Copyright, 1921, By
GROSSET & DUNLAP

Henrietta Hen is Afraid the Duck Will Drown. Frontispiece (Page 14)

Contents

Illustrations

THE TALE OF HENRIETTA HEN

I

A SPECKLED BEAUTY

Henrietta Hen thought highly of herself. Not only did she consider herself a "speckled beauty" (to use her own words) but she had an excellent opinion of her own ways, her own ideas—even of her own belongings. When she pulled a fat worm—or a grub—out of the ground she did it with an air of pride; and she was almost sure to say, "There! I'd like to see anybody else find a bigger one than that!"

Of course, it wouldn't really have pleased her at all to have one of her neighbors do better than she did. That was only her way of boasting that no one could beat her.

If any one happened to mention speckles Henrietta Hen was certain to speak of her own, claiming that they were the handsomest and most speckly to be found in Pleasant Valley. And if a person chanced to say anything about combs, Henrietta never failed to announce that hers was the reddest and most beautiful in the whole world.

Nobody could ever find out how she knew that. She had never been off the farm. But it was useless to remind her that she had never travelled. Such a remark only made her angry.

Having such a good opinion of herself, Henrietta Hen always had a great deal to talk about. She kept up a constant cluck from dawn till dusk. It made no difference to her whether she happened to be alone, or with friends. She talked just the same—though naturally she preferred to have others hear what she said, because she considered her remarks most important.

There were times when Henrietta Hen took pains that all her neighbors should hear her. She was never so proud as when she had a newly-laid egg to exhibit. Then an ordinary cluck was not loud enough to express her feelings. To announce such important news Henrietta Hen never failed to raise her voice in a high-pitched "Cut-cut-cut, ca-dah-cut!" This interesting speech she always repeated several times. For she wanted everybody to know that Henrietta Hen had laid another of her famous eggs.

After such an event she always went about asking people if they had heard the news—just as if they could have helped hearing her silly racket!

Now, it sometimes happened, when she was on such an errand, that Henrietta Hen met with snubs. Now and then her question—"Have you heard the news?"—brought some such sallies as these: "Polly Plymouth Rock has just laid an enormous egg! Have you seen it?" Or maybe, "Don't be disappointed, Henrietta! Somebody has to lay the littlest ones!"

Such jibes were certain to make Henrietta Hen lose her temper. And she would talk very fast (and, alas! very loud, too) about jealous neighbors and how unpleasant it was to live among folk that were so stingy of their praise that they couldn't say a good word for the finest eggs that ever were seen! On such occasions Henrietta Hen generally talked in a lofty way about moving to the village to live.

"They think enough of my eggs down there," she would boast. "Boiled, fried, poached, scrambled, or for an omelette—my eggs can't be beaten."

"If the villagers can't beat your eggs they certainly can't use them for omelettes," Polly Plymouth Rock told Henrietta one day. "Everybody knows you have to beat eggs to make an omelette."

Henrietta Hen didn't know what to say to that. It was almost the only time she was ever known to be silent.

II

A FINE FAMILY

Henrietta Hen's neighbors paid little attention to her boasting, because they had to listen to it so often. At last, however, there came a day when she set up such a cackling as they had never heard from her before. She kept calling out at the top of her lungs, "Come-come-come! See-what-I've-got! Come-come-come! See-what-I've-got!" And she acted even more important than ever, until her friends began to say to one another, "What can Henrietta be so proud about? If it's only another egg, she's making a terrible fuss about it."

They decided at last that if they were to have any peace they'd better go and look at whatever it was that Henrietta Hen was squawking about. So they went—in a body—to the place where she had her nest, in the haymow.

When Henrietta caught sight of her visitors she set up a greater clamor than ever.

"Well, well!" cried the oldest of the party, a rather sharp-tongued dame with white feathers. "What's all this hubbub about?" And then they learned what it was that Henrietta wanted them to see.

"Did you ever set eyes on such a fine family?" she demanded as she stepped aside from her nest and let them peer into it.

"A brood of chicks—eh?" said the lady in white. "Well, what's all the noise about?"

Henrietta Hen turned her back on her questioner.

"I knew you'd all want to have a look at these prize youngsters," she said to the rest of the company. "You'll agree with me, of course, that there were never any other chicks as handsome as these."

