"Pooh, that doesn't matter, we just take some old dresses--there isn't anybody to see you, especially down at the creek. You know it's private ground and the trees hang over the pool all around so the sun only comes in a little bit. We'll get Marian to go with us."
"We do. I had a great time once last winter--Father told me the ice was too thin, but I saw a yearling calf go over all right and I thought the ice would bear me. But I guess calfie had more sense about the weak places. At any rate, I went through, near the middle. The water was up to my shoulders. Gee, it was cold and the ice kept breaking when I tried to climb out--and the men were all away. I most froze before I got to the bank, and then my skate straps were so wet I couldn't loosen them, besides my fingers were too numb to bend. I had to walk on the skates all the way to the house. My teeth chattered till they almost played tunes by the time I got to the door." Chicken Little shivered at the recollection.
"What's the cunning little stone house for?" Gertie's attention was caught by a tiny hut without windows on the edge of the pond.
"Oh, that's the smokehouse. We're so far from town that we put away a lot of meat every winter. The hams and sides of bacon are smoked there."
"The granary--for the wheat and rye. Those open log houses are the corn cribs."
"My, it takes a lot of buildings to make a ranch." Katy was impressed in spite of herself.
"We haven't been to the barns and corrals yet. I love the hay mow."
Chicken Little had not forgotten lumps of sugar for Calico and Caliph. Ernest had given his pony a high-sounding name. The intelligent beast was proud and dainty enough to deserve it. He was shy about coming for his lump, but when he once got the taste, he nosed around Chicken Little for more.
They ended the morning's wanderings in Jane's own particular bower, known to the family as the Weeping Willows because she had once retired there to cry out her troubles, and had been discovered in a very moist state by Frank, who was a merciless tease.
There were two rows of the old willows. They formed a long leafy room on the edge of one of the orchards, out of sight both of the house and road. Chicken Little had been known to flee thither on more than one occasion when she did not wish to be disturbed in the thrilling place in a novel. For you really couldn't hear any one calling from the house in this leafy fastness. Ernest had made her two or three rustic seats, and a little cupboard where she could keep her treasures sheltered from the sun and rain.