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