"Don't you remember that letter I got from Carol? You don't remember a single thing about it, do you? He wrote to ask me if I wouldn't come on some time and go to a Navy hop with him. He said he was asking me in time so I couldn't promise anybody else." "It strikes me Carol is getting mighty fresh." Chicken Little stole a surprised glance at Sherm. "I don't see anything fresh about that--I think it nice of him to remember me so long. My, I used to think Carol was the most wonderful thing. I hung a May basket to him the last spring we were in Centerville." "You did? Why, I thought I got yours. Who hung mine?" "Gertie. I guess she won't mind if I tell--it's been so long." Sherm whistled. After a little he inquired rather sheepishly: "Say, Chicken Little, you don't like Carol best now, do you?" Chicken Little looked up hastily. She was disgusted to feel her face growing hot. "Why, Sherm--I haven't seen Carol for four years. I don't know what I should think of him now." Then, seeing the hurt look in Sherm's eyes, she added: "I guess I'd have to like him pretty awfully well, if I did." * * * * * Captain Clarke was gone two weeks and he had added only two facts to those they had been able to piece together. He had accidentally run across an old friend. This friend had supposed him dead all these years, and could scarcely believe his own eyes when he saw him. From him, he learned that his wife had also believed him dead before she would consent to leave New York. This friend told him he had suspected that her money was running low and had offered to help her, but she refused. He thought, after hearing the Captain's story, that she must have had barely enough left to take her home, and that this explained why she was walking to the wharf instead of taking a hack, the day she was run down. Sherm stayed on with the Morton's until the following week when he set out with his new-found father to visit his adopted family. Youth recovers readily from its sorrows. It was almost the old Sherm who raised his cap to Chicken Little as the train got under steam and slid away from the long wooden platform. "O dear!" she exclaimed, "seems to me I haven't done anything this whole year but see somebody off. I think it ought to be my turn pretty soon." "Have a little patience, Humbug," said her father, "your turn is almost here. It is hard for me to realize how fast my baby is growing up." Chicken Little liked the sound of those words--"growing up." There was something magical about them. They lingered in her mind for days.