Henrietta's neighbors all crowded up to gaze upon the soft balls of down.

"This is the first family you've hatched, isn't it?" Polly Plymouth Rock inquired.

Henrietta Hen said that it was her first brood.

Her neighbors wanted to be pleasant. So they told her that her children were as fine youngsters as anybody could ask for. And the old white dame, squinting at the nestlings, said to Henrietta:

"They're the finest you've ever had.... But there's one of them that has a queer look."

All the other visitors tried to hush her up. They didn't want to hurt Henrietta Hen's feelings. It was her first brood of chicks; and they could forgive her for thinking them the best in the whole world. So when they saw that old Whitey intended to be disagreeable they began to cluck their approval of the youngsters, hoping that Henrietta wouldn't notice what Whitey said.

Nor did she. Henrietta Hen was altogether too pleased with herself and her new family to pay much attention to anybody else's remarks.

"I hope," said Henrietta, "that you'll all come to see my family often. As the youngsters grow, I'm sure they'll get handsomer every day."

The neighbors thanked her. And crowding about old Whitey they moved away. Old Whitey just had to go too. She couldn't help spluttering a little.

"What a vain, empty-headed creature Henrietta Hen is!" she exclaimed. "She doesn't know that one of her brood is nothing but a duckling!"

III

WET FEET

Somehow Henrietta Hen never noticed that one of her brood was different from the rest. They were her first youngsters and they all looked beautiful to her.

Just as soon as Henrietta began to take her children for strolls about the farmyard she taught them a number of things. She showed them how to scratch in the dirt for food, how to drink by raising their heads and letting the water trickle down their throats. She bade them beware of hawks—and of Miss Kitty Cat, too. And she was always warning them to keep their feet dry.

"Water's good for nothing except to drink," Henrietta informed her chicks. "Some strange people, like old dog Spot, jump right into it. And how they manage to keep well is more than I can understand. Dust baths are the only safe ones."

So much did she fear water that Henrietta Hen wouldn't even let her children walk in the grass until the sun had dried the morning's dew. And the first sprinkle of rain was enough to send her scurrying for cover, calling frantically for her chicks to hurry.

Now, there was one of her family that always lagged behind when the rain-drops began to fall. And often Henrietta had fairly to drive him away from a puddle of water. She sometimes remarked with a sigh that he gave her more trouble than all the rest of her children together.

This was the youngster that Mrs. Hen's neighbors told one another was different from his brothers and sisters. But poor Henrietta Hen only knew that he was unusually hard to manage.

As her family grew bigger, Henrietta Hen took them on longer strolls, always casting a careful eye aloft now and then, lest some hawk should swoop down upon her darlings. And though no hawk tried to surprise her, something happened one day that gave Henrietta almost as great a fright as any cruel hawk could have caused her.

They had strayed down by the duck-pond—had Henrietta and her children, stopping here and there to scratch for some tidbit, or to flutter in an inviting dust-heap. Once they had reached the bank of the pond Henrietta began to wish she hadn't brought her family in that direction. For one of the youngsters—the one that never would hurry in out of the rain—insisted on toddling down to the water's edge.

"Come away this instant!" Henrietta shrieked, as soon as she noticed where he was. "You'll get your feet wet the first thing you know."

She never said anything truer than that. The words were scarcely out of her bill when the odd member of her family flung himself into the water. Or to be more exact, he flung himself upon it; for he floated on the surface as easily as a chip and began to paddle about as if he had swum all his life.

"Come back! Come back!" Henrietta Hen shrieked. "You'll be drowned—and you'll get your feet wet!"

IV

A SWIMMER

Henrietta Hen ran as fast as she could down the bank and stood as near the water as she dared, cackling loudly and flapping her wings.

Her child, who was swimming in the duck-pond, seemed to have no intention of minding her. Nor did he seem to have any intention of drowning; and as for getting his feet wet, he acted as if he liked that.

"What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?" Henrietta Hen squawked. She made so much noise that some of her neighbors came a-running, to see what was the matter. And as soon as they discovered what had happened they began to laugh.

"We may as well tell you," they said to Henrietta Hen, "that that chap out there is a duckling. The water won't hurt him."

