ere the prettiest, and they each
said in succession that they must be very precious of them, for if you
shook an egg, or anything, it wouldn't hatch; and it was their plan to
take these home and set an unemployed pullet, belonging to the big
brother, to hatching them in the coop that he had built of laths for her
in the back yard with his own hands. But long before the afternoon was
over, the evil one had entered Eden, and tempted the boy to try fighting
eggs with these treasured specimens, as I had told we boys used to fight
eggs in my town in the southwest. He held a conquering course through
the encounter with three eggs, but met his Waterloo with a regular
Bluecher belonging to the baby. Then he instantly changed sides; and
smashed his Bluecher against the last egg left. By that time all the
other children were in tears, the baby roaring powerfully in ignorant
sympathy, and the victor steeped in silent gloom. His mother made him
gather up the ruins from the floor, and put them in the stove, and she
took possession of the victorious egg, and said she would keep it till
we got back to Cambridge herself, and not let one of them touch it. I
can tell you it was a tragical time. I wanted to go out and buy them
another set of eggs, and spring them for a surprise on them in the
morning, after they had suffered enough that night. But she said that if
I dared to dream of such a thing--which would be the ruin of the
children's character, by taking away the consequences of their
folly--she should do, she did not know what, to me. Of course she was
right, and I gave in, and helped the children forget all about it, so
that by the time we got back to Cambridge I had forgotten about it
myself.

"I don't know what it was reminded the boy of that remaining Easter egg
unless it was the sight of the unemployed pullet in her coop, which he
visited the first thing; and I don't know how he managed to wheedle his
mother out of it; but the first night after I came home from
business--it was rather late and the children had gone to bed--she told
me that ridiculous boy, as she called him in self-exculpation, had
actually put the egg under his pullet, and all the children were wild to
see what it would hatch. 'And now,' she said, severely, 'what are you
going to do? You have filled their heads with those ideas, and I suppose
you will have to invent some nonsense or other to fool them, and make
them believe that it has hatched a giraffe, or an