rt in that. I suppose it might interest you,
however."

Henrietta Hen smiled a knowing sort of smile. And she remarked to Polly
Plymouth Rock, who stood near her, that she didn't believe the old horse
knew a race from a poultry show. "If he ever went to a fair, I dare say
he was hitched outside the fence," she sniffed.

Polly Plymouth Rock cackled with amusement. And she said something that
displeased Henrietta Hen exceedingly.

"Are you going to take that duckling that you hatched out?" she asked.

"Certainly not!" Henrietta snapped. "Please--Miss Plymouth Rock--never
mention him again! I'm going to the fair, among strangers. And I
shouldn't care to have them know about that accident that happened to
me--not for anything!"

XXI

OFF FOR THE FAIR

It seemed to Henrietta Hen that the time for the fair would never come.
She had begun to feel somewhat uneasy, because she had talked so much
about visiting the fair with her children that it would be very awkward
if she didn't go. So she was delighted one day by the noise of hammering
and sawing that came from the workbench at the end of the wagon-shed. A
merry noise it was, to Henrietta's ears; for she guessed at once what was
happening. Farmer Green and his son were building a pen in which she and
her family were to ride to the fair!

The news spread like fire in sun-dried grass. Henrietta Hen took pains
that it should. She told everybody she saw that she expected to leave at
any moment. And she began to say good-by to all her friends.

Since Henrietta didn't start for the fair that day, before nightfall she
had bade every one farewell at least a dozen times. And when, the
following dawn, Henrietta started the day not by saying "Good morning!"
but by bidding her neighbors "Good-by!" once more, they began to think
her a bit tiresome.

"What! Haven't you gone yet?" they asked her.

"No! But I expect to leave at any moment," Henrietta told them. She was
so excited that she couldn't eat her breakfast. But her chicks had no
such trouble. And perhaps it was just as well that Henrietta Hen had her
hands full looking after them and trying to keep them all under her eye,
and spick-and-span for the journey. Otherwise she would have been in more
of a flutter than she was.

While Henrietta had an eye on her children, she tried to keep the other
on the barn. And after what seemed to her hours of watching and waiting,
she saw Johnnie Green lead the old horse Ebenez