“Old age,” said Farmer Cole. “That’s all. A few scratches like that ain’t going to hurt a cur. But I paid through my nose for a blooded colt a few years back, and ’twarn’t a week before he cut himself on barbed wire, and bled to death.”
“It won’t do any harm for her to use some of the salve,” said Mrs. Cole, and went to her medicine closet in search of the remedy. Rosetta Muriel smoothed her hair, with a motion that set her bracelets jingling, and cast a provocative glance at Graham. Rosetta Muriel admired Graham extremely. In spite of his shabby clothing, there was about him the indefinable air which Jerry had recognized and which had led him to classify the young man as a “city dude.”
“I should have thought that Raymond girl would have put on something more stylisher,” reflected Rosetta Muriel, casting a disapproving glance at Peggy’s gingham. “I haven’t seen her in a nice dress yet.” Had she been in Peggy’s place, she would have known better how to improve her opportunities, she felt sure.
Owing to Hobo’s injuries, the event which up to the time of the accident had seemed to Peggy so tremendously important, had been quite cast in the shade. She recalled it as Mrs. Cole brought out the salve. “Oh, I didn’t tell you. My chickens have hatched.”
“Turned out pretty well, did they?” asked Mrs. Cole, smiling at Peggy benevolently. Peggy was an immense favorite with the good woman, a fact which Rosetta Muriel recognized with irritated wonder. She asked herself frequently why it was that folks got so crazy over that Raymond girl, “with no style to speak of.”
“There’s only six hatched yet. I’ve put them in a basket just as you said. The old hen is on the other eggs.”
“Maybe six will be all,” said Mrs. Cole. “That thunder-storm day before yesterday was pretty rough on eggs ’most ready to hatch.”
Six chickens, instead of eighteen! An air-castle fell with such a crash that it almost seemed to Peggy as if the little group about her must be aware of its downfall. Then she took a long breath. “Well, even six, at forty cents a pound, won’t be so bad for a start,” said Peggy to herself.
Mrs. Cole looked admiringly after the young people as they took their departure, Dorothy and Annie racing on ahead. “They’re what I call a handsome pair,” she exclaimed.
Rosetta Muriel objected. “He’s awful swell, but she ain’t a bit. Look at her gingham dress.”