"You musn't hinder me now; I must go fur tu milk the cows."
"O, well, you won't feed the chickens 'till I come, will you, Daddy? I'll dress, O, ever so quick, and say a very little prayer, and come right out. I want to feed the speckled hen and the little yellow chicks; please Daddy don't forget me, will you?"
Recta looks very much disturbed as they pass on together. "That bird," she mutters very mysteriously, "it's a very bad sign."
"What's a bad sign, Recta?"
"Why, don't you know, Phillip, when a bird comes into the house it's a sure sign of death in the family? I have never known it to fail. There was Squire Billings died in less than a year after a bird flew in at the winder. Sally told me they was a watching for some one to die and it turned out to be the Squire."
"'Tween you and me, Recta, that was singular; now I think on't I've noticed lately that Fanny has looked ruther pimpin. We must not cross her in nuthin. I shan't tech the chicken feed 'til she comes; 'tween you and me, hadn't we better write to the Honey?"
"May be she don't believe in signs, some don't," said Recta, reflectively.
"'Tween you and me, we might tell her about Squire Billings."
"That wouldn't make any difference, Phillip, you can't convince some people. We may as well not write until Fanny is really taken sick. I wonder if she had ever had the measles: Neighbor Wycoff is awful sick with them."
"'Tween you and me, I guess we had better write," persists Daddy, struck with a new terror.