When the girl got sick her mother was glad to have a sister in the country who could take the child for a year.
``A year in the country,'' the doctor said, ``might cure her consumption.''
The girl was thin with the pink cheeks and bright eyes of a low grade fever.
She left Glasgow for the countryside of Fife in the spring. She became happy and almost well eating oatmeal for breakfast, green soup at noon and bread and cheese at night. She played in the woods and fields and roads and villages. Sometimes she played with the local children who showed her their games and secret meeting places.
Sometimes she stayed by herself and watched the creatures of the hedgerows and meadows.
The girl's aunt had a chicken house. It was her job to feed the chickens and collect the eggs. She liked the chickens. She would sit in the run and watch the hens and admire their bright feathers and beautiful eyes. The chickens got used to her and even stepped on her feet.
When the cold winds started to blow in October she was coughing more. Her aunt bundled her in wool and oil skins and sent her out into the storms.
``Fresh air will cure you,'' she told the girl.
When she was too sick to get out of bed her aunt piled quilts on her and left the window open.
One morning a red chicken flew in the window and stood on the sill with her head turned to fix the girl with a single round eye.
``Hello,'' said the girl. The chicken flew on to her bed and settled herself among the quilts and laid an egg. The girl was delighted. She held the warm brown egg in her hand. She decided the egg was fertile. When her aunt chased the chicken out the girl held the egg tenderly and kept it warm for four weeks. Then the weather was so cold that her aunt shut the window and lit a fire in her room.
One morning the girl could hold the egg no longer.
``The egg won't hatch,'' she told her aunt.
``The egg won't hatch,'' her aunt said.
She took the egg from the girl's hand.