4 THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 



&quot; Yes, but I Ve bought hens, you see,&quot; said Freddy ; 

 &quot; so it s no use trying.&quot; 



&quot; No use ! Of course there is ! Just as if your hens could n t 

 hatch ducks eggs. Now you just wait till one of your hens 

 wants to set, and you put ducks eggs under her, and you 11 

 have a family of ducks in a twinkling. You can buy ducks 

 eggs, a plenty, of old Sam under the hill ; he always has 

 hens hatch his ducks.&quot; 



So Freddy thought it would be a good experiment, and 

 informed his mother the next morning that he intended to 

 furnish the ducks for the next Christmas dinner ; and when 

 she wondered how he was to come by them, he said, mys 

 teriously, &quot; O, I will show you how ! &quot; but did not further 

 explain himself. The next day he went with Tom Seymour, 

 and made a trade with old Sam, and gave him a middle- 

 aged jack-knife for eight of his ducks eggs. Sam, by the 

 by, was a woolly-headed old negro man, who lived by the 

 pond hard by, and who had long cast envying eyes on Fred s 

 jack-knife, because it was of extra-fine steel, having been a 

 Christmas present the year before. But Fred knew very 

 well there were any number more of jack-knives where that 

 came from, and that, in order to get a hew one, he must 

 dispose of the old ; so he made the trade and came home 

 rejoicing. 



Now about this time Mrs. Feathertop, having laid her 

 eggs daily with great credit to herself, notwithstanding Mrs. 



