She made a much larger hole for the ball than it really needed. “I might just as well, while I am about it,” she said. “And I should so dislike to have any one think me afraid of work.”
At last she finished and crawled away, covering the place neatly over, so that nobody could see where she went in or out. “There!” she said. “Now I am ready to play.”
A stray Chicken came along and she hurried under a chip to be safe. The Chicken was lost and calling to his mother. “Mother!” he cried. “Mother Hen, I want to get home and go to sleep under your wings.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs. Tumble-bug. “Is it time for Chickens to go to sleep?” She looked through a crack in the fence and across the lawn to the big house. The shadows lay long upon the short grass. “It certainly is,” she said. “And here I have spent all day burying that egg properly. I think it very strange that I cannot get more time for rest and play.” So she had to eat her supper and go straight to bed to get rested for the next day’s work.
Mrs. Tumble-bug did not understand then, and perhaps never will learn, that if she would stop doing things in the hardest way and begin doing them in the easiest way, she might get a great deal of work done in a day and still have time to rest. If one were to tell her so, she might think that meant laziness, but it would not, you know. It is always worth while to make one’s head save one’s feet, and when a single head could save six feet it would certainly be worth while. Still, although Mrs. Tumble-bug never dreamed of such a thing, she probably enjoyed work about as much as her neighbors enjoyed play.
SILVERTIP LEARNS A LESSON
YOU may remember what a funny time Silvertip had with the first Mouse he caught; how he carried it so long in his mouth before daring to lay it down, and how frightened he was each time that it wriggled. That was because he was just beginning to hunt. Cats have to learn by doing things over and over, just like other people. He used to hear the Little Boy sing.
If at first you do not try