The child beside her moved slowly—­looking up at the sky, as if half afraid.  She seemed to move with alien feet under the sky.  Then a handful of yellow, downy balls darted from the shed, skittering toward them, and she fell to her knees, reaching out her hands to them and crooning softly.  “The dear things!” she said swiftly.

The woman smiled, and moved toward the shed, tapping on the side of her pan—­and the yellow brood wheeled with the sound, on twinkling legs and swift, stubby wings.

The child’s eyes devoured them.  “They belong to you, don’t they?” she cried softly.  “They’re your own—­your very own chickens!” Her laugh crept over them and her eyes glowed.  “See the little one, Mrs. Seabury!  Just see him run!” She had dropped to her knees again—­breathless—­beside the board where they pushed and pecked and gobbled the little, wet lumps of the meal, and darted their shiny black bills at the board.

The woman handed her the pan.  “You can feed them if you want to,” she said.

The child took the basin, with shining eyes, and the woman moved away.  She examined the slatted box—­where the mother hen ran to and fro, with clucking wings—­and gave her some fresh water and looked in the row of nests along the side of the shed, and took out a handful of eggs, carrying them in wide-spread, careful fingers.

The child, squatting by the board, was looking about her with happy eyes.  She’d almost forgotten the prisoned room up stairs and the long lonesome days.  The woman came over to her, smiling.  “I’ve found seven,” she said.  The child’s eyes rested on them.  Then they flitted to the sunshine outside....  A yellow butterfly was fluttering in the light—­across the opening of the shed.  It lighted on a beam and opened slow wings, and the child’s eyes laughed softly... she moved tiptoe...  “I saw a beautiful butterfly once!” she said.  But the woman did not hear.  She had passed out of the shed—­around the corner—­and was looking after the chickens outside—­her voice clucking to them lightly.  The child moved toward the butterfly, absorbed in shining thought.  “It was a beautiful butterfly—­” she said softly, “in a Greek shop.”  The wings of the butterfly rose and circled vaguely and passed behind her, and she wheeled about, peering up into the dark shed.  She saw the yellow wings—­up there—­poise themselves, and wait a minute—­and sail toward the light outside....  But she did not turn to follow its flight—­Across the brown boards of the shed—­behind a pile of lumber, against the wall up there—­a head had lifted itself and was looking at her.  She caught her breath—­“I saw a butterfly once!” she repeated dully.  It was half a sob—­The head laid a long, dark finger on its lip and sank from sight....  The child wheeled toward the open light—­the woman was coming in, her hands filled with eggs.  “I must carry these in,” she said briskly.  She looked at the child.  “You can stay and play a little while—­if you want to.  But you must not go away, you know.”