“They never reason about anything,” he complained; “and they haven’t any sense of humor. They can’t see a joke even when it’s on them.”
“I don’t like ’em,” Kenneth said; “they’re not warm and cuddly like Weejums, or funny like Cyclone. They’re not much different from what they are fricasseed—’cept for the gravy.”
Soon after the hens began to lay, they showed a desire to sit, so Franklin bought a dozen grocery-store eggs for Veatra Peck; but had to move her into the woodshed, because all the other hens tried to sit at the same time in Veatra’s box. He felt rather surprised and grieved that Veatra should stop laying while she sat, but said, “I suppose she thinks she laid all those grocery-store eggs, and feels that she’s done enough.”
He waited until Veatra had sat for a week; then a fit of impatience seized him.
“I don’t believe all those eggs are good,” he announced at breakfast one day.
“It isn’t time for them to be out yet,” his mother said. “Yes, I know; but Veatra ought not to be wasting her strength hatching bad eggs. I’m just going to investigate a little, and see how they’re coming on.”
“Of course you know that if you do that, it will kill the chickens.”
“Not the way I’ve thought of.”
And that day after school the way was carried into effect.
Franklin chipped a little hole in each shell, and pasted court-plaster over the hole in those eggs that contained chickens. The others he threw away, and was quite triumphant to find that there were only seven good eggs out of the dozen.