“No, no,” said the father peewit. “We do not wish to be censorious.”
“What does that mean?” asked Tommy Smith, for it was a long word, and he did not remember having heard it before.
“I mean,” said the father peewit, “that if people only ate fowl’s eggs, peewit’s eggs would be let alone, and that would be a very good thing. Fowls, you know, are accustomed to it, but we peewits have finer feelings.”
“Yes,” said the mother peewit; “we are more sensitive than common poultry.”
Tommy Smith couldn’t help remembering what the rat had said to him about asking the hen, and he thought he would ask her some day. But now he was talking to peewits. “You told me it was very difficult to find your eggs,” he said.
“So it is,” said the father peewit; “but it is not impossible.”
“I wish it were,” said the mother peewit. “But there are wicked men who learn how to do it, and then they can find them quite easily. Oh, what a wicked world it is!”
Tommy Smith didn’t know what to say to comfort the poor peewits, until all at once an idea occurred to him. “Why do you lay eggs at all?” he said. “You know, if you didn’t lay them, nobody could take them away from you.”
“Not lay eggs?” cried the mother peewit. “Why, it is our duty to lay them. We have our duties to perform, of course.”
“If we did not lay eggs,” said the father peewit (he looked very grave as he spoke), “there would soon be no more peewits in the world, and what do you suppose would happen then?”