“Oh, I am so glad you think so,” I claimed the remark by exclaiming, while she made her claim by a contented little cluck.

“Now don’t be bothered, sweetheart,” he again said, as he picked up another of the Ladies Bird and turned towards the huge old tumble-down barn that was yawning a black midnight out into the gray moonlight.  “Let’s all go into the barn and settle down to live happily together ever after.”

“I think that will be lovely,” I answered, while beautiful Mrs. Bird made her reply with a consenting cluck.  I never supposed I would make an affirmative answer to a domestic proposal that was at least uncertain of intent, but then I also never dreamed of being in the position of guardian to eleven head of prize live stock, and I think anything I did or said under the circumstances was excusable.

“Don’t you want to come with me and bring the cock with you.  Old Rufus wouldn’t touch one of them for a gold rock,” he asked, and I felt slightly aggrieved when I discovered that I was to know when I was being addressed by a lack of any term of endearment, though the caressing flutiness of Adam’s voice was the same to me as to any one of the Ladies Leghorn.

“Naw, Marster, chickens am my hoodoo.  To tetch one makes my flesh crawl like they was walking on my grave, and if little Mis’ will permit of me, I wanter git back to see to the browning of my muffins ginst the time Mas’ Cradd rars at me fer his supper,” and without waiting for the consent he had asked, old Rufus shuffled hurriedly back into the house.

“I’ll bring Mr. Golden Bird.  I adore the creeps his feathers give me,” I said as I reached in the coach and took the Sultan in my arms.  He gave not a single note of remonstrance, but I suppose it was imagination that made me think that he fluffed himself into my embrace with friendly joy.

“Come on, let’s put them for to-night over in the feed-room.  There, ladies, did you ever see a greater old barn than this?” As he spoke to us he led the way with four of the admiring and obedient Ladies, in his arms, while the fifth, who was I, followed him into the deep, purple, hay-scented darkness.

“I never did see anything like it,” I answered, while only one of the Leghorn ladies gave a sleepy cluck of assent to their part of the question.

I really did have a thrill of pure joy in that old barn.  It wasn’t like anything I had ever seen before, and was as far removed from a garage as is a brown-hearted chestnut burr from a souffle of maroons served on a silver dish.  I could hear the moth-eaten string of steeds munching noisily over at one end of the huge darkness, and the odor that arose from their repast was of corn and not of suffocating gasoline.  Tall weeds and long frames with teeth in them, which gave them the appearance of huge alligator mouths yawning from the dusk to snap me, pressed close on each side.  Straps and ropes and harness were draped from the beams and along the walls, and the combined aroma of corn and hay and leather and horses seemed an inspiration to a lusty breath.