She was just in time to hear Farmer Green calling to his son Johnnie.

"Look here!" said he. "I started to oil the mowing machine so I could use
it to-morrow; and just see what I found in the seat!"

Johnnie Green came a-running. And there in the seat of the mowing
machine, nestling in the hay which had been put there for a cushion the
summer before, three eggs greeted Johnnie's eyes.

"They must belong to the speckled hen," Johnnie decided. "I knew she'd
stolen her nest again. I couldn't find it anywhere." He picked up the
eggs and put them in his hat. "She's a sly one," he said.

That remark made Henrietta Hen somewhat angry. At the same time she was
glad that Farmer Green had discovered the eggs before it was too late.
She wouldn't have liked him to sit on them.

It always upset her to see her eggs broken.




XVI

THE ROOSTER UPSET


During the summer Henrietta Hen roamed about the farmyard as she pleased.
To be sure, she always came a-running at feeding time. But except when
there was something there to eat, she didn't go near the henhouse. She