"I didn't, much. But the children understood that it took three weeks
for an egg to hatch, and anyway the pullet was so intermittent in her
attentions to the Easter egg, only sitting on it at night, or when held
down by hand in the day, that there was plenty of time. One evening when
I came out from Boston, I was met by a doleful deputation at the front
gate, with the news that when the coop was visited that morning after
breakfast--they visited the coop every morning before they went to
school--the pullet was found perched on a cross-bar in a high state of
nerves, and the shell of the Easter egg broken and entirely eaten out.
Probably a rat had got in and done it, or, more hopefully, a mink, such
as used to attack eggs in the town where I was a boy. We went out and
viewed the wreck, as a first step towards a better situation; and
suddenly a thought struck me. 'Children,' I said, 'what did you really
expect that egg to hatch, anyway?' They looked askance at one another,
and at last the boy said: 'Well, you know, papa, an egg that's been
cooked--' And then we all laughed together, and I knew they had been
making believe as much as I had, and no more expected the impossible of
a boiled egg than I did.
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