“Maybe Mother’ll lend me fifteen cents,” said Ernest after a pause.

A speedy search of the house revealed the sad fact that Mother was not at home.

The boys’ faces fell. They someway did not care to meet the little girls. Ernest twisted his scalp lock in deep thought.

“Say, I’ll cut home and ask Sister Sue for it,” volunteered Sherm, who didn’t have red hair and freckles for nothing. “She’ll almost always help a fellow out.”

The boys watched impatiently. Fifteen minutes passed. They could see from the window that the little girls were all on the front fence watching for their return.

“How’ll Sherm ever get in?” asked Carol gloomily.

“He won’t! They’ve seen him now, I bet. Watch them all running. Sherm must be trying to make it in the back way. Gee, they’ve got him!”

Sherm shook off his pursuer’s clinging fingers. His longer legs soon distanced them enough for him to dash up the stairs and shoot into the room ahead of them. Ernest promptly shut the door and bolted it.

Sherm dropped panting into a chair, shaking his head.

“Sue wasn’t there, and Mother didn’t have any small change and said I’d had more spending money than was good for me anyhow.”

The little girls began to pound vigorously on the door.

“We might tell them we lost it,” suggested Carol desperately.

“No, we won’t!” retorted Ernest. “I’m not that kind, thank you, to spend the kids’ money and then lie about it! Nope, we’re up against it and we’ll have to take our medicine,” Ernest marched straight to the door and flung it open.

“What you boys up to?”

“Where’s our money?”

“Did you get the hat to her all right?”

The little girls stood in an accusing half-circle and fired their questions in a broadside.

Ernest put the facts as diplomatically as possible. Sherman and Carol backed him up manfully, promising to pay back with the very first money they could get their hands on.

For an instant the children were stunned. Ernest remembered the look of sorrowful amazement on his little sister’s face long after the whipping his father gave him for the offense had been forgotten. Chicken Little adored Ernest and he knew it.

She didn’t say a word. She just looked. Gertie started to cry, but Katy flared up and turned red as a little turkey cock.

“I think that’s the meanest thing I ever knew anybody to do—it’s just plain stealing, so it is! I’m going right straight to tell your mother, Ernest Morton—I hear her coming!”

Chicken Little tried to stop her, but Katy was half way down the staircase before she reached the head. A moment later they heard her shrill little voice and the grieved tones of Mrs. Morton in response.

Presently Mrs. Morton came puffing up the stairs. The boys fidgetted uneasily. Ernest began twisting his scalp lock again and Carol hitched up his suspenders to keep up his courage. He alone was guiltless of taking the money, but it did not occur to him to desert his companions in distress. As for Sherm, his face got so red by the time Mrs. Morton’s step sounded outside the door, that his freckles looked like the brown seeds on a strawberry.

Mrs. Morton entered majestic and angry; her black lace shawl slipping from her shoulders unnoticed in her haste.

“Boys, what is this I hear?” The inquiry that followed was long remembered by all concerned. Chicken Little did not utter one word till her mother declared it her painful duty to tell their father. Then she plucked her mother’s dress and whispered: “Please don’t, Mother, I’ll pay it back for him out of my share from the store, he’s awful ’shamed.”

Mrs. Morton smiled at the troubled little face.

“No,” she said firmly, “these boys have done very wrong, and Ernest, at least, must be punished.”

The next morning at Sunday School Carol asked Sherman rather shame-facedly: “Get a licking?”

“Yep, did you?”

“Nope, but I can’t play on the nine for a week.”

They both fell upon Ernest as he slid soberly into his seat a moment later.

“Catch it?”

“You bet—good and plenty! Father made me cut three switches and he didn’t waste any. But I could stand Father’s lickings if Mother wouldn’t pray over me.”

Carol looked shocked at Ernest’s irreverence but Sherm grinned sympathetically.

“Mother makes me read a chapter in the Bible—but she most always gives me a doughnut or something when I’ve finished.”

There was no opportunity for further conversation. Miss Rice, their Sunday School teacher fluttered in at this moment and tactfully seated herself between Sherm and Ernest. After the teacher stood up to begin the lesson, Ernest nudged Sherm.

“Say, want to tell you something when we get out. S-h-h, teacher’s looking now!”

On the way home Ernest unburdened himself.

“You know Chicken Little’s crazy to go hazel-nutting. S’pose we take the kids Saturday—to kind of—oh, you know—make up!”

What Ernest said was not exactly clear but the boys understood.

“They couldn’t walk to Duck Creek,” objected Sherm.

“Maybe Frank would drive us. Perhaps you could get Sue to go too. Mother’d let Jane go sure if she went.”

The boys agreed to think it over and to keep it for a surprise for the little girls.