Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/71

 an old horse-collar, two in the manger of one of the Welsh ponies, wet with his slobber.

They set out like children, Derek carrying the eggs in his hat. They took a roundabout way to the shack through the arching blackberry and thimbleberry canes. Two babies rolled on a blanket on the beaten earth, by the door, tended by an older child. The idiot boy, perched in the crotch of an apple tree, stared blinking at the sky.

"Where shall we set her?" asked Derek.

"Under my bunk," she chuckled. "It's nice an' dark there."

"Oh no. I'll get a coop and set her in the orchard."

"The ole woman'd find her there first thing. I want her under my bunk." She stroked the hen's head with a brown, supple hand.

"Very well. Which is your bunk?" They went into the dim hut, stuffy with the smell of straw and old clothes.

"Beulah and Alma and me sleeps in this one," she said, crouching before one of the lower bunks. "You hold the hen."

He held the warm bundle of feathers while she dragged forth an empty box and half-filled it with straw pulled from her bed. Derek felt hypnotized by her soft, swift movements. She talked in a little muttering way to herself as she arranged the nest:

"Here's nice yaller straw already warmed—here's a nasty ole thistle—get out you ole pricky thistle on the floor—I hope Alma will step on you—here's a pigeon's feather sure enough—that brings luck—come lazy-bones—" reaching up for the hen—"get on your eggs an' mind you hatch 'em all out or Durek will pluck you alive, won't you, Durek?"

Derek lit a cigarette to drown the odors of the shack. "Who told—you—my name?" he asked, between puffs.

"I heerd Phœbe an' Bob Gunn talkin' about you an' they