"Please bring her," said Emma, who hadn't seen a woman other than Barbara since they'd left Laramie. "We'll be delighted to see her. Come prepared to stay a while."
"Do that," Joe seconded. "We've plenty of room."
"I can see that." Winterson eyed the house. "You sure built as though you aim to stay here a spell."
"We'll be here," Joe assured him. "We've had enough moving too."
"Guess everybody has, time they get to Oregon." Winterson eyed Emma's chickens. "You wouldn't want to sell or trade a couple of those hens, would you?"
"That's my wife's department," Joe said.
"I don't believe so," Emma told Winterson. "We have only four left. There were six, but two of them were broody and went off to steal their nests. I haven't seen them since, and suppose some animal must have caught them."
"That's our trouble too," Winterson said sadly. "We fetched three hens and a rooster all this way and they all went in one night. Martha tells me often, 'Henry, the sound I'm most lonesome for is a clucking hen.' Those are her very words. That's exactly what she tells me. I do have a right nice bunch of little pigs. My sow littered eleven, and I know that a piglet for a hen is giving a lot but I'd be willing—Hey, look!"
Joe had mowed a wide swath to the creek, and as Winterson spoke one of the missing hens appeared in it. About her feet were a cluster of fluffy baby chicks, and the hen moved fussily around them. With a little squeal of joy, Emma ran forward. She knelt to gather the chicks in her apron, and clutched the hen beneath her arm. When she returned, her cheeks were flushed with pleasure.
"Fourteen! Just fourteen! Joe, we must keep them in the house until you can build a coop where they'll be safe! I can't have anything happening to them!"