Such a happy day

"Good morning, my little son! Where have you been? Your face is as fresh and cool as my cucumbers, though your cheeks are not green, but are as rosy as apples." "I've been out with my mother!" "With 'your mother,' have you?" Cyril smiled. "We've been picking flowers, but you don't know what for—" "Do I not? Shall I guess?" "No, don't guess, Father, 'cause I like secrets!" "Very well. And what did my 'early birds' find when they were out?" Cyril's mother came in at the window with her basket of flowers in her hand. She looked down upon them with her gentle eyes, but left her little son to speak. "We saw—we saw lots of dew!" "Oh, so you did. I love dew; that shows how early you were up." "And we saw Eddie and Effie out picking flowers too. And then—What else do you suppose we saw?" "You have a great many 'saws' in your yard," said his father, laughing at him. "But go on." Cyril looked puzzled for a moment, and then meeting his mother's eyes, went on— "We did see a very funny thing! One of our hens wasn't satisfied with the hen-house for her nest, and has made one for herself under a hedge. Mother called it—" "Stolen a nest?" suggested Cyril's father. "Yes, but I do not see that. When Eddie and Effie went on, I sat down on a bank to think about it. I call it 'made a nest' not 'stolen.' The poor hen thought she could make it much better out there in the sweet air, than in that stuffy hen-house." "Did you see which hen it was?" asked his father. "Yes. While I was waiting and watching a frog that was jumping about, she came up through the hedge all wet and draggled, and got right on to the nice eggs: I thought she would spoil them." "That's what they do," said his father; "and they say it is what makes the eggs hatch so well." "Do they?" asked Cyril, opening his blue eyes very wide. "Anyway, she frightened away the frog that had come to have a look at me. It did hop so, Father." "I should think we had better hop in to breakfast, Cyril," said Mr. Forde, "for we have plenty to do before ten o'clock, early as we are." "Eddie and Effie are going by…