sked:

"Well! how goes it?"

"All right," said Toine; "only it keeps me fearfully hot."

One morning his wife entered in a state of great excitement, and
declared:

"The yellow hen has seven chickens! Three of the eggs were addled."

Toine's heart beat painfully. How many would he have?

"Will it soon be over?" he asked, with the anguish of a woman who is
about to become a mother.

"It's to be hoped so!" answered the old woman crossly, haunted by fear
of failure.

They waited. Friends of Toine who had got wind that his time was drawing
near arrived, and filled the little room.

Nothing else was talked about in the neighboring cottages. Inquirers
asked one another for news as they stood at their doors.

About three o'clock Toine fell asleep. He slumbered half his time
nowadays. He was suddenly awakened by an unaccustomed tickling under
his right arm. He put his left hand on the spot, and seized a little
creature covered with yellow down, which fluttered in his hand.

His emotion was so great that he cried out, and let go his hold of the
chicken, which ran over his chest. The bar was full of people at the
time. The customers rushed to Toine's room, and made a circle round him
as they would round a travelling showman; while Madame Toine picked up
the chicken, which had taken refuge under her husband's beard.

No one spoke, so great was the tension. It was a warm April day. Outside
the window the yellow hen could be heard calling to her newly-fledged
brood.

Toine, who was perspiring with emotion and anxiety, murmured:

"I have another now--under the left arm."

His' wife plunged her great bony hand into the bed, and pulled out a
second chicken with all the care of a midwife.

The neighbors wanted to see it. It was passed from one to another, and
examined as if it were a phenomenon.

For twenty minutes no more hatched out, then four emerged at the same
moment from their shells.

There was a great commotion among the lookers-on. And Toine smiled with
satisfaction, beginning to take pride in this unusual sort of paternity.
There were not many like him! Truly, he was a remarkable specimen of
humanity!

"That makes six!" he declared. "Great heavens, what a christening we'll
have!"

And a loud laugh rose from all present. Newcomers filled the bar. They
asked one another:

"How many are there?"

"Six."

Toine's wife took this new family to the hen, who clucked loudly,
bristled her feathers, and spr