the most forbidding frowns and tempestuous tears, all knew that Nature
had yielded, and more often she half-smilingly acknowledged the truth
herself.

All sights and sounds about the farmhouse betokened increasing activity.
During the morning hours the cackling in the barn and out-buildings
developed into a perfect clamor, for the more commonplace the event of a
new-born egg became, the greater attention the hens inclined to call to
it. Possibly they also felt the spring-time impulse of all the feathered
tribes to use their voice to the extent of its compass. The clatter was
music to Alf and Johnnie, however, for gathering the eggs was one of
their chief sources of revenue, and the hunting of nests--stolen so
cunningly and cackled over so sillily--with their accumulated treasures
was like prospecting for mines. The great basketful they brought in daily
after their return from school proved that if the egg manufactory ran
noisily, it did not run in vain. Occasionally their father gave them a
peep into the dusky brooding-room. Under his thrifty management the
majority of the nests were simply loose boxes, each inscribed with a
number. When a biddy wished to sit, she was removed at night upon the
nest, and the box was placed on a low shelf in the brooding-room. If she
remained quiet and contented in the new location, eggs were placed under
her, a note of the number of the box was taken, with the date, and the
character of the eggs, if they represented any special breed. By these
simple precautions little was left to what Squire Bartley termed "luck."
Some of the hens had been on the nest nearly three weeks, and eagerly did
the children listen for the first faint peep that should announce the
senior chick of the year.

Webb and Burt had already opened the campaign in the garden. On the black
soil in the hot-bed, which had been made in a sheltered nook, were even