Grandmother explained that the queer looking "desk" was really an incubator—a box in which eggs were kept warm till the little creature inside each egg was big enough to break the shell and take care of itself.
Mary Jane looked and looked and looked and thought it was the most wonderful of all the many wonders she had seen at Grandmother's. She thought of a dozen questions she wanted to ask, but Grandmother seemed so busy tending to this and that and the other that she decided to wait till some other time to ask them.
"Now, dear," said Grandmother, "you stay here and be deciding which you want for yours while I get your grandfather to help me take them out. I was so in hopes you could see this, pet, because I knew you'd like to."
She bustled out of the room in search of Grandfather, and Mary Jane studied over the rows of chickens. And just at that minute she spied them! She knew the second she saw them that there was her family.
They were huddled down in one corner, all six of them and they seemed lonesome and—well, different. Of course Mary Jane may have imagined that, but so it seemed to her. Their bills were funny and their eyes were different from the eyes of the other chicks, and the shape of their tails and of their wings seemed different, some way.
"I'm going to have you and give you a nice time," said Mary Jane, whispering tenderly above the case cover. "I'd like to take care of you, so don't you mind if you are funny!" And with the tip, tip of her finger, she touched the glass directly over them.
Just then Grandmother Hodges came back into the room with Grandfather right behind her.
"Grandmother!" cried Mary Jane eagerly, "may I have any ones? May I pick them out? May I have these funny little ones? These that are all by their lonesomes in the corner?"
Grandfather and Grandmother both looked to where Mary Jane pointed.
"The ducks!" they exclaimed together. "They came out all right!"