Henrietta Hen gasped and gaped. She was astonished. But she soon pulled herself together. And it was just like her to begin to boast.

"See!" she cried to her friends, and waved a wing toward the water with an air of pride. "There isn't one of you that has a child that can beat him swimming."

"I should hope not!" said Polly Plymouth Rock with a shrug of her fine shoulders. And all the others agreed that they wanted no swimmers in their families.

Henrietta Hen announced that she was sorry for them. "Every brood," she declared, "should have at least one swimmer in it." She began to strut up and down the edge of the duck-pond, clucking in a most overbearing fashion. Really, she had never felt quite so important before—not even when her first brood pecked their way out of their shells.

"There's nothing quite like swimming," Henrietta Hen remarked with a silly smirk. "If it weren't for getting my feet wet I'd be tempted to learn myself. No doubt my son could teach me."

"Your son!" the old white hen sniffed. "He's not your son, Henrietta Hen. Somebody played a joke on you. Somebody put a duck's egg under you while you were hatching your eggs. And I think I can guess who it was that did it."

For just a moment Henrietta Hen stood still. The news almost took her breath away. Her comb trembled on the top of her head. She even stopped clucking. And she looked from one to another of her companions as if in hopes of finding one face, at least, that looked doubtful.... Alas! Everybody appeared to agree with old Whitey.

"If this is so," Henrietta muttered at last, "it's strange nobody ever noticed before that there was a duckling in my brood."

"We knew from the very first!" Polly Plymouth Rock told her. "You were the only one on the farm that didn't see that one of your family was different from the rest."

All this time the young duckling was swimming further and further away. He seemed to have forgotten all about his foster mother.

Henrietta Hen took one long last look at him. She guessed that she might have stood there forever cackling for him to come back and he wouldn't have paid the slightest heed to her.

Then she gathered her children—her really own—about her. "Come!" she said to them, "We'll go back home now."

"What about him?" they demanded, pointing to the truant duckling who was bobbing about on the rippling water. "Aren't you going to make him come, too?"

"No!" said their mother. "We're well rid of him. He has been more trouble to me than all the rest of you.... To tell the truth, I never liked him very well."

V

CAUGHT BY MR. CROW

It wasn't far to the edge of the cornfield from the farmyard fence. And Henrietta Hen was quick to discover that the freshly ploughed and harrowed field offered a fine place to scratch for all kinds of worms and bugs and grubs.

Not being what you might call a wise bird—like old Mr. Crow—Henrietta didn't know that Farmer Green had carefully planted corn in that field, in long rows. She did exclaim, however, that she was in great luck when now and then she unearthed a few kernels of corn. But she wasn't looking for corn. She merely ate it when she happened to find any.

It is no wonder, then, that she was amazed when a hoarse voice suddenly cried right in her ear, almost, "You're a thief and you can't deny it!"

She jumped. How could she have helped it? And the voice exclaimed, "There! You're guilty or you'd never have jumped like that."

Turning, Henrietta saw that a black, beady-eyed gentleman was staring at her sternly.

"It takes Mr. Crow to catch 'em," he croaked. "He can tell a corn-thief half a mile away."

All this time Henrietta Hen hadn't said a word. At first she was too surprised. And afterward she was too angry.

"Why don't you speak?" he demanded. He dearly loved a quarrel. And somehow it wasn't much fun quarrelling with anybody when the other party wouldn't say a word.

Still Henrietta Hen didn't open her mouth. She puzzled Mr. Crow. He even forgot his rage (for it always made him angry if anybody but himself scratched up any corn).

"What's the matter with you?" he asked. "What's the reason you don't speak?"

"I'm too proud to talk with you," said Henrietta Hen. "I don't care to be seen speaking to you, sir."

"Ha!" Mr. Crow exploded. "Don't you think I'm as good as you are?"

"No!" said Henrietta Hen. "No, I don't!"

Mr. Crow was all for arguing with her. He began to tell Henrietta many things about himself, how he had spent dozens of summers in Pleasant Valley, what a great traveller he was, how far he could fly in a day. There was no end to his boasting.

Yet Henrietta Hen never looked the least bit interested. Indeed, she began scratching for worms while he was talking. And that made the old fellow angrier than ever.

