but scratching up
food in gardens for them, and you should love them _dreadfully_, and
should see two giantesses, a big giantess and a middling-sized
giantess, come tramping right in among them, and you not able to help
them only by ruffling up your feathers and scolding, you 'd be a little
unamiable too, perhaps, for I've heard my mother say that hen nature
was a good deal like human nature." Then I showed her our gray goose's
nest, with an egg in it. But when I expected her to be astonished, she
only said, "Why, I thought the egg of the fowl that saved Rome was much
larger than this." Now this goose laid the largest eggs of any goose
in the neighborhood. "Did you expect it to be as big as the _roc's_
egg in 'Sinbad the Sailor'?" I asked.

As we were passing through the yard, going to the stable, to see my
brother's little colt, we encountered the week's washing, hanging on
the line, and right before my eyes swung my handkerchief, with the
beloved portrait almost washed out! Indeed, scarce a ghost of the
great and worthy George remained. I caught it off and burst into
tears, crying, "O, it's all faded out,--it's all faded out!"

"Why, you silly child," said Miss Grey, "don't cry so for a little
scrap of a handkerchief like that."

"It ain't only a handkerchief," I sobbed, "it's General Washington and
my boy George both together. I 've seen you cry, Miss Grey, over the
'Children of the Abbey,' and mother says they never lived; but General
Washington did live, and was the Father of his Country; and then there
were all the Ten Commandments, too. I declare Nancy is as bad as Moses
was, when he smashed the tables of stone."

But Miss Grey only laughed at my sorrow, and went into the house. When
I followed her, I whispered to mother, "Have we got the 'Children of
the Abbey'? If we have, please give it to Miss Grey to amuse herself
with."

Then I went up stairs and laid out my dead George, and had my foolish
little cry out. After all, my great General had faded and wilted away
into an unsightly little rag of a handkerchief. What a fall was there!
We have seen some very like it in these days.

I had no heart to keep him by me any longer, so I gave him to my little
brother, who put him to every possible use except that of a
handkerchief. That was a hard campaign for the feeble old General.
Sometimes he did service as the sail for a boat; sometimes green
apples, or rabbit feed, or worms for bait were tied up