"It is not good for little folks to be awake so early," she would say, and there would rush upon the child a sense of warmth and tenderness and comfort, and she would nestle closer to her sweet, white pillow. With the beginning of day began also the demands upon the time of Miss Chris. First the new overseer, knocking at her door, would call through the crack that a cow had calved, or that one of the sheep was too ill to go to pasture. Then Rindy, entering with her pails, would shake a pessimistic head. "Lawd, Miss Chris, one er dem ole coons done eat up er hull pa'cel er yo' chickens." And Miss Chris, at once the prop and the mainstay of the Battle fortunes, would rise with anxious exclamations and put on her full black skirt and linen sacque. When breakfast was over Miss Chris went into the storeroom each morning and came out with a basin of corn-meal dough, followed by Sampson bearing an axe and Aunt Verbeny jingling the hen-house keys. The slow procession then filed out to the space before the hen-house, the door of which was flung back, while Aunt Verbeny clucked at a little distance. Miss Chris scattered her dough upon the ground and, while her unsuspecting beneficiaries made their morning meal, she pointed out to Sampson, the executioner, the members of the feathered community destined to be sacrificed to the carnivorous habits of their fellow mortals. "Feel that one with the black spots, Sampson," she said with the indifference of an abstract deity. "Is it fat? And the domineca pullet, and the two roosters we bought from Delphy." And when Sampson had seized upon the victims of the fiat she turned to inspect the bunches of fowls offered by neighbouring breeders. To-day it was Nicholas Burr who stood patiently in the background, three drooping chickens in each hand, their legs tied together with strips of a purple calico which Marthy was making into a dress for Sairy Jane. Seeing that Miss Chris had delivered her judgments, he came forward and proffered his captives with an abashed demeanour. "How much are they worth?" asked Miss Chris in her cheerful tones, while Aunt Verbeny gave a suspicious poke beneath one of the flapping wings, followed by a grunt of disparagement. Nicholas stammered confusedly: "Ma says the biggest ought to bring a quarter," he returned, blushing as Aunt Verbeny grunted again, "and the four smallest can go for twenty cents." But when the bargain was concluded he lingered and added shamefacedly: "Won't you please let that red-and-black rooster live as long as you can? I raised it." "Why, bless my heart!" exclaimed Miss Chris, "I believe the child is fond of the chicken." Eugenia, who was hovering by, burst into tears and declared that the rooster should not die. "Twenty cents is s-o ch-ea-p for a li-fe," she sobbed. "It shan't be killed, Aunt Chris. It shall go in my hen-h-ou-se." And she rushed off to get her little tin bank from the top bureau drawer.