The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1872-03-30
SEASONABLE ARTICLE.
HIDING EGGS FOR EASTER.
By REV. T. DE WITT TALMAaE.

q
farmers wife begins to abuse the weasels
and the cats as the probable cause of the
paucity. The feline tribe are assaulted
with many harsh scat, OH the suspicion
of their fondness of omelets in the raw
Custards fail from the table. The Domi-
nick hens are denounced as not worth
their mush. Meanwhile, the boys stand
round the corner in broad grin at what is
the discomforture of the rest of the family.
The truth must be told that the boys, in
anticipation of Easter, have, in some hole
in the NOW, or some barrel in the wagon
house, been hiding eggs. If the young
sters understand the business, they will
compromise the matter, and see that at
least small supply goes to the house every
day. Too great greed on the part of the
boy will discover the whole plot, and the
charge will be made: ode Witt! believe
you are hiding the eggs" Forthwith, the
boy is collared, and compelled to disgorge
his possessions. Now, there is nothing
more trying to boy than, after great
care in accommodating these shelly resources,
them forth to the light two weeks before
Easter. Boys, therefore, manage with
skill and dexterity. At this season of the
year, you see them lurking much about the
barrack and the hay loft. You see them
crawling out from stacks of straw and
walking away rapidly with their hands
behind them. They look very innocent,
for have noticed that the look of inno-
cence in boys is proportional to the
the amount of mischief with which they
are stuffed. They seem to be determined
to risk their lives on mow-poles where the
hay lies thin. They come out from under
the stable floor in a despicable state OF
toilet, and cannot give any excuse for their
depreciation of apparel. Hens tlutter off
the nest with an unusual squawk, for tie
boys cannot wait any longer for the slow
process of laying, and hens have no bust
ness to stand in the way Of Easter. The
most tedious hours of my boyhood were
spent i'll waiting for a hen to get off her
nest. No use to scare her off, for then she
will get mad, and just as like as not take
the egg with her. Indeed, think the boy
is excusable for his haste if his brother has
4 dozen eggs and he has only eleven.
At this season of the year the hens are
melancholy. They want to hatch, but how
can they9 They have the requisite dispo-
sition, and the capacity, and the feathers,
and the nest, and everything but the eggs,
With that deficit, they sometimes sit OBJ
stinately and defy the boys approaches
Many a boy has felt the sharp bill of old
Dominick strike the back of his hand,
intlicting wound that would have reused
up the whole farm to see what was
the matter had it not been that the boy
wanted to excite no suspicion rs to the
nature of his expedition. Immediately
over the hens head comes the boys cap,
and there is a scatteration of feathers all
over the hay NOV, and the boy is victor.
But at last the evening before Easter
comes. While the old people are on the
piazza, the children come in with the accu-
mulated treasures of many weeks, and
put down the baskets. Eggs large and
small, white shelled and brown, Cochin
Chinas and Brahmapooters. The character
of the hens is indicated. The cat may
now lie in the sun without being kicked by
r.,1e lao
ton of parents more than compensates the
boys for the strategy of long concealment.
The meanest thing in the world is for faith
er and mother not to look surprised in
such circumstances.
1t sometimes happens that, in the agita-
ton of bringing the eggs into the house
hold arbor, the boy drops the hat or bas-
ket, and the whole enterprise is shipwreck-
ed. From our own experience, it is very
difficult to pick up eggs after you have
once dropped them. You have found the
same experience, in after life. Your hens
laid whole nestful of golden eggs on
Wall street. You had gathered them up.
You were bringing them in. You expected
4 world of consratulation but just the
day before the consumation something
adverse ran against you, and you dropped
the basket, and the eggs broke. Wise
man were you if, instead of sitting down
to cry or attempting to gather up the
spilled yolks, you built new nests and
invited 4 new laying.
1t is sometimes found on Easter morning
that the eggs have been kept too long
The boys intention were good enough,
but the enterprise had been too protracted.
and the casting out of the dozen was sud-
den and precipitate. Indeed. that is the
trouble with some older boys wot Of
They keep their money, or their brain, or
their influence hidden till it rots. They
are not willing to come forth day by day
on an humble mission, doing what little
good they may, but are keeping thelnselve S
hidden till some great yesterday of tri-
umph, and then they will astonish the
Church and the world. but they find that
.facuh es too long hidden are faculties ruined.
Better for an egg to have succeeded in
making one plain cake for poor man s
table than to have failed in making a ban
quet for the House of Lords.
That was glad time when on Easter
morning the eggs went into the saucepan,
and came out striped. and spotted and
blue, and yellow, and the entire digestive
capacity of the children was tested. You
have never had anything so good to eat
since. You found the eggs. You hid
them. They were your contribution to
the table. Since then you have seen eggs
scrambled. eggs poaohed, eggs in omelet,
eggs boiled, eggs done on one side, and
eggs in nog, but you shall never find
anything like the flavor of that Easter
morning in boyhood.
Alas for the boys in town! Easter comes
to them on stills, and they buy their eggs
out of the store. There is no room for
boy to swing round. There is no good
place in town to fly kite, or trundle a
hoop. Or even shout without peoples throw
ing up the window to see who is killed
The holidays are robbed of half their life
because some wisecare will persist in tell
ing him who Santa Claus is while yet he is
hanging up his first pair of stockings
Here the boys pay half dollar for a bot
tie of perfume as big as his finger, when
out of town, for nothing but the trouble of
breathing it, he may smell a country full
of new mown hay and wild honey ,suckle.
In a painted bath-tub he takes his Satur-
day bath, careful lest he hit his head