THE NEGLECTED EASTER EGG. A SHORT STORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2318, 4 August 1898, Page 51

THE NEGLECTED EASTER EGG. A SHORT STORY.

One beautiful spring morning mother was very busy in the kitchen boiling eggs very hard— in order to colour them afterwards— for her little boys and girls to have on Easier morning for breakfast. Each child had a favourite colour, and mother always remembered that ; and, after the eggs were all quite dry, each had to be dyed to suit its tuture owner's taste, and then tied up with pretty ribbons, and a lovely card placed with each. " Let me see?' 1 thought mother, as she hurried about the kitchen. " I shall want ci"hl eggs. How funny that the hens should have laid eight large ones to-day, and only this one very small one, which is not worth doing! There can. at all events, be no quarrelling among the children regarding the size ot the eggs, as they are all alike. Here mother's train of thought took her into the next day's dinner, and putting all the eggs into a large basket, prettily lined with moss, and tied up with pink ribbons, and being so absorbed in thought, without noticing what she was doing she placed the •poor little uncoloured egg in the basket aUo, and carried the whole lot oftV-to be secreted in the dining room cupboard cr-t of sight ot prying eyes, and trotted oft' to attend to her many household duties.

"Well. I never!" remarked an egg as goon as they were alone. '' I thought 1 was going to crack in that awful boiling water, and my inside seems to he turned to stone. That wicked woman! I would like to boil her. and see how she would like it ! " •

"Kvervbcdy has to suffer for appearance sake." Kud a pale-blue egg tied up with yellou ribbon ; " and for my part I prefer to be beautiful outside, for what does your inside matter when it does nob show'/" '• Bad eggs are never liked," jerked out another egg, as she settled herself more comfortably in the moss. " Well, anyway, we are lovely to look at in our bright dresses and ribbons, and not | like our poor, white-faced friend here." | And an egg who was dyed bright-red, and had been rather over-boiled, and was therefore feeling particularly hard, fixed a stony staic on the poor little egg which mother had considered too small to even boil. Then such a chonuf of mdc remarks wes hurled at the poor little offender, she wished she had never been laid. However, fhe showed some spirit, and remarked that it was not everyone's taste to be painted. at> which some of the lady-eggs became very angry, and the poor, white child, who was ra flier sensitive and soft-yolked, had a dreadful afternoon and evening. yiie did her utmost to hide under the warm moss, and wondered why a little paint ! and ribbon should make such a difference. I Night came at last, and just before mother went to bed she took the basket out of the cupboard, and placed it upon the diningroom table ready for the morning. As soon as she left the room all the eggs came tumbing out of the basket, and such games and frolics began ; one egg nearly ended In* csreei by falling off the table in his efforts to imitate Humpty-Dumptj and sit on tho ed^c of the basket, as there was no wall available. Only the poor little white egg sat on. Nobody noticed her, and s=he did feel so sad. Now it happened that several brownies were engaged in trying (o remove a large spider's web from one corner of the room, and the spider himself was so very angry at having his house touched, that it took ihc brownies all their time to get him out. But his they wore determined to do, as poor Miss Fly, while taking an airing that very morning, had been cruelly murdered by tins wicked insect. At last the cobweb was taken down and the spider himself lorced out of the window, and then the brownies turned their attention to the eggs. ' "You all look very pretty!" said ( they. * What are you so grandly dressed ior?" "Because 'we are Easter eggs!" they all ehouled at once. " Why are you not dressed also, you little ■while thing?" asked a dainty fairy, who floated in upon a moonbeam, " Nobody wants me ! " sighed the egg. "Rubbish!" replied Fairy Happy-go-Tjucky. " Everybody is wanted ; but you must" find out "the person who wants you. I will rush off to a friend of mine, who lives in <de rainbow, and ask her to bring some of Jier bright tints and colour you up." And then this light-hearted creature darted off ou her moonbeam. In a short, space of time, through a crack in the shutter, in came a lovely creature dressed in every colour of the rainbow, with a crown made "of the sweetest; rain and devfibvps on her head. In her hand she held a paint bos, and in a few momenta iiad suceee&d i&. txmJorgmg

the little white egg into a radiant creature like herself ; and ußer advising her to keep good, off she flew lo her dazzling home. Easter morning dawned, and the first rays of the rising sun sent all the eggs tumbling into their basket. Mother was! down very early that morning looking after the breakfast, and picked up the basket of eggs. " Dear me, what can have happened? " she exclaimed. "' All fcheir ribbons untied, and they do look so dirty I " Mother rubbed the eggs with a clean | duster, and tied up the ribbons again, and was placing one on each child's plate with the Easier card, when the door suddenly opened, and nurse entered, carrying the : seven-months-old baby in her arms. "Please ma'am," she said, "I've come for baby's egg. He can't cat it ; but I can keep it for him. It wouldn't do for him to be forgotten." " Baby's egg, nurse'/ Why [ thought him muca too young," mother answered. " I never even made him one." Nurse looked very disappointed, and stood for a few moments' watching her imsti-.-s,s as she placed the esgs round the table " Why, vuu-ber there are nine eggs, after all, ' mother exclaimed. " I'm sure [ never coloured this one ; I believe you have put it here yourself." Nurse smiled. "No, ma'am," she said; 'but I m glad baby will have his egg after all. i will hang it over the nursery mantelpiece. It is the best oi the whole 'lot, and far too good to eat." And off went mirse triumphant. Such a happy breakfast, and how good hard-boiled eggs can taste when accompanied by fresh, home-made bread and butter and new milk! But the eggs themselves were not so pleased. "Only think," said they, "that horrid white-faced thing which we all laughed at will be hanging" in a place of honour upstairs !" Then silence reigned as the last piece of egg went down Lionel's throat, Mother will never believe that nurse did not ornament and put baby's egg in the basket ; and nurse will have it in her own mind that no mother could forget to make her baby an Easier egg, no mailer how young the baby might be. This story shows how very little any of us know about anything.