these future beings were not likely to ever be ordinary animals ; the obstinate cocky babies never agreed to hatch , preferring to stay slyly curled up inside their brown dirt clods ; i imagined the small feet of this animal tucked under its chin inside the brown egg ; each egg was smaller than my fist and rounded on the ends ; on closer examination , the wheelbarrow of dirt yielded two or three more clods which contained these baby beings ; i could see the cocky babies inside and detected their presence by the heft of the clod ; i took one of them carefully into the house , cradling it in my two hands , and i sat it first on the shelves of a tin toy kitchen dresser and then on the shelf with my dolls .