In this series of posts, I’ve been focussing on what I have identified as eleven eggs that are part of my salt-and-pepper shaker set collection. But it has just occurred to me that there might, in fact, be twelve, or even more, albeit more implied than actually seeable. Consider this set:
It is, clearly, a chicken, and the chicken is sitting on what appears to be a basket. And why would a chicken be sitting on a basket? There must, surely, be eggs in it.
In point of fact, the basket has nothing in it–except an empty space under its closed top with three small holes, into which salt or pepper might be placed. But the eggs are, I think, implied. I can imagine them there.
This is, incidentally, the kind of shaker set that collectors identify as a “nester”or “stacker”–one shaker that sits on top of another. Except this time, perhaps, it actually does represent a nester.
Perry Nodelman 