“Keep quiet, you good-for-nothing! Leave me alone with your eternal questions.” The fat woman was quite red with anger, because she knew no answer to Paul’s questions, and nothing angers ignorant persons more than to be forced to say, “I don’t know.” [[56]]
But no one was able to keep little Paul quiet. He looked right up into the angry red face and asked further, “Why are you so impatient with me?”
Slap! and he got a box on the ears. He began to cry, ran away, and while running asked, “Why do you hit me?”
He came to the chicken yard. There stood a big hen with many-colored feathers, cackling aloud, proudly strutting. “I have laid an egg! I have laid an egg!” And from all sides of the yard there sounded in chorus: “I have laid an egg! I have laid an egg!” The rooster, however, was angry because the hens were so proud of having done something which he could not do, and cried scornfully, “I am the rooster, you are only hens!” Along came Mary, the little blond servant of the poorhouse, gathered the eggs carefully into her blue apron, and carried them into the house. [[57]]
“Where do all your eggs go to?” Paul asked the speckled Hen.
“To the city,” she cackled.
“Who eats them there?”
“The rich people, the rich people.” Thus spoke the hen proudly, as though it were a special honor for her.
“Why don’t I ever have an egg?” complained Paul. “I am always so hungry, you know.”