Suddenly I was answered by a very interesting chuckling and clucking, and I turned to see what had disengaged the attention of Mr. G. Bird from me and my feed-bucket.  The sight that met my eyes lifted the shadow that had lain between the Golden Bird and me since the morning I had taken him in to see his newly arrived progeny and had not been able to make him notice their existence.  Stretching out behind me was a trail of wheat that had dripped from a hole in the side of the bucket, and along the sides of it the paternal Bird was marshaling his reliable foster-mother, Mrs. Red Ally’s and all his own fluffy white progeny.  With exceeding generosity he was not eating a grain himself, but scratching and chortling encouragingly.

“I knew you were not like other chicken men, Mr. G. Bird, ’male indifferent to hatches,’ as the book said,” I exclaimed as he caught up with me and began to peck the grains I offered from my hand.  “You are just like Owen and Matthew and Mr. Tillett and—­and—­” but I didn’t continue the conversation because the chant began rending my heartstrings again.  “Oh, Mr. G. Bird, it is an awful thing for a woman to have an apple orchard and lilac bushes in bloom when she is alone,” I sighed instead, as I went on to my round of feeding, very hungry myself for—­a pot of herbs.  Later I, too, was fed.

Long after the twin fathers had had supper and were settled safely by their candles, which were beacons that led them back into past ages, I sat by myself on the front doorstep in the perfumed darkness that was only faintly lit by stars that seemed so near the earth that they were like flowers of light blossoming on the twigs of the roof elms.  In a lovely dream I had just gone into the arms of Pan when I heard out beyond the orchard a soft moo of a cow, and with it came a weak little calf echo.

“Somebody’s cow has strayed—­I wish she belonged to me and could help me with this nutrition job,” I said to myself as I rose and ran down under the branches of the gnarled old apple-trees, which sifted down perfumed blow upon my head as I ran.  Then I stopped and listened again.  Over the old stone wall that separated the orchard from the pasture I heard footsteps and soft panting, also a weak little cow-baby protest of fatigue.

“I’ll get over the wall and see if there is any trouble with them,” I said and I suited my actions to my words.  I suppose in the dark I forgot that cows have horns and that I had never even been introduced to one before, for with the greatest confidence and sympathy I walked up near the large black mass that was the cow mother, with a very small and wavering body pressed close at her side.

“Did you call me, Mother Cow?” I asked softly.

The question was taken from my lips as Pan came out of the darkness behind her and took me into his arms.

“Yes, she called you.  I didn’t think I’d see you.  I was just going to leave her for you and go my way; but trust women for secret communication,” he said as my arm slipped around his bare throat.