190 



THE WHITE EGG. 



" I'll give him five minutes more," said the dame, " and if he 

 isn't out by that time, we must go to the barn-yard without him. 

 Perhaps," she added, in a louder tone, for the benefit of the naughty 

 chicken who was giving her so much trouble, — " perhaps the old 

 gander may come along and eat him up, shell and all. He'd better 

 come out!" 



And all the nine little chickens ran up to the e^^, and, putting 

 their beaks close to the shell, peeped, " You'd better come out ! " 



But the white &gg lay still in the nest, and showed no sign of 

 cracking; and when the five minutes were over, the old hen 

 marched o^ with her nine chickens, and left it alone, at the mercy 

 of the old gander. !N^ow, I may as well tell you that the strange 

 white egg was a china nest egg., so there was not much chance of 

 its cracking at all ; but of course Dame Partlet did not know that. 



When she came back and found it still whole, and no sign of a 

 chicken, she was very angry at first, but afterwards she became 

 frightened. 



"I fear the' chicken must be dead!" she said. "Indeed, the 

 shell is so hard that I cannot break it myself, and how can I expect 

 a little chicken to do it? My dears," she continued sadly, "your 

 poor little brother {or sister) must certainly be dead. Let us 

 weep for him! " 



So the nine little chickens took their nine little pocket hand- 

 kerchiefs out of their nine little coat-tail pockets, and wept for their 

 poor little brother (or sister) who lay dead inside the nest-egg. 

 And the nest-egg lay there and took no notice of them, and would 

 not even take the trouble to tell them that there was no chicken 

 inside it. But it was made of china, and probably knew no 

 better. 



