.

The hens were soon installed in their new quarters, and every day the poor
invalid collected the scraps of the house and chopped them up, and every
night he put the pans of food in the oven to warm, and every day, unless
the weather was very bad, he managed to creep out to give the fowls their
food and drink, and to collect the eggs. He always washed and marked them
and arranged them for market, so that they should look most tempting,
putting all the dark brown ones together, and the light brown ones, and
the creamy white ones.

"I don't see that there's any call to take all that trouble," Aunt Emma
remarked, rather scornfully. "If people want eggs they'll buy them, no
matter if they're clean or dirty, brown or white."

"But very often they don't feel that they want them until they see them
looking clean and tempting," answered her brother quietly.
"A dirty-looking egg will take away some folks' appetites, whereas a clean
one will make them feel hungry. There was never anything but good done
yet by taking a little trouble over things."

Aunt Emma looked unconvinced, but of one thing she could not help being
convinced, and that was the good that the work and the interest of it were
doing her brother. He no longer worried so cruelly at having to be idle;
he felt less depressed, and, as he grew more cheerful, so he grew
stronger, and by and by the pain he suffered lessened, and he was able to
walk better and do more.

So the months wore away, and March came on them all too quickly, and with
each week the work in the garden grew heavier.

"I do believe we shall have to have in a man to help us another year,"
sighed Bella, pausing in her digging, and seating herself on an upturned
flower-pot for a rest.

Tom groaned. "And he'll cost more than he earns, most likely," he said
soberly.

"Not if----" began Bella; but what she was going on to say was never said,
and will never be known now, for at that moment Charlie burst through the
gate and along the path in a great state of excitement.

"Guess what I've done! Guess what I've bought! Quick, quick, quick!"

"Rabbits," said Bella; "and if you have, you must keep them shut up or
they'll eat everything."

"'Tisn't rabbits. Guess again."

"Pigeons?" guessed Tom.

"A pair of shears?" said Bella.

"A pig?" cried Tom.

But Charlie only shook his head more and more emphatically.

"Why, a swarm of bees," he burst out, unable to keep his secret any
longer