Page:The Story of Opal.djvu/302

 have learned toads like to eat caterpillars for breakfast. Sometimes Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus, that most dear velvety wood-rat, snuggles up in my sun-bonnet. He most fills it up. A sun-bonnet is a very useful garment.

After I did tie my bonnet-strings under my chin in the proper way the mamma thinks they ought to be tied, I walked over to the wash-bench in hippity-hops to get that bucket of eggs. Before I took up the bucket, I did look long looks at those eggs. They were so plump and so white, and they did have so nice a feel. I think being a hen must be a very interesting life. How thrilling it must be to cackle after one lays an egg. And then it must be a big amount of satisfaction to have a large number of children hatch out at the same time and follow one about. I think I would like to be a hen in the daytime, but I would n't like to roost in the chicken-house at night.

When the mamma saw me looking long looks at those eggs, she gave to me a shoulder-shake and told me to get a hurry on me and take those eggs straight to Mrs. Limberger yonder. That Mrs. Limberger is the quite plump wife of that quite big man that lives in a quite big house that is nice but is n't as nice as his lane. I thought I'd go straight to Mrs. Limberger's in along that lane from out along the field; but first I did go by to get Felix Mendelssohn.

When I got to where he was, it was very near