“Oh, him! He weren't raised where he could see petticoats. Mrs. Henry she come hyeh from the railroad with the Judge afteh dark. Next mawnin' early she walked out to view her new home, and the rooster was a-feedin' by the door, and he seen her. Well, seh, he screeched that awful I run out of the bunk-house; and he jus' went over the fence and took down Sunk Creek shoutin' fire, right along. He has never come back.”
“There's a hen over there now that has no judgment,” I said, indicating Em'ly. She had got herself outside the house, and was on the bars of a corral, her vociferations reduced to an occasional squawk. I told him about the potatoes.
“I never knowed her name before,” said he. “That runaway rooster, he hated her. And she hated him same as she hates 'em all.”
“I named her myself,” said I, “after I came to notice her particularly. There's an old maid at home who's charitable, and belongs to the Cruelty to Animals, and she never knows whether she had better cross in front of a street car or wait. I named the hen after her. Does she ever lay eggs?”
The Virginian had not “troubled his haid” over the poultry.
“Well, I don't believe she knows how. I think she came near being a rooster.”
“She's sure manly-lookin',” said the Virginian. We had walked toward the corral, and he was now scrutinizing Em'ly with interest.
She was an egregious fowl. She was huge and gaunt, with great yellow beak, and she stood straight and alert in the manner of responsible people. There was something wrong with her tail. It slanted far to one side, one feather in it twice as long as the rest. Feathers on her breast there were none. These had been worn entirely off by her habit of sitting upon potatoes and other rough abnormal objects. And this lent to her appearance an air of being décollete, singularly at variance with her otherwise prudish ensemble. Her eye was remarkably bright, but somehow it had an outraged expression. It was as if she went about the world perpetually scandalized over the doings that fell beneath her notice. Her legs were blue, long, and remarkably stout.
“She'd ought to wear knickerbockers,” murmured the Virginian. “She'd look a heap better 'n some o' them college students. And she'll set on potatoes, yu' say?”
“She thinks she can hatch out anything. I've found her with onions, and last Tuesday I caught her on two balls of soap.”