"It doesn't seem possible that April is almost here. Ernest has been gone nearly a school year. I am beginning to realize that I sha'n't see much more of my boy." "But, Mother Morton, he is doing so beautifully and he likes the life. You couldn't keep him with you much longer, even if he were not in the academy. Besides, you still have Jane." Mrs. Morton sighed again. "That is the worst of this ranch life. Jane is growing so fast I shall soon have to be sending her away to school. If we only lived some place where she could be right with me till she finished her education." "Oh, Mother Morton, I am glad she can't. It is the best part of a girl's education to go away from all the home coddling and have to rely upon herself. I wouldn't give anything for what I learned by being away from family and friends, and having to exert myself to make people like me, instead of taking it for granted." "I don't doubt what you say is true, Marian, but Ernest is gone, and you don't know what a wrench it is going to be to send my baby away, too." "Are you thinking of sending her next year?" "I think I must, unless I can persuade Father to move to town for the winter so she can go to the High School. It isn't merely the studies--I am most dissatisfied with her associations here." "I know--the Creek is certainly a little crude. Still I think Jane is pretty sensible. And she is learning a lot about human nature--human nature without its party clothes. It's good for her, Mother, if she doesn't get too much of it." "What's good for whom?" Dr. Morton, coming in, was attracted by Marian's earnest tone. "Jane, and the effect District Thirteen is having on her," Marian explained. "I was just saying, Father, that she is getting too old to be associating with Tom, Dick, and Harry the way she is doing up at the schoolhouse." "There you go again, Mother. You don't go about enough among the neighbors to know what good kindly people they are. Of course, they are plain, but the Tom, Dick, and Harry you complain of, are more wholesome than lots of more stylish youngsters I know. I wish you'd try to be a little more neighborly. I am constantly hearing little thrusts about our family being stuck up. Frank will bear me out in this." Frank had followed his father and was warming his hands in the blaze. "Oh, the Creek thinks the Morton family has a good opinion of itself, all right. But I have been thinking for some time that it wouldn't hurt us any to have some sort of a merry-making and invite all the neighbors in." Frank looked at Marian. "What could we have, Frank?" Marian inquired, her brow puckered a little. "Well, April Fool's Day is next Wednesday--why not get up a frolic for that evening?" "Just for the young folks?"