Sentry. Keep you your kine at home, you've land enough.
Mrs. Secord. Why, that's our land, and those our barns and sheds.
Sentry. Well, pass!
[He suddenly observes the flowers.
But where's your milking pail?
I guess the bunch of flowers is for the cow.
Mrs. Secord (gently). You are too rough! The pinks weep dewy tears
Upon my hand to chide you. There, take them;
[She offers him the flowers.
And let their fragrance teach you courtesy,
At least to women. You can watch me.
Sentry. Madam, suspicion blunts politeness. Pass.
I'll take your flowers, and thank you, too;
'Tis long since that I saw their fellows in
The old folks' garden.
(Mrs. Secord crosses the road, takes a rail out of the fence, which she replaces after having passed into the clearing, and proceeds to the barn, whence she brings an old pail, luckily left there, and approaches the cow.)