he house; then, evidently, whatever
it was, passed my door close, and I jumped upright in my bed. The high,
tense strain of vibration, nearly, but not quite, a musical note, was
like the threatening scream of machinery, though weaker, and I bounded
out of the house in my pajamas.

There was Em'ly, dishevelled, walking wildly about, her one egg
miraculously hatched within ten hours. The little lonely yellow ball of
down went cheeping along behind, following its mother as best it could.
What, then, had happened to the established period of incubation? For
an instant the thing was like a portent, and I was near joining Em'ly in
her horrid surprise, when I saw how it all was. The Virginian had taken
an egg from a hen which had already been sitting for three weeks.

I dressed in haste, hearing Em'ly's distracted outcry. It steadily
sounded, without perceptible pause for breath, and marked her erratic
journey back and forth through stables, lanes, and corrals. The shrill
disturbance brought all of us out to see her, and in the hen-house I
discovered the new brood making its appearance punctually.

But this natural explanation could not be made to the crazed hen. She
continued to scour the premises, her slant tail and its one preposterous
feather waving as she aimlessly went, her stout legs stepping high with
an unnatural motion, her head lifted nearly off her neck, and in
her brilliant yellow eye an expression of more than outrage at
this overturning of a natural law. Behind her, entirely ignored and
neglected, trailed the little progeny. She never looked at it. We went
about our various affairs, and all through the clear, sunny day that
unending metallic scream pervaded the premises. The Virginian put out
food and water for her, but she tasted nothing. I am glad to say that
the little chicken did. I do not think that the hen's eyes could see,
except in the way that sleep-walkers' do.

The heat went out of the air, and in the canyon the violet light began
to show. Many hours had gone, but Em'ly never ceased. Now she suddenly
flew up in a tree and sat there with her noise still going; but it had
risen lately several notes into a slim, acute level of terror, and was
not like machinery any more, nor like any sound I ever heard before or
since. Below the tree stood the bewildered little chicken, cheeping, and
making tiny jumps to reach its mother.

"Yes," said the Virginian, "it's comical. Even her aigg acted different
from