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The game of Hunting the Ostrich. At this time of my boy-life most of the daylight hours were spent out of doors, as when not watching the birds in our plantation or asked to go and look at the flock grazing somewhere a mile or so from home, in the absence of the shepherd or his boy, I was always away somewhere on the plain with my small brother on egg-hunting or other expeditions.
"Better not start before dinner," suggested Grandmother, "because sometimes egg-hunting takes quite a little time. Wait till you get through dinner and then you may hunt all afternoon if you like egg-hunting is fun!" So the minute she was through with her apple dumplings, Mary Jane asked, "And now, please, may I get the eggs?" "Got you hunting eggs already?" asked Grandfather.
"It is Frozzler's Grand Aggregation of Attractions," said Tom, looking over one of the showbills. "The Most Stupendous Exhibition on Earth. Daring bareback riding, trained elephants and a peanut-eating contest, likewise an egg-hunting raffle. All for a quarter, twenty-five cents." "What is an egg-hunting raffle?" questioned Fred. "He's fooling you, Fred," answered Sam.
All these things do the young crows know; but they have taken no lessons in egg-hunting yet, for it is not the season. They are unacquainted with clams, and have never tasted horses' eyes, or seen sprouted corn, and they don't know a thing about travel, the greatest educator of all.
"In those tippy bidarkas?" "Tippy bidarkas," nodded Uncle Dick; "and go egg-hunting on the gull rocks, and all sorts of things. Why, they'd have the time of their lives, that's all." "But not one of the boys has a father at home now to advise in the matter," hesitated Jesse's mother. "They are all inside, and won't be back for a week."
It did not last long, however, for the sights and sounds that greeted her, carried her back to the days of egg-hunting in Uncle Enos's big barn; and, before she knew it, she was rustling through the hay mows, talking to the cow and receiving the attentions of Bran with a satisfaction it was impossible to conceal.
"Then, Mary Jane," continued Grandmother, "you go out to the barn and up the little ladder you'll find in the middle of the barn. And in the loft somewhere, I'm sure you'll see it easily, you'll find a little, covered basket. It's the very one your mother and your Aunt Cornelia used to carry egg-hunting. If it's too dusty, bring it here, and I'll clean it for you.
She reached her finger in and touched their silky little backs; she watched them snuggle down tight and tighter together and she altogether forgot about Bob and egg-hunting and Grandmother and everything, she was so delighted. But Bob didn't forget about her, not he. For a while he waited patiently at the bottom of the ladder. He seemed to know that she might have to hunt a while for the basket.
"And if we knew how," added Jesse. "It seems to me the best thing we can do, the way things are, is to go egg-hunting as Rob suggests." There was perhaps more wisdom in Rob's plan than any one of the boys knew at first. He was old and wise enough to know that the best way to keep them all from homesickness was to be busy all the time.
The guinea-fowl likes to hide her nest in out-of-the-way places, and it was one of my greatest delights to hunt for the eggs in the long grass. I could not tell Martha Washington when I wanted to go egg-hunting, but I would double my hands and put them on the ground, which meant something round in the grass, and Martha always understood.
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