154 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



should not irritate a person, yet they do. It is go- 

 ing to blow, and between, wind and myself exists a 

 mutual, though vain, antipathy. So I ride on my 

 way early, in the fond hope of escaping the in- 

 escapable. My errand leads me to the home of a 

 rather distant neighbor, who is reported to be 

 favorably considering my plan of putting a setting 

 of thoroughbred Minorca eggs under one of her 

 "ornery" hens and receiving in return for the favor 

 a cockerel and a pullet. This method of improving 

 common stock at practically no cost I have already 

 found acceptable in the neighborhood. 



The practice of borrowing setting hens, when my 

 own supply of Langshans runs short, has on the 

 other hand not proved satisfactory, inasmuch as 

 buggy-riding seems to upset the plans and pros- 

 pects of a setting hen. Having worried her em- 

 ployer almost sick by setting on anything — a white 

 door knob in a dry acequia, for instance — she dis- 

 embarks at my home in an altered frame of mind. 

 In short, she is pettish and stand-off. If I can 

 persuade her to take a seat on beauteous Minorca 

 eggs, so far superior to those to which she has been 

 accustomed, I am in luck. 



My business is transacted amicably and success- 

 fully, but I return still in somewhat ruffled mood. 

 I declare that it is the wind, already strong enough 

 to toss my little mare's mane skyward and beguile 

 her into unseemly capers, but the wind is not wholly 

 to blame. 



Hitherto I have always named distance as an ob- 

 stacle to intimacy with this neighbor, whereas as a 



