But the barn, in its soft darkness, with a beam of dusty light here and there, knew nothing about him. He had not climbed to the mow, for the ladder was on the other side of the barn floor. She lifted it, brought it over, set it against the hay and climbed. She was broad awake now, and her taut muscles obeyed and liked it. She stepped on the hay, found the dark hole old Brahma chose for her secret hoarding place, and put in her hand, once, twice. Three eggs! Brahma must have thought she was pretty smart to lay three without having them stolen away from her. Tira put the eggs carefully in her apron pocket and hurried down the ladder, and out to the basket waiting on the ground. How many eggs did he want to make even dozens? Did he tell her? She could not remember. Probably he had forgotten himself, by now. She sat down on the step and took the eggs out in her lap, and then began to count and put them back again. The sun lay on them and they looked pretty to her in their brown fairness. She liked them, she thought, as she counted, liked all the farm things, the touch of them, the smell. Even old Charlie, standing there, smelled of the barn, and that was good, too. Five dozen, that was it, and one over. She put the extra egg in her pocket, got up and carried the basket to the wagon, placing it in front where it could sit safely between Tenney's feet. And at that minute Tenney himself came round the corner from the front of the house, and the day was so kind and the sun so warm on her face that it seemed a long time ago she had thought he meant to send her away, and she called to him: "You might git a quarter o' tea, the kind they call English breakfast. An' a half a dozen lemons. It's terrible hard to think up any kind of a pie these days, 'twixt hay an' grass." "Tea," said Tenney, as if he were putting it down in his mind. "An' lemons. You might go out, in a half an hour or so, an' look at that calf."