Turkeys for Thanksgiving, sucking pigs for
Christmas, chickens for Easter, goose, she couldn't abide. She thought
it was too strong. She said the egg was a symbol of life; of
awakening, of birth, and the chickens came from the eggs, first ones
about Easter, so that proved it was chicken time.

I am going to quit praying about little things I can manage myself.
Father said no prayer would bring an answer unless you took hold and
pulled with all your being for what you wanted. I had been intending
for days to ask the Lord to help me find where Leon hid his Easter
eggs. It had been the law at our house from the very first, that for
the last month before Easter, aside from what mother had to have for
the house, all of us might gather every egg we could find and keep them
until Easter. If we could locate the hiding place of any one else, we
might take all theirs. The day before Easter they were brought in,
mother put aside what she required, and the one who had the most got to
sell all of them and take the money. Sometimes there were two washtubs
full, and what they brought was worth having, for sure. So we watched
all year for safe places, and when the time came we almost ran after
the hens with a basket. Because Laddie and Leon were bigger they could
outrun us, and lots of hens laid in the barn, so there the boys always
had first chance. Often during the month we would find and take each
other's eggs a dozen times.

We divided them, and hid part in different places, so that if either
were found there would still be some left.

Laddie had his in the hopper of the cider press right on the threshing
floor, and as he was sure to get more than I had anyway, I usually put
mine with his. May had hers some place, and where Leon had his, none
of us could find or imagine. I almost lay awake of nights trying to
think, and every time I thought of a new place, the next day I would
look, and they wouldn't be there. Three days before Easter, mother
began to cook and get the big dinner ready, and she ran short of eggs.
She told me to go to the barn and tell the boys that each of them must
send her a dozen as quickly as they could. Of course that was fair, if
she made both give up the same number. So I went to the barn.

The lane was muddy, and as I had been sick, I wore my rubbers that
spring. I thought to keep out of the deep mud, where horses and cattle
trampled, I'd go up the front embankment, and enter the little do