around in a circle, and then, coming to anchor in a patch of tiny beets, resumed excavating operations.
Kendrick picked up another stone, a bigger one, and threw that. He missed the mark this time, but the shot was not entirely without results; it hit one of Mr. Cahoon's cucumber frames and smashed a pane to atoms. The crash of glass had the effect of causing some of the fowl to stop digging and appear nervous. But these were in the minority.
The captain was, by this time, annoyed. He was on the verge of losing his temper. Beyond the little garden and between the raspberry and currant bushes he caught a glimpse of the path and the gate through which he had just come on his way back from the grounds of the Fair Harbor. That gate he saw, with a twinge of conscience, was wide open. Obviously he must have neglected to latch it on passing through, it had swung open, and the hens had taken advantage of the sally port to make their foray upon Judah's pet vegetables. They were Fair Harbor hens. Somehow this fact did not tend to deepen Sears Kendrick's affection for them.
"Shoo! Clear out, you pesky nuisances!" he shouted, and waving his cane, charged laboriously down upon the fowl. They retreated before him, but their retreat was strategic. They moved from beets to cabbages, from cabbages to young corn, from corn to onions. And they scratched and pecked as they withdrew. Nevertheless, they were withdrawing and in the direction of the open gate; in the midst of his panting and pain the captain found a slight comfort in the fact that he was driving the creatures toward the gate.
At last they were almost there—that is, the main body. Kendrick noted, with sudden uneasiness, that there were stragglers. A gaily decorated old rooster, a fowl with a dissipated and immoral swagger and a knowing, devil-may-care tilt of the head, was sidling off to the left. Two or three young pullets were following the lead of this ancient pirate, evidently fascinated by his recklessness. The captain turned to head off the wanderers. They squawked and ran hither and thither. He succeeded in turning them back, but, at the moment of his success, heard triumphant cluckings at his rear. The rest of the flock had, while his attention was diverted by the rooster and his followers, galloped joyfully back to the garden again. Now, as Captain Sears gazed, the rooster and his satellites flew to join them. All hands—or, more literally, all feet—resumed excavating with the abandon of conscientious workers striving to make up lost time.
And now Sears Kendrick did lose his temper. Probably at another time he might have laughed, but now he was tired, in pain, and in no mood to see the humorous side of the situation. He expressed his opinion of the hens and the rooster, using quarter deck idioms and withholding little. If the objects of his wrath were disturbed they did not show it. If they were shocked they hid their confusion in the newly turned earth of Judah Cahoon's squash bed.
Whether they were shocked or not Sears did not stop to consider. He intended to shock them to the fullest extent of the word's meaning. At his feet was a stick, almost a log, part of the limb of a pear tree. He picked up this missile and hurled it at the marauders. It missed them but it struck in the squash bed and tore at least six of the delicate young squashlings from their moorings. Kendrick plunged after it—the hens separating as he advanced and rejoining at his rear—picked up the log and, turning, again hurled it.
"There!" roared the captain, "take that, damn you!"
One of the hens did "take it." So did some one else. The missile struck just beneath the fowl as she fled, lifted her and a peck or two of soil as well, and hurled the whole mass almost into the face of a person who, unseen until then, had advanced along the path from the gate and had arrived at that spot at that psychological instant. This person uttered a little scream, the hen fled with insane yells, the log and its accompanying shower fell back to earth, and Sears Kendrick and the young woman—for the newcomer was a young woman—stood and looked at each other.
She was bareheaded and her hair was dark and abundant, and she was wearing a gingham dress and a white apron. So much he noticed at this, their first meeting. Afterward he became aware that she was slender and that her age might perhaps be twenty-four or twenty-five. At that moment, of course, he did not notice anything except that her apron and dress—yes, even her hair and face—were plentifully besprinkled with earth and that she was holding a hand to her eyes as if they, too, might have received a share of the results of the terrestrial disturbance.
"Oh!" he stammered. "I'm awfully sorry! I—I hope I didn't hurt you."
If she heard him she did not answer, but, removing her hand, opened and shut her eyes rapidly. The captain's alarm grew as he watched this proceeding.
"I—I do hope I didn't hurt you," he repeated. "It—it didn't put your eyes out, did it?"
She smiled, although rather uncertainly. "No," she said.
"You're sure?"
"Yes." The smile became broader. "It's not quite as bad as that, I guess. I seem to be able to see all right."
He drew a relieved breath. "Well, I'm thankful for so much, then," he announced. "But it's all over your dress—and—and in your hair—and. … Oh, I am sorry!"
She laughed at this outburst. "It is all right," she declared. "Of course it was an accident, and I'm not hurt a bit, really."
"I'm glad of that. Yes, it was an accident—your part of it, I mean. I didn't see you at all. I meant the part the hen got, though."
Her laugh was over, but there was still a twinkle in her eye. Kendrick was, by this time, aware that her eyes were brown.
"Yes," she observed, demurely, "I—gathered that you did."
"Yes, I—" It suddenly occurred to him that his language had been as emphatic as his actions. "Good lord!" he exclaimed. "I forgot. I beg your pardon for that, too. When I lose my temper I am liable to—to make salt water remarks, I'm afraid. And those hens. … Eh? There they are again, hard at it! Will you excuse me while I kill three or four of 'em? You see, I'm in charge of that garden and. … Get out!"
This last was, of course, another roar at the fowl, who, under the leadership of the rake-helly rooster, were scratching harder than ever in the beds. The captain reached for another missile, but his visitor stepped forward.
"Please don't," she begged. "Please don't kill them."
"Eh? Why not? They ought to be killed."
"I know it, but I don't want them killed—yet, at any rate. You see, they are my hens."
"Yours?" The captain straightened up and looked at her. "You don't mean it?" he exclaimed.
"Yes, I do. They are mine, or my mother's, which is the same thing. I am dreadfully sorry they got in here. I'll have them out in just a minute. Oh, yes, I will, really."
Kendrick regarded her doubtfully.
"Well," he said, slowly, "I know it isn't polite to contradict a lady but if you'll tell me how you are goin' to get 'em out without killin' 'em, I'll be ever so much obliged. You can't drive 'em, I know that."
"I shan't try. Just wait, I'll be right back."
She hurried away, down the path and through the open gate. Captain Sears Kendrick looked after her. Behind and about him the Fair Harbor hens clucked and scratched blissfully.
In very little more than the promised minute the young woman returned. She carried a round wooden receptacle—what Cape Codders used to call a "two quart measure"—and, as she approached, she shook it. Something within rattled. The hens, some of them, heard the rattle and ceased their digging.
"Come, chick, chick! Come, biddy, biddy, biddy!" called the young woman, rattling the measure. More of the fowl gave up their labors, and looked and listened. Some even began to follow her. She dipped a hand into the measure, withdrew it filled with corn, and scattered a few grains in the path.
"Come, biddy, biddy, biddy!" she said again.
And the biddies came. Forgetting the possibilities of Judah Cahoon's garden, they rushed headlong upon the golden certainties of those yellow kernels. The young woman retreated along the path, scattering corn as she went, and after her scrambled and pecked and squawked