“There was John Alden, Mother,” Franklin suggested.
“Why, of course, and Priscilla—and Rose Standish.”
“And Columbus!” added Kenneth, with pride.
“They don’t all need to be Puritans,” Franklin said, “I’d rather have some of them more modern. Just see that one there with the extra ruffle on her comb! I’m going to call her Veatra Peck. And the stiff one that does stunts with her toes every time she puts ’em down,—doesn’t she walk like Miss Hannah Wakefield? I’m going to call her Hannah.”
“Hannah Squawk,” Eunice said. “That’s a pretty name.”
“Uncle Edward sent word that he’ll pay five cents apiece for eggs when your hens begin laying,” Mrs. Wood said. “He always likes a boiled egg for his breakfast, and can never be sure that store eggs are perfectly fresh.”
Franklin was delighted, and went up that evening to talk business with Mr. Bates. His uncle said that he knew of still another gentleman who would pay as much for fresh eggs,—indeed, he and this man had become acquainted through sharing a bad egg at a restaurant. They said that nothing made people such good friends as having a common enemy.
But Franklin’s hens did not begin to lay until March, and then they seemed to have no ideas at all about the proper place for eggs. Franklin found them on the hen-house floor, and out in the yard, and very often they were broken. One hen persisted in laying what Eunice called “soft-boiled eggs,”—those without a shell,—until Franklin put crushed oyster-shells in her food; and then she laid ordinary Easter eggs like the others.
Somebody gave Eunice a bantam named Flossy, who laid cunning little white eggs like marshmallows, which Eunice had for her breakfast.
Franklin received enough from the sale of the eggs to buy wheat screenings, and other food for his “birds,” as he called them; but he made nothing more, and soon began to feel the disadvantage of owning such idiotic pets.