“Hunting Eggs” (from Our Young Folks, January 1870; pp. 61-62)
This New Year’s number of “Our Young Folks” brings its readers five full-page engravings,—a larger number, of course, than will usually appear in the magazine,—but each worthy of special attention. [ … ]
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p. 62
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“Hunting Eggs” will interest every one who has lived in the country and has enjoyed living there. Whatever romance there was in the old-fashioned New England life, yet lingers under the eaves of ancient barns. Can you ever forget the smell of hay, that kept the wide sunny clover-fields fragrant in memory all winter long, the pigeons that cooed in the gable, the swing, the ladder, the great doors that swung open to sunrise and sunset? Oh! Ruthie and you remember it all with a dreamy longing, though then you only thought of the fun of hunting hens’ nests together. But Miss Hallock’s picture assures the youngsters of to-day that barns are still standing, and that in them are yet to be found hidden nests and jealously cackling hens; with many a lovely outlook through unhinged doors, or windows festooned with hay.
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Let us be grateful that there are artists and poets, and that they can find pictures for us everywhere.