"Don't you dare eat another kernel of corn!" he thundered. "If you do, I'll have to tell Farmer Green."

"He feeds me corn every day—cracked corn!" said Henrietta.

"Well, I never!" cried Mr. Crow. "What's he thinking of, wasting good corn like that?"

"Really, I mustn't be seen talking with you," Henrietta Hen told Mr. Crow. "If you want to know the answer to your question, come over to the barnyard and ask the Rooster. He'll give you an answer that you won't like."

And then she walked away with stately steps.

Mr. Crow watched her with a baleful gleam in his eyes. He knew well enough what Henrietta meant. The Rooster would rather fight him than not. And though Mr. Crow loved a quarrel, he never cared to indulge in anything more dangerous than harsh words.

"I don't know what the farm's coming to," he croaked. "Here's Farmer Green wasting corn on such as her—and cracking it for her, too!"

So saying, the old gentleman turned his back on Henrietta Hen, who was already fluttering through the farmyard fence. And thereupon he scratched up enough corn for a hearty meal, grumbling meanwhile because it wasn't cracked for him.

"Somehow," he muttered, "I can't help wishing I was a speckled hen."

VI

HENRIETTA COMPLAINS

There was another member of Farmer Green's flock, besides Henrietta Hen, that was proud. Nobody needed to look twice at the Rooster to tell that he had an excellent opinion of himself. He had a way of walking about the farmyard that said quite plainly that he believed himself to be a person of great importance. And it was true that things went according to his ideas, among the flock.

He was always spoken of as "the Rooster." For although there were other roosters in the flock, they were both younger and smaller than he, and he would never permit anybody to call them—in his hearing—anything but cockerels.

These cockerels usually took great pains to keep out of the Rooster's way. If they were careless, and he caught them napping, he was more than likely to make matters unpleasant for them. He knew how to make their feathers fly.

Now, Henrietta Hen thought that the Rooster behaved in a most silly fashion. She said it pained her to see him prancing about, with his two long, arched tail-feathers nodding as he walked. The truth was, Henrietta could not endure it to have any one more elegantly dressed than she. And there was no denying that the Rooster's finery outshone everybody else's. Why, he wore a comb on his head that was even bigger than Henrietta's! And he had spurs, too, for his legs.

But what Henrietta Hen disliked most about the Rooster was the way he crowed each morning. It wasn't so much the kind of crowing that he indulged in; it was rather the early hour he chose for it that annoyed Henrietta. He always began his Cockle-doodle-doo while it was yet dark. Then everybody in the henhouse had to wake up, whether he wanted to or not. And Henrietta Hen did wish the Rooster would keep still at least till daylight came. She often remarked that it was perfectly ridiculous for any one from a fine family—as she was—to get up at such an unearthly hour. She said it was a wonder she kept her good looks, just on account of the Rooster's crowing.

"Why don't you ask him to wait until it's light, before he begins to crow?" Polly Plymouth Rock asked Henrietta one day.

"I'll do it!" cried Henrietta. Right then she called to one of the cockerels, who was near-by. "Just skip across the yard and ask the Rooster—" she began.

The cockerel broke right in upon her message.

"Oh! I can't do that!" he exclaimed. "I've never gone up to the Rooster and spoken to him. If I did, he'd be sure to fight me."

"Just tell him that I sent you," said Henrietta. And she made the cockerel listen to her message. But he wouldn't be persuaded. He told Henrietta that the Rooster would be sure to jump at him the moment he opened his mouth. "Besides," he added, "it wouldn't do any good, anyhow. The Rooster can't wait until after daylight, before he begins to crow."

"He can't, eh?" Henrietta Hen spoke up somewhat sharply. "I'd like to know the reason why!" And fixing her gaze sternly upon the Rooster, she marched straight across the farmyard towards him, to find out.

VII

WARNING THE ROOSTER

"Good Afternoon!" Henrietta Hen greeted the Rooster. He had not seen her as she walked towards him. And when she spoke he hastily arranged his two long tail-feathers in what he considered a more becoming droop.

"Good afternoon, madam!" he answered—for the Rooster prided himself that he was always polite to the ladies. "Er—there's nothing wrong, I hope," he added quickly as he noticed an odd gleam in Henrietta Hen's eye.

