"Yes, Annie."
"Well, then, be dead."
"I can't, Annie. Now let us talk of something else. Tell me what the black hen did when the speckled hen stole her nest."
Annie joyously told her story, as she had told it dozens of times before; while Harriet Hutchinson turned her face to the wall. Annie sat on her heels on the floor beside the bed, rocking back and forth, and talking: "And so the speckled hen flew off. Sister, I'll get you your big bottle?"
No answer.
"Sister, don't you want to smell the bottle?"
"No, Annie. No—no—no! Oh, Annie, don't you want to go and see your chickens?"
"Why not?"
"Because it wouldn't be right, Annie."
"Why wouldn't it be right, sister?"