Horace Elisha Scudder

The Country Maid and Her Milk-Pail

A Country Maid was walking slowly along with a pail of milk upon her head, and thinking thus: "The money for which I shall sell this milk will enable me to increase my stock of eggs to three hundred. These eggs, allowing for what may prove addled, and what may be destroyed by vermin, will produce, at least, two hundred and fifty chickens. The chickens will be fit to carry to market about Christmas, when poultry always brings a good price, so that by May Day I shall have money enough to buy a new gown. Let me see—green suits my complexion best; yes, it shall be green. In this dress I will go to the fair, where all the young fellows will want me for a partner, but I shall, perhaps, refuse every one of them,"—and by this time she was so full of her fancy that she tossed her head proudly, when over went the pail, which she had entirely forgotten, and all the milk was spilled on the ground.

Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.