At first, Chicken Little would not hear to Gertie's remaining behind, but finding that she would really be happier at home, stopped urging her. Jane and Katy were soon joyfully planning what they should wear. They were to go in their party frocks, each taking another dress along for the morning and the picnic. Jane was to wear Alice's gift. Katy had a dainty ruffled muslin with cherry-colored sash and hair ribbons. "I was afraid I wasn't going to have a single chance to wear it here," she remarked naïvely. The boys were busy shining their shoes, and performing certain mysteries of shaving with very little perceptible change in their appearance. Ernest felt that he could not possibly go without a new necktie, but as no one was going to town before the event, he had to content himself with borrowing one from Frank. It took the combined efforts of Marian and Gertie and Mrs. Morton to get the revellers dressed to their satisfaction. Gertie waited on the two girls as patiently as any maid. Marian was in great demand by the boys to coax in refractory cuff buttons and give a "tony" twist to the ties. "Is tony the very latest, Ernest?" "That's what Sherm says. Just make the bow a little more perky, can't you, Marian? I don't want to look like a country Jake." "Ernest, you are just the boy to go to Annapolis; you are so fussy about your clothes." "Golly, I hope I do get to go. Father hasn't heard from the Senator yet, but he may be away from home." Sherm was struggling with his tie, getting red and hot in the process. He had just tied it nearly to his satisfaction, when he carelessly gave it a jerk and had it all to do over again. "Cæsar's Ghost!" he exclaimed vengefully, "what do they make these things so pesky slippery for?" Marian laughed and Sherm colored in embarrassment over his outburst. "Please excuse me, but this is the fifth time I've tied the critter." "Let me try." Marian turned him to the light and had the bow nicely exact in no time. The girls found their source of woe in their hair. Katy, having learned that most of the young people would be older than themselves, decided to put her hair up, and look grown up, too. Mrs. Morton was horrified and made Katy take it down. Katy, though rebellious, dared not oppose her hostess openly. She contented herself with taking a handful of hair pins along and putting it up after she reached Mamie's. To be sure the heavy braids piled upon her small head looked rather queer, especially with her short skirts, which she could not contrive to lengthen. But Katy made up for this defect by an unwonted dignity, and actually persuaded a majority of the people she met that she was sixteen at the very least. Country folk gather early and they found the fun well started when they arrived. The Jenkins family had come to the neighborhood about a year before from Iowa.