How clear it all comes back today, though I am as old as my father 

 was then, and over two thousand miles from that old Indiana home. 

 Again I take the egg basket from its accustomed place and start out 

 to make the rounds of the old barns, and sheds, and with what antici- 

 pation! What if I should find a new nest with bushels of eggs! What 

 if I should find a large double-yolk egg! Here is a nest in the horse 

 trough with a beautiful pink egg with little white specks. -Ok, that 

 manhood days could rave over a perfect thing as a boy does over a 

 pink speckled egg. How carefully it is placed in the basket away to 

 one side to show mother what a beauty. Then down deep in the 

 manger among the old cornstalks is another nest with its treasure. 

 Then up to the sweet-scented hay mow and behind the beams and dark 

 passages under the roof we crawl, feeling carefully in every hole. We 

 come out all breathless with "hay seed in our hair" and spider webs 

 across our face and take a few turns on the hay to shake the dust off. 

 Then down to the old straw stack with its pole shed underneath and 

 its long dark hole away back in where we play bear. It takes grit to 

 go in there for eggs where we have peopled it so often with big bears 

 and things. Then we climb up over the sides of the old stack so steep 

 and high that we can hardly keep from sliding off, and follow around 

 to the little hole on the side where biddy has a snug nest. Then we 

 slide down, down to the soft bunch of straw below, which takes 

 our breath. 



Then back past the old gimpson patch where the old sawdust pile 

 used to be we part the weeds and search for stolen nests, and to this 

 day I can smell the fresh trampled weeds as we wade through them. 

 What excitement if we find a "new" nest with "lots" of eggs! 



Then what a pleasure to go to grandpa's old farm place and hunt 

 for eggs where grandpa never thought of looking. The big barns and 

 sheds are so strange and mysterious. What a world of adventure for 

 a boy at grandfather's place! Grandfather had guineas, and with what 

 a thrill did I hear the old guinea at the noon hour set up that well- 

 known cry that told where she had stolen her nest away down in the 

 hay field, and how carefully I watched to see just where she flew from 

 so that I might find the nest. A nest full of guinea eggs away out in 

 the hayfield is^about the choicest treasure that a boy could possibly 

 discover. The little brownish pointed eggs so uniform and perfect fill 

 a boy's wildest dreams for perfect eggs. I have stood long over a nest 

 of guinea eggs in perfect ecstacy. 



Grandfather gave me a setting of guinea eggs and how carefully I 

 carried them home and placed them under the most reliable old hen, 

 and how patiently I waited for them to come out, and how my hopes 

 went down when I found that they were not out on the twenty-first 

 day. My hopes arose again when my mother told me that it took 

 longer to hatch guinea eggs than hen eggs. 



How I danced with glee when the first little striped guinea appeared. 

 Mother" said that guineas were naturally wild and that I could not 

 expect to tame them as I did my chickens. But it was not long till 

 they would run far from their coop to meet me and pick the bugs and 

 worms from my hand. 



I think a baby guinea the sleekest, quickest, most lovable of all 

 young fowl. They are so perfect and feather out so young and fly 



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