it. Above
all, they always took pains to inquire whether she had been so unlucky as
to crack the shell. And if Henrietta hadn't displeased Polly Plymouth
Rock one day, the truth might never have come out.

Anyhow, Polly Plymouth Rock told Henrietta Hen that if she had any sense
she would stop making such a fuss over a china egg.

"China egg!" cried Henrietta. "I don't know what you mean."

"That's not a real egg that you're so proud of," Polly Plymouth Rock
declared. "It's nothing but a make-believe one. Johnnie Green left it in
your nest to fool you, so you'd keep that nest and lay eggs in it, right
along.... You're so careful not to break that china egg! Why, if you
_tried_ to break it you'd find that it's solid as a rock."

Henrietta Hen couldn't believe the terrible news.

"I laid that egg myself!" she shrieked.

"You think you did; but you didn't," Polly Plymouth Rock snapped.
"Johnnie Green took an egg of yours one day and left that other one in
its place, to deceive you. And everybody on the farm--except you--knows
that he succeeded."

Henrietta Hen didn't wait to hear anything more. She rushed squalling
into the barn and went straight to her nest. One good, hard peck at the
big white egg told her beyond all doubt that she had been betrayed. The
beautiful, big, white egg wasn't an egg after all!

Now that Henrietta Hen knew it she wondered how it could ever have
deceived her. She saw that it was shiny and altogether unlike any egg she
had ever seen anywhere.

"Johnnie Green has played a mean trick on me," Henrietta Hen cackled.
"And now I'll play one on him! He can have his old china egg. I'll leave
it here for him. But he'll find none of _my_ beautiful little brown eggs
beside it. I'll have my nest where he'll never discover it--not if he
hunts for it all summer long!"

So saying, she left the haymow. And going into the carriage shed, her
roving eyes chanced to light on an old straw hat of Johnnie Green's that
lay upside down upon a high shelf.

Henrietta Hen managed to flutter up beside it. And then with many a
chuckle she laid a brown egg in the hat.

"There!" she cackled. "This is the safest place on the farm. Johnnie
Green hasn't had this hat on his head since last summer."

XIII

TWO IN A GARDEN

Jimmy Rabbit was enjoying a few nibbles at one of Farmer Green's
cabbages. He hadn't noticed that there was anybody but himself in the
garden. So it startled him to hear a shrill voice c