hed I didn't care much for him, because I had thought so long
about the shiny egg. It serves me right to lose that one, because I have
been so foolish. Still, I do not know how I could stand it if it were
not for my good neighbors."

While Mrs. Dorking was talking with the Bantam by her nest, the Black
Spanish Hen scratched a hole in the earth under the perches, poked the
pieces of the shiny egg into it, and covered them up. "I never raise
Chickens myself," she said, "but if I did----"

The Shanghai Cock walked away with the Dorking Cock. "I'm sorry for
you," he said, "and I am more sorry for Mrs. Dorking. She is too fine a
Hen to be spoken to as you spoke to her this morning, and I don't want
to hear any more of your fault-finding. Do you understand?" And he
ruffled his neck feathers and stuck his face close to that of the
Dorking Cock. They stared into each other's eyes for a minute; then the
Dorking Cock, who was not so big and strong as the Shanghai, shook his
head and answered sweetly, "It was rude of me. I won't do it again."

From that day to this, nobody in the poultry yard has ever spoken of the
shiny egg, and the Dorkings are much liked by the other fowls. Yet if it
had not been for her trouble, Mrs. Dorking and her neighbors would never
have become such good friends. The little Dorkings are fine,
fat-breasted Chicks, with the extra toe on each foot of which all that
family are so proud.

THE DUCKLING WHO DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO

"Quack! Quack!" called the Duck who had been sitting on her nest so
long. "My first egg is cracked, and I can see the broad yellow bill of
my eldest child. Ah! Now I can see his downy white head." The Drake
heard her and quacked the news to every one around, and flapped his
wings, and preened his feathers, for was not this the first Duckling
ever hatched on the farm?

The Drake had not been there long himself. It was only a few days before
the Duck began sitting that she and her five sisters had come with him
to this place. It had not taken them long to become acquainted with the
other farmyard people, and all had been kind to them. The Geese had
rather put on airs, at first, because they were bigger and had longer
legs, but the Ducks and Drake were too wise to notice this in any way,
and before long the Geese were as friendly as possible. They would have
shown the Ducks the way to the water if it had been necessary, but it
was not, for Ducks always know without being tol