"Yes—there is," she said. The cockerels might fear the Rooster, but Henrietta certainly didn't. She considered him a good deal of a braggart. Indeed, she even had an idea that she could have whipped him herself, had she cared to be so unladylike as to fight. "I've been bothered for a long time because you crow so early in the morning. You make such a racket that you wake me up every day."

The Booster hemmed and hawed. Somehow he felt uncomfortable.

"That's unfortunate," he stammered. And then he had a happy thought. "Anyhow," he continued, with a smile at Henrietta, "you don't look as if you lacked for sleep, madam. You grow more beautiful every day."

Henrietta Hen admitted that it was so. "But," she said, "I believe I'd be even handsomer if I weren't disturbed so early. I don't like to get up while it's dark. So I'm going to ask you to delay your crowing, from now on, until after sunrise."

"Impossible!" cried the Rooster. "I'm sorry to disoblige you, madam. But what you ask can't be done."

"That's just what the cockerel said!" Henrietta Hen exclaimed.

"The cockerel!" the Rooster echoed angrily. "Which one? Has one of those upstarts been talking about me? Point him out to me and I'll soon teach him a lesson."

Henrietta Hen said that she hadn't noticed which cockerel it was. Somehow they all looked alike to her.

"Good!" the Rooster cried. "Then I'll have to whip them all, to make sure of punishing the guilty one." He looked very fierce.

"Don't be absurd!" Henrietta told him. "I asked one of the cockerels to give you a message about not crowing so early. And he declined. He said it wouldn't do any good."

"It wouldn't have done him any good," the Rooster declared, stamping a foot and thrusting his bill far forward, to show Henrietta Hen how brave he was.

"What's the matter?" she inquired. "Have you eaten something that disagrees with you?"

The Rooster couldn't help looking foolish. Henrietta Hen believed in letting him know that she stood in no awe of him. And while he was feeling ill at ease she hastened to tell him that hereafter he must hold onto his first crow until after sunrise.

"I can't do that," he told her again, unhappily.

"Don't you dare let go of it!" she warned him. "If that first crow gets away from you while it's dark, there'll be so many others to follow it that I shan't be able to close an eye for even a cat-nap."

VIII

WHY THE ROOSTER CROWED

Henrietta Hen had commanded the Rooster to wait until daylight before he began to crow.

He saw that she had made up her mind that he must obey her. But he knew he couldn't. And he always took great pains to be polite to the ladies.

It was a wonder the Rooster didn't turn red in the face. He had never found himself in such a corner before.

"You don't understand," he blurted. "I'd be delighted to oblige you, but if I didn't crow until after the sun rose I'd never crow again."

"We could stand that," was Henrietta Hen's grim reply.

"Perhaps!" he admitted—for she made him feel strangely humble. "But could you stand it if the night lasted forever?"

"You're talking nonsense now," she declared.

"You don't understand," he told her again. "And I must say I'm surprised, madam, that you didn't know it was I that waked the sun up every morning. That's why I crow so early."

Henrietta Hen was so astonished that she didn't know what to say. She thought deeply for a time—or as deeply as she could.

"Have you not noticed," the Rooster inquired, "that the sun never rises until I've crowed loudly a good many times?"

"No! No—I haven't," Henrietta murmured. "But now that you speak of it, I see that it's so."

"Exactly!" he said. "And often, madam, I have to crow a long time before he peeps over Blue Mountain. It's lucky I have a good, strong voice," the Rooster, added with a smirk, for he was feeling more at his ease. "If I had a thin, squeaky crow such as those worthless cockerels have, Farmer Green would have had to do many a day's work in the dark."

"Goodness!" Henrietta Hen gasped. "Do crow your loudest the moment you wake up, Mr. Rooster! Do make all the noise you can!" And he promised faithfully that he would.

Henrietta left him then. Somehow she couldn't get their talk out of her mind. And soon she had an unhappy thought. What if anything should happen to the Rooster's voice?

The moment that question popped into her head, Henrietta Hen hurried back to the Rooster.

"Do be careful!" she besought him. "Don't get your feet wet! For if you caught cold you might be so hoarse that you couldn't speak above a whisper."

The Rooster thanked her politely for thinking of his health.

"I always take good care of myself," he assured her.

