60 PLANTING IN THE SEED-BED 
“Stop that and guess,” Queenie exclaimed, 
stamping her tiny foot. 
“You have caught a butterfly,” Joseph said, no- 
ticing her closed hand. 
“I have a bird’s egg,” she told him in great 
triumph, showing it to us in the palm of her hand. 
Joseph then stopped making the furrows and 
looked at the egg. It was small and of delicate 
cream colour, flecked all over with brown. 
“Where did you get it?” Joseph asked. 
“I took it,” she answered, “from a little house 
by Auntie’s barn. It was full of sticks, but I 
pulled them all out, and then I put my hand in and 
got the egg.” 
“I believe it is a wren’s egg,” Joseph said sol- 
emnly, remembering how these birds in our own 
house had barricaded the door with sticks. “You 
should not have taken it.” 
“Oh, birds are everywhere,” Queenie replied. 
“They are in the air and in the trees, and some are 
in the shutters of my window. They wake me up 
every morning chirping so loudly. I never took a 
butterfly’s egg,” she said further. 
“Butterflies come out from a chrysalis,” Joseph 
said reprovingly, and then he went on making fur- 
rows for the columbine seeds. 
Just as soon as he tore open the packages of 
seeds, Queenie wished to help him drop them in the 
earth, and, after some coaxing, Joseph gave her a 
few, showing her how to hold them. He went 
