"We ought to have at least one more hunting party," declared Chicken
Little.

"We ought--I shall feel the lack of that hunting party for years to
come, Jane. There will be a vacuum in my inner consciousness. I shall
wake up in the middle of the night sighing for that hunting party. But
you see to-day is Wednesday, and we must leave Friday, and Frank and I
have sworn by every fish in the creek to take to-morrow off for a
fishing trip. Chicken Little, there is only one way out of the dilemma.
Painful as it will be for you, you'll have to invite us to come again."

The worst of it was that Frank firmly declined to take a single
petticoat along. Neither Marian nor Alice could move him from this
ungallant resolve.

"My dear wife," Frank replied, "I love you, but I don't love to have you
round when I'm fishing."

"Never mind," said Marian with decision, "if we can't go we won't get
them any lunch. Will we, Mother Morton?"

Mrs. Morton was rather horrified at such a breach of hospitality, Dick
and Sherm being included in the boycott, but Marian and Alice both
urged, and she finally promised neither to get up a lunch herself nor to
permit Annie to.

Marian and Alice looked triumphant. Frank motioned to Dick and the two
promptly disappeared. Marian quickly followed.

"The villain! He's gone over home to confiscate that batch of doughnuts
I baked this morning. I hope he doesn't find them."

Mrs. Morton took the hint and locked up her pies and cake. But the two
boys and Dr. Morton had joined the foraging party and food disappeared
most mysteriously at intervals during the remainder of the day. A
custard pie already cut and served on plates on the kitchen table,
reassembled itself in the pie tin and walked out of the kitchen door
when Annie changed the plates in the dining room. One entire loaf of
bread vanished from the earth while Annie was trying to expel Ernest
from the kitchen with a broom.

The foragers were so capable that even Mrs. Morton ceased to worry about
the men folks going hungry.

But Marian's blood was up. "We've just got to do something to get even.
The best pool for fish on the whole creek is on Captain Clarke's land
and I know they are not going there. Let's take the spring wagon and
drive over and get the Captain to go fishing with us. He'll take us to
his own pool and with him to help, I'd be willing to wager we can beat
these top-lofty fishermen at their own game."

Alice and the girls were in