No one was in sight. Anthony rattled the gate tentatively. A slim, neat, black Minorca fowl made an insulting remark about him to another hen. Both chuckled.
"Come in—come in and shut it!" called a clear voice from the interior of the chicken house.
Anthony's jaw stiffened.
"May I speak to you?" he called, with as much dignity as a person shouting at an utter stranger across an unfamiliar chicken yard may command.
"Certainly! Come right in!" called the voice, briskly.
Seeing nothing else to do, Anthony unwillingly crossed the yard, and stepped into the pleasant, whitewashed gloom of the chicken house. Loose chaff was scattered on the floor, and whitewashed boxes lined the walls. An adjoining shed held the roosts, which a few murmuring fowls were looping with heavy flights.
As he entered, a young woman in blue linen shut a gray hen into a box, and turned a pleasantly inquiring glance upon him.
"Good morning!" she said, smiling. "I knew you would want to see the thing sooner or later, so I asked Statia to show you right down here. Now, there's the trap"—she indicated a mass of loose chains and metal teeth on the floor—"and here's the key; but it simply WON'T work!"
Anthony was not following. He was staring at her. She was extremely pretty; that he had expected. But he had not expected that she—she—well, he was not prepared for this sort of a woman at all! He must go slow here. He—she—Bud—
"I beg your pardon," he interrupted himself to stammer apologetically, "I didn't catch—you were saying—"