"If they left them for me perhaps I'd feel differently," she explained to
her neighbors. "But Johnnie Green gathers every egg that he can find. And
if he takes my eggs I'll make him hunt for them, anyhow."

The older, more staid hens shook their heads when Henrietta talked like
that. They told her she was ungrateful.

"Farmer Green gives you a snug home and plenty of food," they reminded
her. "And the least you can do is to repay him. You ought not to make
trouble by hiding your eggs."

But Henrietta Hen couldn't--or wouldn't--agree with them.

"It's all very well for you to talk," she retorted. "If my eggs were
undersized I shouldn't mind losing them as fast as I laid them. But I lay
the biggest and finest eggs to be had. So it's only natural that I should
like to have at least _one_ around to look at--and to show to callers."

Now, there were plenty of other hens in the flock that laid eggs exactly
as big--or even bigger--than Henrietta Hen's. Some of them told her as
much. Yet it did them no good to talk to her. She wouldn't believe that
there were any eggs in the world to compare with hers. So her neighbors
learned after a while that they might as well let Henrietta Hen manage
her affairs as she pleased. They couldn't help hoping, however, that
somehow Farmer Green would find a way to outwit her.

"What can Henrietta Hen be so boastful about now?" the hens asked one
another one day. "She acts as if she thought more highly of herself than
ever."