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feel so big because you're most seventeen. I heard Dick say a boy of seventeen wasn't really any older than a girl of fifteen, because girls grow up quicker. So there, you're not much more than a year older than I am!" Sherm's "little girl" rankled not only that evening but for weeks afterwards. She told Katy and Mamie in strict confidence after they had gone upstairs that night. "I'd show him if I were you, Jane," advised Mamie the experienced. Chicken Little needed no urging, but she was in doubt how to proceed. "My, I wish I was awfully beautiful and grown up. I'd make him fall so many billions deep in love with me he couldn't squeak." Jane felt positively vindictive whenever she thought of Sherm's patronizing tone. She had neglected to mention to the girls the little conversation that had preceded her remark to Sherm. She didn't consider it necessary to tell everything she knew. Mamie tittered. "Pooh, you sound as if you had been reading Sir Walter Scott. They don't do things that way nowadays. When I was in town last winter at school I had lots of boys gone on me, and I'm not a raving, tearing beauty either." Mamie looked as if she expected her guests to contradict her, but they were too much impressed with her conquests to do anything so rude. A little disappointed, but finding their absorbed expressions encouraging, Mamie preceded to retail her adventures. Boiled down, these were mainly a box of candy and various walks taken at recesses and noons, with an occasional escort to a party. They were sufficiently thrilling to the others, who had never been permitted even such mild forms of dissipation. "My, wouldn't I catch it if Papa ever caught me walking with a boy!" Katy painted the paternal wrath with a real relish. It seemed to furnish an adequate excuse for her having nothing to relate and put her on a little pinnacle of superior breeding as well. Her parents looked after her. It was only more ordinary people who permitted their daughters to run about at fifteen. Mamie was keen enough to realize this and she promptly resented Katy's patronizing tone. "Oh, Pa would have been mad, too, if he had known. But I was staying with my aunt. She didn't care what I did, just so I was on time to meals and didn't run around after dark." Katy was determined to keep up her end. "We used to have wonderful times at the church oyster suppers. One night last winter Dr. Wade--you don't remember him, Chicken
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