Chicken Little shot another indignant glance. "There isn't anything the matter except what I told you--of course, it wasn't anything really--only----" "Yes, there is, Chicken Little, that was only a symptom." "Stop your fooling." "Don't you want me to tell you?" "No!" "Bet you do--honest, don't you?" "I haven't the least curiosity--so you can just stop teasing." Jane was positively dignified. "Well, I'm going to tell you, whether you want to hear it or not. You're growing up, Chicken Little, that's what's the matter with our little feelings. But don't forget you promised to give me part of Ernest's place this winter. It was a bargain, wasn't it?" Sherm reached over and took possession of her busy fingers. "Wasn't it? Chicken Little Jane, wasn't it?" Jane looked at this new and astonishing Sherm and nodded shyly. Sherm gathered up her books with a laugh. "Come on, your mother wants you." "She does not--and I'm going to sit here till I make a grass basket for Jilly." * * * * * September and October slipped away quietly, their warm, hazy days gay with turning leaves and spicily fragrant with the drying vegetation and ripening fruits. Chicken Little found school under Mr. Clay unwontedly interesting. He departed from the regulation mixture of three parts study and one part recitation and tried to lead his pupils' thoughts out into the world a little. Indeed, some of his innovations were regarded with suspicion by certain fathers and mothers in the district. When he advised his advanced history class to read historical novels and Shakespeare in connection with their work, there was much shaking of heads. But when he took advantage of the coming election to waken an interest in politics, the district board waited on him. If the visit of the school board silenced Mr. Clay, it did not discourage his charges, and partisanship ran high. The favorite method of boosting one's candidates being to write their names on the blackboard at recesses and noons, and then stand guard to prevent the opposing faction from erasing them. The fun grew furious. The Mortons were staunch Republicans, and Chicken Little strove valiantly to write "Garfield and Arthur" earlier and oftener than the Democrats, led by Grant Stowe and Mamie Price, could replace them with "Hancock and English." Grant was the biggest and strongest and bossiest lad in school. His favorite method of settling the enemy was to pick them up bodily and set them outside the schoolhouse door while he rubbed out their ticket. Or better still, to hold the door while Mamie or some other democrat turned the entire front board into a waving sea of "Hancocks and Englishes."