“The woodshed's under water.”
“You must get yourself ready, Dorothy. I'll come for your mother first in the chaise.”
“I cannot go,” she said. “I don't believe there is any danger. This old house has stood for eighty years; it's not likely this is the first big rain in all that time.” Dorothy's spirits had risen. “Besides, I have a family of orphans to take care of. See here,” she said, stooping over a basket in the shadow of the chimney. It was the “hospital tent,” and as she uncovered it, a brood of belated chickens stretched out their thin necks with plaintive peeps.
Dorothy covered them with her hands and they nestled with comfortable twitterings into silence.
“You're a kind of special providence, aren't you, Dorothy? But I've no sympathy with chickens who will be born just in time for the equinoctial.”
“I didn't want them,” said Dorothy, anxious to defend her management. “The old hen stole her nest and she left them the day before the rain. She's making herself comfortable now in the corn-bin.”
“She ought to be made an example of; that's the way of the world, however,—retribution doesn't fall always on the right shoulders. I must go now. We'll take your mother and Jimmy first, and then, if you won't come, you shall let me stay with you. The mill is safe enough, anyhow.”
Evesham returned with the chaise and a man, who, he insisted, should drive away old John and the cows, so that Dorothy should have less care. The mother was packed into the chaise with a vast collection of wraps, which almost obliterated Jimmy. As they started, Dorothy ran out in the rain with her mother's spectacles and the five letters, which always lay in a box on the table by her bed. Evesham took her gently by the arms and lifted her back across the puddles to the stoop.
As the chaise drove off, she went back into the sitting-room and crouched on the rug, her wet hair shining in the firelight. She took out her chickens one by one and held them under her chin, with tender words and finger-touches. If September chickens have feelings as susceptible as their bodies, Dorothy's orphans must have been imperiled by her caresses.
“Look here, Dorothy! Where's my trousers?” cried Shep, opening the door at the foot of the stairs.