"Oh, eggs," said Bobby and Betty. "Eggs--why eggs are nothing to see.
We find them every day."
"Yes," said Joe, "but these are not hen's eggs--they are pheasant's
eggs!"
Bobby and Betty looked, and sure enough, in Joe's hat were seven
eggs--olive-brown in color.
"We were mowing in the meadow," said Joe, "and we almost ran over a
mother pheasant on her nest. She flew up right under the horse's feet,
and old Nell almost stepped into the nest. I took all the eggs,
because a pheasant will not come back to the nest after she has been
frightened away. She finds another place and makes a new nest. She
won't go back to the old one."
"Well," said Bobby, "what are you going to do with the eggs?"
"Oh," said Joe, "I'm going to put them under that little brown bantam
hen that wants to set, and let her hatch them."
So Bobby and Betty went with Joe, and watched him while he made a
comfortable nest in an old box in the shop loft. Then he put the seven
eggs in the nest carefully, and got the little bantam hen and put her
in, too. She clucked and scolded, and when Joe put her in the box she
stood up and moved the eggs round with her feet, to arrange them as
she wished before she would settle down; but when Bobby and Betty
peeped in, a little later, she was all comfortable for her long wait
of three weeks.
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