“It does seem as if they needn’t all moult at the same time,” said Peggy. “I do hope somebody will begin to lay before Thanksgiving, so we can have a Thanksgiving egg. Henrietta, don’t you think you could give me just one egg for Thanksgiving?”
Whatever Henrietta’s thoughts were, she kept them to herself, and not one hen produced an egg in time for Thanksgiving.
Mrs. Owen, with Peggy and Alice, dined with the Carters. Mrs. Carter wrote saying what pleasure it would give them all if they could come, and she added there would be no other guests except her husband’s Aunt Betsy and her brother Joe. She hoped it would not be too hard for Mrs. Owen to have a Thanksgiving dinner in her own old house; if she did not feel like it, she would understand.
Dear Mrs. Carter Mrs. Owen replied—
It would be much harder to stay at home than to go to you. The greatest cause I have for Thanksgiving this year is the fact that you are my friend, and that Diana is the friend of my children. Since we had to leave the house, I am glad it is you who are living in it.
Faithfully yours
Mary Owen
So the children had a happy Thanksgiving, even without the Thanksgiving egg. And still Peggy and Alice looked eagerly for eggs and could not find even one. Autumn had changed to winter, and still the hens were moulting, and there were no eggs. The vegetable garden, at the back of the house, was now turned into a fairy country, for the brown earth was covered with a snowy quilt, and every twig on the trees and shrubs was encased in diamonds. The snow came suddenly—one night, when the children went to bed, the ground had been bare, and in the morning the world seemed all made over new. But still the dwellers in Hotel Hennery showed no signs of laying eggs.
And then one morning, a few days before Christmas, just as the children had given up hope, Peggy found an egg. It was a thrilling moment; and Angel Hen-Farrell was so proud to be the first of the hens to lay an egg that she would not stop talking about it. What she said sounded to Alice like “Cut-cut-cad-ar-cut, cadarcut, cadarcut,” but Peggy said she was talking a foreign language.
“I can translate it for you, Alice,” she said; “it is the Rhode Island Red language.”