"It looks like rain this minute," she said as she cast an anxious glance at the sky. "Hadn't you better run into the barn?"

He thought otherwise—and said as much.

"You ought to wear rubbers every day," she chided him, as she went away again.

Soon Henrietta returned once more to urge the Rooster to carry an umbrella. And it wasn't long after that when she came bustling up to him and informed him that a warm muffler about his throat wouldn't be amiss.

There seemed to be no end to her suggestions. And though at first the Rooster had liked to hear them (without having any idea of following them) after a time Henrietta's attentions began to annoy him.

"Great cracked corn!" he exclaimed. "This Henrietta Hen is getting to be a pest."

IX

HAUGHTY HENRIETTA

Feeling as important as she did, Henrietta Hen liked to have her own way. She said that she couldn't be expected to do just as others wished.

"I'll take orders from nobody," she often declared. "And if I lay eggs for Farmer Green I shall lay them when and where I please."

Henrietta took special delight in laying her eggs in out-of-the-way places. She was never content to lay two in the same nest.

"If they left them for me perhaps I'd feel differently," she explained to her neighbors. "But Johnnie Green gathers every egg that he can find. And if he takes my eggs I'll make him hunt for them, anyhow."

The older, more staid hens shook their heads when Henrietta talked like that. They told her she was ungrateful.

"Farmer Green gives you a snug home and plenty of food," they reminded her. "And the least you can do is to repay him. You ought not to make trouble by hiding your eggs."

But Henrietta Hen couldn't—or wouldn't—agree with them.

"It's all very well for you to talk," she retorted. "If my eggs were undersized I shouldn't mind losing them as fast as I laid them. But I lay the biggest and finest eggs to be had. So it's only natural that I should like to have at least one around to look at—and to show to callers."

Now, there were plenty of other hens in the flock that laid eggs exactly as big—or even bigger—than Henrietta Hen's. Some of them told her as much. Yet it did them no good to talk to her. She wouldn't believe that there were any eggs in the world to compare with hers. So her neighbors learned after a while that they might as well let Henrietta Hen manage her affairs as she pleased. They couldn't help hoping, however, that somehow Farmer Green would find a way to outwit her.

"What can Henrietta Hen be so boastful about now?" the hens asked one another one day. "She acts as if she thought more highly of herself than ever."

They soon discovered the reason for Henrietta's unusually pompous manner. For she began to make calls on all her friends. And she invited everybody to come to her latest nest high up in the haymow.

"I've something there to show you," she said with an air of mystery. "You'll be surprised to see it."

Most of Henrietta's neighbors did not show any great curiosity to see the surprise. They smiled at one another. "She's laid another egg—that's all!" they whispered.

But there are always some that can't rest until they know everybody else's business. And it was lucky that Henrietta Hen hurried home to receive her callers, because she had a good many. They came even earlier in the afternoon than was strictly fashionable. And they came in a crowd, too. That, however, didn't bother Henrietta Hen. Nor could they have arrived too soon to suit her.

"Look!" she cried, when they reached her nest high up in the haymow. "Did you ever see anything to beat that?"

X

THE BIG, WHITE EGG

When Henrietta Hen's callers crowded about her nest in the haymow they expected to see something wonderful. But when they craned their necks and peered into the little hollowed-out snuggery in the hay they couldn't help being disappointed. And when they didn't burst forth with cries of surprise and praise Henrietta Hen looked quite unhappy.

"I thought," she said, "you'd want to see this egg. I'm sure you never beheld a bigger nor a whiter one than this."

They admitted that the egg was big and that it was very, very white. And if their praise was faint, Henrietta never noticed it.

"Are you going to let Farmer Green have that egg?" one of the company inquired.

"No doubt Johnnie Green will grab it as soon as he finds my nest," said Henrietta with something like a sigh. "If I could only keep this one I wouldn't care how many others he took."

Polly Plymouth Rock turned to old Whitey, a hen who had come with her to the haymow.

"What do you think?" Polly asked. "Is Henrietta in danger of losing this egg that she thinks so much of?"

"She needn't be alarmed," old Whitey answered. "If Johnnie Green robs her of this one, I'll miss my guess."

"Oh! I'm glad to hear you say that!" Henrietta Hen cried. "Now I won't need to worry—that is, if you know what you're talking about."

