88 FARM SPIES 



"I did know it, of course, but I just forgot to 

 stop and think about it/' answered Freddie with 

 disgust. 



They went to the garden and began digging very 

 carefully with their knife-blades and 

 soon uncovered the eggs. They were 

 little, reddish, podlike bodies laid in 

 FIG. 46. "They a little earthen chamber which had 



were little, red- , 111,. -i i 



dish, podlike been made by the female with the 

 prongs which their father had pointed 

 out to them the day before. They found the eggs 

 a solid mass and adhered to each other as if 

 glued. When they noticed how nicely the eggs were 

 covered over with soil so that no trace of the chamber 

 could be seen on the surface of the 

 soil, they were very glad that they 

 had marked the place as their father 

 had told them. They counted the 

 eggs and found that there were ninety- 

 four in the mass. 



"They are good layers/' remarked 



W^ie. chamber." 



"Yes, they are," Freddie agreed, "and I do not 

 understand how any of our Plymouth-rock hens 

 can look at a grasshopper without blushing. If 

 those old hens would only lay ninety-four eggs at 

 one sitting, we could go into the poultry business." 



The boys talked the matter over and decided 



