"Run out to the barn, An-nie and see if you can find some eggs. I mean
to make cake this morn-ing and I shall want four or five," said Mrs.
Brown to her lit-tle daugh-ter, An-nie, who had been help-ing her
moth-er in the kit-chen work.
Hunt-ing for hen's eggs was great fun for the chil-dren at Brown Farm.
Some-times two of them would go out to-geth-er, and each would try to
get more eggs than the oth-er, and be the first to reach the kit-chen
with a cap or hat full.
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An-nie placed a short light lad-der a-gainst a high beam in the barn,
climbed up and just as she reached the top, her bright eyes peep-ing in
through the hay piled up on the barn-loft floor, she saw a nice hol-low
place, some-thing like a small cave, where one wise bid-dy had scratched
out a co-sy nest for her-self, and laid some five large eggs. The hen
had gone out for a walk or for a lunch-eon, so An-nie took four of the
eggs, put them in-to the crown of her hat, and hast-ened back to give
them to her moth-er.
"May I not beat them up for you, with the whirl-i-gig beat-er, moth-er,
it is so much fun?"
"Yes, you may, An-nie, and it will be quite a help to me."
So on through the morn-ing the lit-tle girl found man-y a use-ful and
plea-sant thing to do. When the work was all done and an out-ing had
been planned for the af-ter-noon, Mrs. Brown said to An-nie, "This
lit-tle verse comes to my mind. I think one of my old-er chil-dren once
learned it at school. It is,
"Work while you work,
Play while you play,
That is the way
To be hap-py and gay.
All that you do
Do with all your might;
Things done by halves
Are nev-er done right."
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