That, of course, was a most impolite way for Henrietta Hen to speak to anybody of old Whitey's age. Whitey was the oldest hen in the flock. And what she didn't know about such things as nests and eggs and roosts wasn't worth knowing.

Polly Plymouth Rock didn't like Henrietta Hen's remark. She opened her mouth.

And no doubt she would have said something quite sharp in reply. But old Whitey stopped her.

"Never mind!" said Whitey. "The day will come when Henrietta Hen will agree that my guess is a good one."

Still Henrietta Hen felt uneasy about that big, white egg.

"I do hope Johnnie Green won't find this new nest of mine," she remarked.

"If he does, I fear he'll take my beautiful egg away from me."

"Lay another!" said old Whitey. "Lay another and he'll take that and leave this one."

"I suppose I may as well try your scheme," Henrietta replied, "since nobody suggests anything better."

"My idea's a good one, or I'll miss my guess," said old Whitey.

There was some snickering among Henrietta Hen's callers as they bade her good afternoon and left her.

"They're laughing at old Whitey," she said to herself. She hadn't the slightest notion that they could be giggling at her. "Old Whitey must be wrong," she thought. "But I may as well take her advice, for I don't know what else to do."

Not long afterward Henrietta Hen came fluttering down from the haymow, squawking at the top of her lungs for old Whitey. And as soon as she found her, Henrietta cried, "Come up to my nest right away! I want to ask your advice."

Although she didn't say "Please!" old Whitey went with her.

"Come Up to My Nest!" Cried Henrietta Hen. (Page 50)

XI

OLD WHITEY'S ADVICE

Old Whitey—the most ancient hen in the flock—scrambled with some difficulty up to the top of the haymow in Farmer Green's barn. She could scarcely keep up with Henrietta Hen, whom she was following—by request. And when she arrived, breathless, at Henrietta's nest that proud and elegant creature turned a troubled face toward her.

"See!" said Henrietta. "I've taken your advice and laid another egg. But it's nothing like the beautiful, big, white one. This last egg is much smaller; and it's brown."

Old Whitey nodded her head. "Well!" she said. "What's your difficulty?"

"Don't you think," said Henrietta, "that if Johnnie Green finds my nest he'll be sure to take both eggs?"

"No, I don't," was old Whitey's blunt answer.

"Then he'll be sure to take the big, white one," Henrietta Hen wailed.

"No, he won't," old Whitey told her. "If he does, I'll miss my guess."

Well, that was really too much for Henrietta Hen to believe.

"That boy will never take a little egg and leave a big one," she declared.

"You wait and see if he doesn't," old Whitey advised her.

So Henrietta waited. Though she had little faith in old Whitey's advice, Henrietta could think of nothing else to do. And the next morning, to her great surprise, when Johnnie Green climbed into the haymow and found her nest he took the small brown egg and put it in his hat. And he never touched the big, white egg at all. He didn't even pick it up and look at it!

Perched on a beam overhead Henrietta Hen watched him breathlessly. And as soon as he had gone she went flopping down to the barn floor and set up a great clamor for old Whitey.

"What is it now?" old Whitey asked, sticking her head inside the doorway.

"Your guess was a good one!" cried Henrietta Hen. "He came; and he took the small one."

"There!" said old Whtiey. "I told you so! I knew Johnnie Green wouldn't rob you of that big egg. And if you keep laying small eggs in that same nest you'll find he'll let you keep the big one."

Henrietta Hen fairly beamed at her companion.

"How delightful!" she exclaimed. "I've become very, very fond of that big egg. I love to look at it. But there's another thing that worries me now. If that big egg should get broken—"

"Don't let that trouble you!" said old Whitey.

"I'm almost afraid to sit on my nest," Henrietta Hen confessed. "If the shell of that egg should happen to be thin—"

Old Whitey seemed much amused by Henrietta's fears.

"Let me know if you break it," she said. And then she left Henrietta with her treasure.

"I'll be very careful," Henrietta called after the old dame.

XII

PLAYING TRICKS

Now, the hen known as old Whitey was something of a gossip. She went straight to the farmyard and told everybody what had happened—what Henrietta Hen had said to her and what she had said to Henrietta Hen. The whole flock had a great laugh over the affair.

