, Elly, we'll see
what we can do."

Elly pulled her along rapidly to the chicken-yard where grossly
self-satisfied hens scratched in trash and filth undiscriminatingly,
and complacently called their families to share what they had found
there, or indeed at times apparently to admire them for having found
nothing. Marise stood regarding them with a composed, ironic eye. It was
good, she reflected, to be able to know that that was the way you looked
from the outside, and not to care a bit because you knew firmly that
there was something else there that made all the difference. All the
same, it was a very good thing to have had the scaring thought that you
were like that . . . "there but for the grace of God. . . ." Was it
complacent to say that? Oh, what did it matter what you called
it,--complacent or not, if you knew! It all came back to not caring so
much about what things could be called, if you knew what they were.

Elly had disappeared into the chicken-house and now came back with a
perplexed face. "Downy-head was there, by the nests, and now he's gone."
Marise caught in the child's eyes the realness of her anxiety and
thrilled to it, as she always did to any real emotion. "I'll help you
look," she said, turning her eyes about the chicken-yard, crowded with
voluble, intently self-centered, feathered personalities. "Which hen is
his mother, Elly?

"This one, Old Speckle. Oh, Mother, there he is, lying down. He must be
feeling worse!" She ran forward and stooped over a little panting yellow
ball. Across the intervening space and beyond all those carelessly alive
bodies, Marise's eyes caught the unmistakable aspect of death in the
tiny creature lying there.

"Mother!" cried Elly, "his eyes look so! He can't get his breath.
_Mother!_" Marise felt the child's agitation and alarm knock at her
heart. She looked down helplessly at the dying creature. That tiny, tiny
scrap of down-covered flesh to be alive, to contain the miracle and
mystery of life, and now to be struggling, all alone, with the miracle
and mystery of death!

The little thing opened its glazing eyes once more, drew a long breath,
and lay still. An age-old inherited knowledge and experience told Elly
what bad happened. She gave a scream, picked it up and held it in her
cupped hands, her little face drawn in horrified incredulity. She looked
up at her mother and said in a whisper, "Mother, he's _dead_."

Marise nodded silently. Poor Elly! She wished she