the news.
"And I don't see why you should sigh," she added. "Goodness knows you'll
eat your share of the hay--and probably more--before the winter's over."

"It's the work that I'm thinking of," Ebenezer explained. "They'll hitch
me to the hayrake and Johnnie Green will drive me all day long in the hot
hayfields. I always hate to hear the clatter of the mowing machine," he
groaned. "It means that the hayrake will come out of the shed next."

Henrietta Hen caught her breath.

"The mowing machine!" she gasped. "Is Farmer Green going to use the
mowing machine now?"

"Certainly!" said Ebenezer. "I hear he's going to harness the bays to it
to-morrow morning."

"My! my!" Henrietta wailed. "Isn't there any way I can stop him from
doing that?"

"I don't know of any," Ebenezer told her. "I've often felt just as you do
about it. There's nobody that dreads hearing the mowing machine more than
I do."

"You can't feel the way I do," Henrietta declared.

"On the contrary," the old horse insisted, "I don't see how it can matter
to you in the least. _You_ don't have to pull the mowing machine nor the
hayrake. Besides, didn't you just tell me that my news about haying
didn't interest you?"

"But it does!" Henrietta cried. "I was mistaken. It means _everything_ to
me. It's the worst news I ever heard in all my life."

Old Ebenezer looked down at her with mild astonishment on his long,
honest face.

"Why is it bad news?" he inquired. "If you'll tell me, perhaps I can help
you."

So Henrietta Hen explained her difficulty. Whatever it was, it amazed
Ebenezer. And he had to admit that he could think of no way out of the
trouble.

"It was very, very careless of you," he told Henrietta. Then suddenly he
had a happy thought. "Cheer up!" he cried. "If Farmer Green sits on them,
maybe they'll hatch."

"Hatch!" she groaned. "They'll _break_!"

And she ran out of the stall and hurried into the yard.

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
eg