Emma Campbell stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, lips pursed, eyes fixed on vacancy, a dish-cloth dangling from one hand, a carving-knife clutched in the other, and projecked.  And the more she projecked about what was happening in Peter’s house, the less she liked it.  It had never occurred to Emma Campbell that Peter might go away from Riverton.  Yet now he was going, and it had been taken for granted that she, Emma, who, as she said, had “raised ’im from a puppy up’ards,” wouldn’t mind staying on here after his departure.  Fetching a cold sigh from the depths of an afflicted bosom, Emma moved snail-like toward the work in hand; and as she worked she howled dismally that nobody knew the trouble she saw, “nobody knew but you, Lawd.”

When Peter came in to dinner, she addressed him with distant politeness as Mistuh Champneys, instead of the usual Mist’ Peter.  When he spoke to her she accordion-plaited her lips, and stuck her eyes out at him.  Her head, adorned with more than the usual quota of toothpicks, brought the quills upon the fretful porcupine forcibly to one’s mind.

Nobody but Peter Champneys could or would have borne with Emma Campbell’s contrary fits, but as neither of them realized this they managed to get along beautifully.  Peter was well aware that when the car that had suddenly appeared in the night had just as suddenly disappeared in the morning in a cloud of dust on the Riverton Road, Emma’s peace of mind had vanished also.  He understood, and was patient.

She clapped a platter of crisp fried chicken before him, and stood by, eyeing him and it grimly.  And when hungry Peter thrust his fork into a tempting piece, “You know who you eatin’?” she demanded pleasantly.

Peter didn’t know whom he was eating; fork suspended, he looked at Emma questioningly.

“You eatin’ Lula, dat who you eatin’,” Emma told him with grisly unction.  “Dem ‘s de same laigs use to scratch roun’ we kitchen do’.  Dat ’s de same lovin’-hearted hen I raise fum a baby.  But, Lawd!  Whut you care? You ‘s de sort kin go trapesin’ off by yo’se’f over de worl’.  You dat uppidy dese days, whut you care ’bout eatin’ up po’ lil Lula? She ain’t nobody but us-all’s chicken, nohow!”

Peter looked doubtfully at “po’ lil Lula’s” remains, and laid down his fork.  Somehow, one can’t be keen about eating a loving-hearted hen.

“But, Emma, we eat our chickens all the time!  You’ve fried me many a chicken without raising a row about it!” he protested.

“Who tol’ you dey wuz ours?”

As Peter hadn’t a fitting reply in return for this ambiguous query, Emma bounced out of the dining-room, to return in a moment with the tea-pot; when Peter held out his cup, she poured into it plain boiling water.  At that she set the tea-pot hastily upon the table, threw her gingham apron over her head, and plumped upon the floor with a thud that made the house shake.  It frightened the cat into going through the window at a leap, taking with him all the flowers planted in tomato-cans.