"Hey! Hey, missy!"
Applejack rolled onto her back, blinking up at her jail cell's solitary window, high above and criss-crossed with slender iron bars.
A small boy was insistently rattling a stick against them. "You 'wake yet, missy?" he shouted down at her raucously, with a big smile.
Applejack sat up on the rough stone floor, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles. It only managed to make her look even dirtier and grubbier than before. No one had offered her a bath, or, in fact, even so much as a meal, yet.
Applejack yawned lazily, and settled her back against the jail cell's cold stone wall. "Well. 'Spect ah am, now, ya lil' cattle-rustler."
"How come you wearin' men's clothes? Y'look mighty funny in pants and a shirt, missy!"
"Ah -don't- look funny," Applejack shot back. "And anyway, y' can't get much farmin' done in a dress."
The boy stared at her. "Yer a farmer? Whatcha farmin'?"
Applejack grinned. "Apples. Big, juicy apples, bigger'n your head, redder 'n' ol' Santy-Claus's suit. The best darn apples you ever bit into. Shoot, if we were back at my ranch, Ah'd make you a dang old glass of apple cider - cool, sweet, 'n' fresher than the nasty, medicine-tastin' juice you'd get in such as a bottle 'round these parts, ah reckon."
"Oh." The boy looked around her cell. "Gee, it sure is dark 'n' dirty down here. What'd they getcha for, missy?"
"Dunno," Applejack said, cheerfully. She crossed one leg over the other, and leaned back, as though she were quite comfortable.
"My daddy sez you scared the grits outta the Sheriff, missy. He say, the Sheriff gon' try to burn you. Like they did with them old-time witches."
"Is he, now?" Applejack yawned widely.
"You ain't gonna die though, right?" The boy sounded nervous, little fingers tightening around the iron bars of her window.
"Nah."
"How come, missy?"
Applejack chuckled. "'Spect ah'm just too darn stupid. Don't even know how t' do that. Ah just like farmin'."
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