To Henrietta Hen's delight, all her neighbors took a keen interest in the wonderful white egg. They asked her countless questions about it. Above all, they always took pains to inquire whether she had been so unlucky as to crack the shell. And if Henrietta hadn't displeased Polly Plymouth Rock one day, the truth might never have come out.

Anyhow, Polly Plymouth Rock told Henrietta Hen that if she had any sense she would stop making such a fuss over a china egg.

"China egg!" cried Henrietta. "I don't know what you mean."

"That's not a real egg that you're so proud of," Polly Plymouth Rock declared. "It's nothing but a make-believe one. Johnnie Green left it in your nest to fool you, so you'd keep that nest and lay eggs in it, right along.... You're so careful not to break that china egg! Why, if you tried to break it you'd find that it's solid as a rock."

Henrietta Hen couldn't believe the terrible news.

"I laid that egg myself!" she shrieked.

"You think you did; but you didn't," Polly Plymouth Rock snapped. "Johnnie Green took an egg of yours one day and left that other one in its place, to deceive you. And everybody on the farm—except you—knows that he succeeded."

Henrietta Hen didn't wait to hear anything more. She rushed squalling into the barn and went straight to her nest. One good, hard peck at the big white egg told her beyond all doubt that she had been betrayed. The beautiful, big, white egg wasn't an egg after all!

Now that Henrietta Hen knew it she wondered how it could ever have deceived her. She saw that it was shiny and altogether unlike any egg she had ever seen anywhere.

"Johnnie Green has played a mean trick on me," Henrietta Hen cackled. "And now I'll play one on him! He can have his old china egg. I'll leave it here for him. But he'll find none of my beautiful little brown eggs beside it. I'll have my nest where he'll never discover it—not if he hunts for it all summer long!"

So saying, she left the haymow. And going into the carriage shed, her roving eyes chanced to light on an old straw hat of Johnnie Green's that lay upside down upon a high shelf.

Henrietta Hen managed to flutter up beside it. And then with many a chuckle she laid a brown egg in the hat.

"There!" she cackled. "This is the safest place on the farm. Johnnie Green hasn't had this hat on his head since last summer."

XIII

TWO IN A GARDEN

Jimmy Rabbit was enjoying a few nibbles at one of Farmer Green's cabbages. He hadn't noticed that there was anybody but himself in the garden. So it startled him to hear a shrill voice cry, "Get out of our garden!"

Jimmy Rabbit jumped. But he didn't jump far, for he soon saw that it was only Henrietta Hen speaking to him.

"Why should I get out of our garden?" Jimmy Rabbit inquired mildly.

"I should have said, 'Farmer Green's garden,'" said Henrietta Hen.

"Thank you very much for the warning; but I don't think we need go away just yet—if old dog Spot isn't sniffing around," said Jimmy Rabbit. "I don't believe there's any danger."

"You don't understand," Henrietta Hen cried. "I ordered you out of the garden."

"You ordered me?" said Jimmy Rabbit, acting as if he were astonished.

"Yes!" Henrietta declared. "And I'd like to know when you're going to obey me."

"It's easy to answer that," Jimmy Rabbit replied. "I'm going away as soon as I've finished my luncheon." Nobody could have been pleasanter than he. Yet Henrietta Hen seemed determined to be disagreeable.

"I don't see your lunch basket," she remarked, looking all around.

"No!" he replied. "I forgot it. I meant to bring one with me and carry a cabbage-head home in it."

Henrietta Hen spoke as if she were very peevish.

"You've no right," she said, "to take one of the cabbages away with you."

"I'm not going to," Jimmy Rabbit explained.

"You were nibbling at one when I first noticed you," Henrietta Hen insisted.

"Was I?" he gasped. "Are you sure you're not mistaken? Are you sure you weren't pecking at a cabbage-leaf yourself?"

Now, the truth of the matter was that Henrietta had herself come to the garden to eat cabbage. Really she was no better than he was. But somehow Henrietta Hen never could believe that she was in the wrong.

"You're impertinent," she told Jimmy

Henrietta Hen Scolds Jimmy Rabbit. (Page 62)

Rabbit in her severest tone. "You know very well that Farmer Green raises these cabbages for home use only."