“There are some eggs for you, Trouble,” his grandmother said. “If he falls and spills them, or drops them, they won’t break,” she whispered to Jan and Ted.
This satisfied Baby William, and with the china eggs in his little basket he set off with his brother and sister to watch them get the real eggs out of the nests. And Trouble was as careful of his china eggs as he could have been of the sort that would break so easily.
That is, he was as careful as Trouble Martin could be. Once he dropped the basket, and the eggs rolled over the ground. Trouble stood still, while Teddy and Janet scrambled around and picked them up. Then, Baby William tipped his basket and the eggs rolled out. But they were again picked up, and very soon the little party was in the chicken yard.
“It will be a little lesson to him,” said Grandma Martin, “and before very long he will be big enough to gather real eggs for himself.”
Jan and Ted soon had their baskets nearly full. They found most of the eggs in nests in the hen-house, but now and then some queer old “Biddy” of a chicken would slip out of the chicken yard and go off to lay her eggs in a secret place.
It was the work of Ted and Jan to find these places, and they often found them under the barn. There was one place where part of the barn wall had fallen away, making a hole through which a small boy or girl could crawl. On the ground was hay and straw that had sifted down from the floor of the barn above, and this was a favorite place for hens to make their secret nests.
“I’ll crawl under and see how many eggs I can find,” said Teddy. “You stay here and hold my basket, Jan.”
“All right, Ted.”
Under Ted crawled, and pretty soon his sister heard him call:
“Oh, what a lot of eggs!”