Page:Fairy Tales for Worker's Children.djvu/62



But no one was able to keep little Paul quiet. He looked right up into the angry red face and asked further, "Why are you so impatient with me?"

Slap! and he got a box on the ears. He began to cry, ran away, and while running asked, "Why do you hit me?"

He came to the chicken yard. There stood a big hen with many-colored feathers, cackling aloud, proudly strutting. "I have laid an egg! I have laid an egg!" And from all sides of the yard there sounded in chorus: "I have laid an egg! I have laid an egg!" The rooster, however, was angry because the hens were so proud of having done something which he could not do, and cried scornfully, "I am the rooster, you are only hens!" Along came Mary, the little blond servant of the poorhouse, gathered the eggs carefully into her blue apron, and carried them into the house. 56