"And shut her in again when she goes back? How I shall like doing it," said Harry.
"It will be very useful to me if you will take this charge," said their mama. "Mary has not time for it, and it would be troublesome to me."
"We will be very attentive. It will be so very nice!" said Rose.
"But remember," added her mama, "that Fairy must sit three whole weeks; and that, if you forget to let her out even one day, she will suffer much and be very hungry and thirsty; while, if you neglect to let her in again, the eggs will get cold and we shall have no chickens. May I trust you?"
Both declared that she might; that they would never forget. Accordingly the carpenter put a little wooden door before one of the nests, with holes in it for air. Then Rose and Harry went with their mama to the store-room, and she took thirteen eggs in a little basket. Fairy was already in the nest, though she had no eggs; but Harry took her off and held her while his mama put clean straw and a little hay nicely in. Rose laid all the eggs carefully among it, and then Fairy was allowed to go in. She began to arrange the eggs with her feet and beak, till they were laid as she liked, then she spread her wings out and settled down upon them. The door was now closed and she was left alone.
Next morning before breakfast, Rose and Harry went to the hen-house with a saucer of water, and some barley which they spread on the floor. When they opened Fairy's door and called her, she got off, picked it up, and drank some water. They felt the warm eggs, and then shut the door, lest another hen should get in; but they waited in the yard while Fairy wandered about, till, in less than ten minutes, she came to her nest again, when they opened her door, let her in, and then shut her up safely. They went on every morning in the same way. Sometimes it seemed to them that she staid out very long, but they always found she came back before the eggs had lost their warmth; however, to pass the time, they went into the garden and played there, going back every few minutes to see if Fairy was clucking outside her door and ready to go in.
Eighteen days passed on. By this time their mama had told them there was in each egg, she hoped, a chicken, ready in a few days to burst the shell and come out. In three days more they might expect the chickens; indeed Mary told them that in her last place she remembered a hen brought out her brood a day too soon; and therefore, though their mama said she thought there must be some mistake about this, they even hoped for them in two days.
On the nineteenth morning they let out Fairy as usual, shut her door, and went into the garden to go on with their play. The game was keeping a shop on a bench under a large walnut tree. It was such a shop as there was in the village, where they sometimes went with their mama, in which many different kinds of things were sold. For several mornings they had been collecting their stock: now they were ready to begin buying and selling; so that it would be still more amusing to play. They had scraped sand off the walk, and this they called moist sugar; some chalk they had found in a field, cut into pieces was loaf sugar; the black seeds in the laburnum pods, which were falling as the young spring leaves came out, were coffee; the dry beech leaves broken up in their hands made tea; large stones were loaves, and little pebbles rolls; willow twigs peeled and cut into pieces were pounds of butter; straws cut short, and tied six or eight together, were candles; and pieces of broken cups and saucers that Mary gave them, were ranged along, and made a fine show of crockery ware. Harry was to be shopman, and Rose customer.
"Stop a moment," said Rose, as Harry placed himself behind the counter; "let me run and look after Fairy."
She ran back, but soon returned saying Fairy was still out, and the eggs as warm as pies, and they began to play. Rose bought several things. She pretended that she was a farmer's wife who had a large family of children, and wanted to lay in stores for three months, and to buy a great many cups and plates. Harry praised his things very much, and she said they were dear and not good, in the way they had observed people did when they went to the shop. They played in this way for some time.