might, how Kitty Mills could laugh till she cried, when old man Mills snatched up the dinner which she had cooked on a hot day and flung it out the window--dishes and all. Looking farther along the big road, Miss Judy saw that the Pettuses also were awake and stirring about. The bachelor brother and the maiden sister were both early risers. Mr. Pettus kept the general store, and he liked to have it open and ready for trade when the farmers taking grain and tobacco to market drove the big-wheeled wagons with their swaying ox-teams through the village on the way to the river. Miss Pettus arose with the first chicken that took its head from under its wing, her main interest in life being concentrated in the poultry-yard. She always held that any one having to do with hens must be up before the sun; and she used to tell Miss Judy a great deal about the Individuality of Hens, the subject with which she was best acquainted and upon which she discoursed most entertainingly and instructively. Miss Judy always listened with much interest and entire seriousness. Gentle Miss Judy had not a very keen sense of humor; it is doubtful if any really sweet woman ever had. "The folks who think all hens are alike except the difference that the feathers make outside, don't know what they are talking about!" Miss Pettus once said, in her excited way. "Hens are as different inside as folks are. Some hens are silly and some have got plenty of sense, only they're stubborn. There's that yellow-legged pullet of mine. _She's_ so silly that she is just as liable to lay in the horse-trough as in her nice, clean nest. Every blessed morning, rain or shine, unless I'm up and on the spot before she can get into the trough, old Baldy eats an egg with his hay, and I'm expecting every day that he'll eat her. And there's that old dorminica, the one that Kitty Mills cheated me with when we swapped hens that time. Well, the old dorminica ain't a _bit_ silly. She's just out and out contrary. The great, lazy, fat thing! Set she _won't_--do what I will! And Kitty Mills _knew_ she wouldn't--knew it just as well when we swapped as I know it this minute. There's no use trying to persuade me that she didn't. It's awful aggravating, because the dorminica's the heaviest hen I've got. Well, night before last I made up my mind that I'd _make_ her set, whether she wanted to or not. When it began to get dark and she sauntered off to go to roost, I caught her and put her down on a nest full of fine, fresh eggs--set her down real firm and determined, like _that_--as much as to say 'we'll _see_ whether you don't stay there,' and then I turned a box over her so that she couldn't get out if she tried. But I couldn't help feeling kind of uneasy, with fresh eggs gone up so high, clear to ten cents a dozen. The next morning at break o' day, cold and rainy as it was, I put on my overshoes and threw my shawl over my head, and went to take a peep under the box.