"I consider them very dangerous," said Dr. Morton. While this bantering was going on, Chicken Little was vainly endeavoring to fasten the band around Sherm's waist. "You'll just have to squeeze in, Sherm. I can never make it meet," she giggled. "I'm squeezing in, I tell you." With a triumphant pull, Jane got the band buttoned and Sherm heaved a sigh of relief--a disastrous sigh--it sent the button flying and the weighted skirt once more slid to the ground. "Drat it!" Sherm groaned. "Now, you said you'd wear it. Don't let him back out, Chicken Little," Katy urged. "Who said anything about backing out?" "You'll have to get a string, Jane. Haven't you a piece in your pocket, Frank?" Frank produced the string and by dint of using it generously, the skirt was finally secured and Sherm still allowed some breathing room. But the girls were not yet satisfied. Katy insisted upon lending him her leghorn hat and Alice contributed a veil. Gertie offered a hair ribbon which Chicken Little slyly pinned to the collar of Sherm's coat. He was a sight for the gods when he finally remounted. But he carried it off with a dash, assuming various kittenish airs and coquetries, even waving saucily at two cowboys who passed them and turned to stare in bewilderment at his bizarre costume. The ride home passed quickly with all this fun. Gertie cheered up and enjoyed the prairie sights as much as the others. Gertie seemed the same little girl of three years before except for her added inches, but Katy had many little grown-up airs and graces and evidently felt the importance of her fourteen years. "Almost fifteen," she answered Dr. Morton when he inquired her age. The two girls were dressed alike still, but Katy managed in some subtle way to give her clothes a different air from Gertie's. "I don't know just what the difference is," Marian remarked to Alice a day or two after their coming, "but Katy is stylish and Gertie demurely sweet in the self-same dress." "Personality will out, even in children," Alice replied. "They are both unusually bright and well brought up, but Katy is ambitious and likes to cut a bit of a dash, and Gertie doesn't. She is a home and mother girl. I am amazed that she screwed up her courage to come so far without her mother. I fear she is already a trifle homesick, though she is enjoying every minute, and is enchanted with the chickens and pups and all this outdoor life." Chicken Little found out these things more gradually. On the long ride home from the station they chattered busily. All three felt a little shy for the first minutes but there was so much to tell. Katy had finished her freshman year in the High School and spun great tales of their doings. Carol had graduated the week before. "He is awfully handsome, Chicken Little. All the girls are mashed on him."