Page:The Country Boy.djvu/115

Rh that never even shied before at anything; so when I said to the handsomest girl in Silverton, “It’s chickens roosting on the hind axle,” she exclaimed, “No wonder; I never saw you before to-night without a chicken, and there they are really here with us now.” I thought we had lost some, as there were some missing. I didn’t know what to do as the dance would soon be over. We couldn’t leave them beside the road for fear of skunks or minks. She thought we ought to leave the chickens, but I didn’t, as one of our best old hens was in the party and it seemed a crime to expose them to next to certain death. If it had been daylight and I could have seen the beautiful girl perhaps I would have done differently, but we turned around and started back home slowly, as the tired hens breathed heavily on the back axle. We were still sitting as far apart as the buggy seat would let us; had no outward signs of getting closer, in fact we were getting farther apart. She thought young men shouldn’t think so much of chickens, while I thought they were next to human. We planned another ride without chickens, but it was the passing of my short reign and I didn’t