"Oh, my! Now I have done it! Oh, dear! What a mess! Oh! Oh!"
"Have you found him? Is Freddie there?" asked Flossie from where she stood in the middle of the barn floor.
"No, but I slid right into a hen's nest, and I've broken all the eggs!" cried Tom. "Oh, me! Oh, my!"
He managed to get to his feet, and there he stood, his hands held out in front of him, for they were dripping with the whites and yolks of the broken eggs. Tom's clothes were pretty well splashed up.
"What a sight I am!" he murmured. "And I've broken all the eggs!"
"Never mind! You couldn't help it," said Harry kindly. "The old hen oughtn't to have laid her eggs in here, and they wouldn't have been smashed. Hens like to steal away, and lay their eggs in hay."
"Oh, but you do look so funny!" cried Nan, then she laughed in spite of her worry about lost Freddie.
"He—he looks like a cake before it's baked!" giggled Mabel.
They all laughed heartily at Tom's sorry plight.
"Please lend me a handkerchief, somebody," he begged. "I can't reach in my pocket to get mine, and there's some egg running in my eye."