ulty?"

"Don't you think," said Henrietta, "that if Johnnie Green finds my nest
he'll be sure to take both eggs?"

"No, I don't," was old Whitey's blunt answer.

"Then he'll be sure to take the big, white one," Henrietta Hen wailed.

"No, he won't," old Whitey told her. "If he does, I'll miss my guess."

Well, that was really too much for Henrietta Hen to believe.

"That boy will never take a little egg and leave a big one," she
declared.

"You wait and see if he doesn't," old Whitey advised her.

So Henrietta waited. Though she had little faith in old Whitey's advice,
Henrietta could think of nothing else to do. And the next morning, to her
great surprise, when Johnnie Green climbed into the haymow and found her
nest he took the small brown egg and put it in his hat. And he never
touched the big, white egg at all. He didn't even pick it up and look at
it!

Perched on a beam overhead Henrietta Hen watched him breathlessly. And as
soon as he had gone she went flopping down to the barn floor and set up a
great clamor for old Whitey.

"What is it now?" old Whitey asked, sticking her head inside the doorway.

"Your guess was a good one!" cried Henrietta Hen. "He came; and he took
the small one."

"There!" said old Whitey. "I told you so! I knew Johnnie Green wouldn't
rob you of that big egg. And if you keep laying small eggs in that same
nest you'll find he'll let you keep the big one."

Henrietta Hen fairly beamed at her companion.

"How delightful!" she exclaimed. "I've become very, very fond of that big
egg. I love to look at it. But there's another thing that worries me now.
If that big egg should get broken--"

"Don't let that trouble you!" said old Whitey.

"I'm almost afraid to sit on my nest," Henrietta Hen confessed. "If the
shell of that egg should happen to be thin--"

Old Whitey seemed much amused by Henrietta's fears.

"Let me know if you break it," she said. And then she left Henrietta with
her treasure.

"I'll be very careful," Henrietta called after the old dame.

XII

PLAYING TRICKS

Now, the hen known as old Whitey was something of a gossip. She went
straight to the farmyard and told everybody what had happened--what
Henrietta Hen had said to her and what she had said to Henrietta Hen. The
whole flock had a great laugh over the affair.

To Henrietta Hen's delight, all her neighbors took a keen interest in the
wonderful white egg. They asked her countless questions about