e tossed down the last
grains of corn.
"Oh, I know how to hunt eggs!" cried Sue. "I hunted some once for Mrs.
Gordon, who lives next door to us."
"She sat in the nest!" laughed Bunny.
"Well, I hope you don't do that here," said Sue's mother, smiling.
Sue had no such bad luck. Indeed it was easy to hunt the eggs on
grandpa's farm, for the hens were all kept in houses and yards, with
wire fences about them so they could not fly away and hide their nests.
The eggs were all in cute little boxes, and all grandma had to do was to
lift up the cover, and take the eggs out.
Bunny and Sue helped put the eggs in baskets, but they did not carry
them for fear they would spill and break them--break the eggs, not the
baskets, I mean. For if you break a basket you can fix it, but if you
break an egg, no one can mend it--you have to eat it.
After the eggs were gathered they all went to pick strawberries. That is
grandma and Mother Brown and Bunny and Sue did. Papa Brown, with grandpa
and Bunker Blue, went over to look at some colts, or little horses, in a
field, or pasture, far from the house.
"Oh, I wish I could see the ponies," said Sue. Bunny wished so too.
"The next time you may," his father said.
"We'll have fun getting strawberries," said Grandma Brown, and the
children did.
They picked the big, red, sweet berries, putting them in baskets. They
would have some of them for dinner, with cream and sugar.
"And for supper I'll make a strawberry short-cake," promised Grandma
Brown.
Bunny and Sue thought it was great fun to pick the berries. Of course
they ate almost as many as they put in the baskets, but that was all
right, and just what grandma expected.
"Strawberries were made for children to eat," she said with a smile.
"Now see, I'll show you how to string them on a piece of grass, to keep
them from crushing."
With a little pointed stick Grandma Brown would make a tiny hole through
a strawberry. Then through the hole she would put a long thin grass. In
this way she strung the berries on the grass stem just as you string
glass beads on a string. Then when Bunny and Sue had a string of
strawberries, they could sit in the shade, and pull them off, eating
them one by one.
"Oh, what fun this is!" said Sue, when she could eat no more. Her hands
and face were red with the juice of the strawberries.
"Yes," said Bunny, "grandpa's farm is the nicest place in the whole
world, I think."
And how good the
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