d seen
people take eggs there to be hatched. They would pay for the hatching and
then one of the men in charge of the rooms would count their eggs, and
give them just as many little ducklings."

"I guess they don't have accidents there, then," said Katie.

"_I_ won't have accidents _always_," August replied.

"But what _do_ they do with so many ducks?" asked Tommy.

"Why, half the poor Chinese people near the coast live on the water all
the time in boats that are half houses. Of course they could not keep
hens, but they can keep ducks and they do."

"Oh, yes!" cried Tommy. "I 'member how papa told about seeing them fed
and called into the boats. He said every flock knew its own call, and
would go scuttling through the water to the right boat. He thought they
were in this d'edful hurry, cause the last one got whipped."

"What shall I do about school, mamma?" August asked.

"Oh! go, and recite your most important lessons," she answered wisely. "I
will take care of the eggs and chickens till you return."

It was just as well for August to be occupied, since the hatching,
although it went on surely, was slow work.

With great faith in his incubator, August had previously built a little
yard for the expected chickens.

It was in box form, about eight feet long and two feet wide. In the
center was a feeding-tray and water tank, and at one end a hover. This
hover (H) was

[Illustration: THE ARTIFICIAL MOTHER.]

lined with soft fur loosely tacked to the top and sides and hanging down
the front in narrow strips to form a curtain. It sloped from the front to
the back. The water tank was a stout earthen bottle in a saucer; a small
hole near the bottom of the bottle let the water, drop by drop, into the
saucer, so that as the chickens drank, the supply in the saucer was
continually freshening. The bottom of the yard was covered with gravel
three inches deep. This neat yard was now waiting down stairs in a sunny
shed room to receive the chickens.

August went to school, and on his way home called for his grandmother to
go up to the house to dinner.

Grandma knew that it was just three weeks since August had taken the last
eggs, and that twenty-one days was the time allotted by nature for the
bringing forth of chickens, so she shrewdly suspected what she would
find; but it had not occurred to her that she would find chickens alive
without the aid of a hen.

"Grandma," asked August, as they walked along "when you set