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indeed something was stirring, but it might just as probably be a cat
stalking birds. She watched this for a time.
She went a few paces past the corner, came in sight of the run
containing the giant chicks and stopped again. "Ah!" she said, and shook
her head slowly at the sight of them. They were at that time about the
height of emus, but of course much thicker in the body--a larger thing
altogether. They were all hens and five all told, now that the two
cockerels had killed each other. She hesitated at their drooping
attitudes. "Poor dears!" she said, and put down her bundle; "they've got
no water. And they've 'ad no food these twenty-four hours! And such
appetites, too, as they 'ave!" She put a lean finger to her lips and
communed with herself.
Then this dirty old woman did what seems to me a quite heroic deed of
mercy. She left her bundle and umbrella in the middle of the brick path
and went to the well and drew no fewer than three pailfuls of water for
the chickens' empty trough, and then while they were all crowding about
that, she undid the door of the run very softly. After which she became
extremely active, resumed her package, got over the hedge at the bottom
of the garden, crossed the rank meadows (in order to avoid the wasps'
nest) and toiled up the winding path towards Cheasing Eyebright.
She panted up the hill, and as she went she paused ever and again, to
rest her bundle and get her breath and stare back at the little cottage
beside the pine-wood below. And when at last, when she was near the crest
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