499 times
by actual count not to run into those globes and not to joggle