en born and brought up in the
city know nothing about that chapter in a boy's history of which I speak.

About a month before Easter there comes to the farmhouse a scarcity of
eggs. The farmer's wife begins to abuse the weasels and the cats as the
probable cause of the paucity. The feline tribe are assaulted with many a
harsh "Scat!" on the suspicion of their fondness for omelets in the raw.
Custards fail from the table. The Dominick hens are denounced as not worth
their mush. Meanwhile, the boys stand round the corner in a broad grin at
what is the discomfiture of the rest of the family.

The truth must be told that the boys, in anticipation of Easter, have, in
some hole in the mow or some barrel in the wagon-house, been hiding eggs.
If the youngsters understand their business, they will compromise the
matter, and see that at least a small supply goes to the house every day.
Too great greed on the part of the boy will discover the whole plot, and
the charge will be made: "De Witt, I believe you are hiding the eggs!"
Forthwith the boy is collared and compelled to disgorge his possessions.

Now, there is nothing more trying to a boy than, after great care in
accumulating these shelly resources, to have to place them in a basket and
bring them forth to the light two weeks before Easter. Boys, therefore,
manage with skill and dexterity. At this season of the year you see them
lurking much about the hayrick and the hay-loft. You see them crawling out
from stacks of straw and walking away rapidly with their hands behind them.
They look very innocent, for I have noticed that the look of innocence in
boys is proportioned to the amount of mischief with which they are stuffed.
They seem to be determined to risk their lives on mow-poles where the hay
lies thin. They come out from under the stable floor in a despicable state
of toilet, and cannot give any excuse for their depreciation of apparel.
Hens flutter off the nest with an unusual squawk, for the boys cannot wait
any longer for the slow process of laying, and hens have no business to
stand in the way of Easter. The most tedious hours of my boyhood were spent
in waiting for a hen to get off her nest. No use to scare her off, for then
she will get mad, and just as like as not take the egg with her. Indeed, I
think the boy is excusable for his haste if his brother has a dozen eggs
and he has only eleven.

At this season of the year the hens are melancholy. They want to hatch,