“Then Mrs. Puddle Duck waddled up and peeped in the nest. There she saw three eggs as white and as smooth as ivory, and the sight filled her with jealousy. She began to talk to herself:—
“‘I knew she must be mighty proud, the stuck-up thing! I can see that by the way she steps around here. Quack, quack! and I’ll just show her a thing or two.’
“Then and there Mrs. Puddle Duck, all muddy as she was, got in Mrs. Blue Hen’s nest and sat on her beautiful white eggs and soiled them. And even that was not all. Out of pure spite Mrs. Puddle Duck laid one of her own dingy-looking eggs in Mrs. Blue Hen’s nest, and that was the cause of all the trouble. That was the reason Mrs. Blue Hen found four dingy eggs in her nest when there ought to have been three clean white ones.
“Well, Mrs. Blue Hen went to setting, and after so long a time nine little chickens were hatched. She was very proud of them. She taught them how to talk, and then she wanted to get off her nest and teach them how to scratch about and earn their own living. But there was still one egg to hatch, and so Mrs. Blue Hen continued to set on it. One day she made up her mind to take her chicks off and leave the egg that wouldn’t hatch. The old Speckled Hen happened to be passing and Mrs. Blue Hen asked her advice. But the old Speckled Hen was very much shocked when she heard the particulars.
“‘What! with nine chickens!’ she cried. ‘Why, nine is an odd number. It would never do in the world. Hatch out the other egg.’
ONE OF THEM WAS ENTIRELY DIFFERENT FROM ALL THE REST
“But young people are very impatient, and Mrs. Blue Hen was young. She fretted and worried a good deal, but in a few days the tenth egg hatched. Mrs. Blue Hen felt very much better after this. In fact, she felt so comfortable that she didn’t take the trouble to look at the chicken that hatched from the tenth egg. But when she brought her children off the nest she was very much astonished to find that one of them was entirely different from all the rest. She was not only surprised, but shocked. Nine of her children were as neat-looking as she could wish them to be, but the tenth one was a sight to see. It had weak eyes, a bill as broad as a case-knife, and big, flat feet. Its feet were so big that it waddled when it walked, and all the toes of each foot were joined together.
“Mrs. Blue Hen had very high notions. She wanted everybody to think that she belonged to the quality, but this wabbly chicken with a broad bill and a foot that had no instep to it took her pride down a peg. She kept her children hid as long as she could, but she had to come out in public after a while, and when she did—well, I’ll let you know there was an uproar in the barnyard. The old Speckled Hen was the first to begin it. She cried out:—
“‘Look—look—look! Look at the Blue Hen’s chickens!’