4 THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS. 



" Yes, but I Ve bought kens, you see," said Freddy ; 

 " so it 's no use trying." 



" 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." 



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, " O, I will show you how ! " 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. 



