Page:The Story of Opal.djvu/301

 CHAPTER XXXVI

Of Taking-Egg Day, and the Remarkable Things that Befell thereon. 

was taking-egg day. Taking-egg day comes mostly one time a week. It is the day the mamma does send me straight to take eggs to the folks here about and yonder. First she does send me to take them yonder, before she does send me to take them hereabout. This she does because she knows if she sends me first to take them to the folks that live hereabout, I do stay so long with the folks that live in the nursery and hospital that there is n't time enough left to take eggs unto the people that live yonder.

As quick as I did eat my breakfast, the mamma did set out the lard-pail on the wash-bench with a dozen eggs in it. As quick as she did so, I put on my sun-bonnet. It is blue and has a ruffle on it. Sometimes I wear it on my head, but most times it hangs back over my shoulders. And often I carry it over my arm with things in it—earthworms for baby birds, bandages for the folks that get hurt, and mentholatum in quinine boxes. Then too on exploration trips my chums ride in it. Sometimes it's a mouse and sometimes it's a beetle. Very often it is toads and caterpillars—only they don't ride in the sun-bonnet at the same time, because I