but
how can they? They have the requisite disposition, and the capacity, and
the feathers, and the nest, and everything but the eggs. With that deficit,
they sometimes sit obstinately and defy the boy's approaches. Many a boy
has felt the sharp bill of old Dominick strike the back of his hand,
inflicting a wound that would have roused up the whole farmhouse to see
what was the matter had it not been that the boy wanted to excite no
suspicion as to the nature of his expedition. Immediately over the hen's
head comes the boy's cap, and there is a scatteration of feathers all over
the hay-mow, and the boy is victor.

But at last the evening before Easter comes. While the old people are on
the piazza the children come in with the accumulated treasures of many
weeks, and put down the baskets. Eggs large and small, white-shelled and
brown, Cochin-Chinas and Brahmapooters. The character of the hens is
vindicated. The cat may now lie in the sun without being kicked by false
suspicions. The surprised exclamation of parents more than compensates the
boys for the strategy of long concealment. The meanest thing in the world
is for father and mother not to look surprised in such circumstances.

It sometimes happens that, in the agitation of bringing the eggs into the
household harbor, the boy drops the hat or the basket, and the whole
enterprise is shipwrecked. From our own experience, it is very difficult to
pick up eggs after you have once dropped them. You have found the same
experience in after life. Your hens laid a whole nestful of golden eggs on
Wall street. You had gathered them up. You were bringing them in. You
expected a world of congratulations, but just the day before the
consummation, something adverse ran against you, and you dropped the
basket, and the eggs broke. Wise man were you if, instead of sitting down
to cry or attempting to gather up the spilled yolks, you built new nests
and invited a new laying.

It is sometimes found on Easter morning that the eggs have been kept too
long. The boy's intentions were good enough, but the enterprise had been
too protracted, and the casting out of the dozen was sudden and
precipitate. Indeed, that is the trouble with some older boys I wot of.
They keep their money, or their brain, or their influence hidden till it
rots. They are not willing to come forth day by day on a humble mission,
doing what little good they may, but are keeping themselves hidden till
some great Easter