"All right. I'll be the one to take it. What'll Jack say?"
"He won't mind. Just one egg, and he has such a lot. And we've been helping him lots this afternoon, cooling 'em off so nicely. But I'll be the one to take it."
"No, me!"
"Let's both do it," said Janet, for once anxious to avoid a quarrel. "I speak for that big one over there," and she abstracted one from the "thermometer row," the row that was most important and precious in the eyes of the owner of the machine.
"And I'll take dis one. It's awful heavy, and I guess de dear little chicken'll he glad to get out and have some nice fresh air."
"Let's go down behind the carriage-house and look at 'em."
They fastened the door of the incubator, and departed with their treasures.
Half an hour later, Jack, having finished his work, came whistling into the house. He would go down and have a look at the machine, and then walk up the river-bank to meet Cynthia, whom he had seen as she paddled off early in the afternoon.
His first glance at the thermometer gave him a shock—75° it registered. What had happened? He looked at the lamp which heated the chambers, and found that it had been turned down very low. What could Martha have been thinking of, when he told her it was so important to keep up the temperature this last day or so? The day after to-morrow he expected the hatching to begin, and he had closed the door of the incubator that morning. It was not to be opened again until the chicks were out.
Jack was on tiptoe with excitement. If they came out well, what a triumph it would be! If they failed, what would his father say?