“I am going to get an egg,” Aggie replied, with gentle obstinacy. “I am starving, Tish, and I am certain I heard a hen cackle. Probably one of the Knowles’s chickens——”
“If it is a Knowles’s chicken,” Tish said, virtuously, “its egg is a Knowles’s egg, and we have no right to it.”
I am sorry to relate that here Aggie said: “Oh, rats!” but as she apologized immediately, and let the egg drop, figuratively, of course, peace again hovered over our little party. Only momentarily, however, for, a short time after, a hen undoubtedly cackled, and Aggie got up with an air of determination.
“Tish,” she said, “that may be a Knowles’s hen or it may be one belonging to this farm. I don’t know, and I don’t give a—I don’t care. I’m going to get it.”
“The barn’s locked,” said Tish.
“I could get in through a window.”
I shall never forget Tish’s look of scorn as she rose with dignity, and stalked toward the barn.
“I shall go myself, Aggie,” she said, as she passed her. “You would probably fall in the rain barrel under the window. You’re no climber. And you might as well eat those crusts you’ve hidden under the porch, if you’re as hungry as you make out you are.”
“Lizzie,” Aggie hissed, when Tish was out of hearing, “what is in that barn?”
“It may be anything from a German spy to an aeroplane,” I said. “But it’s not your business or mine.”