Dick and His Cat and Other Tales Part 17

7. "I do believe that cold water has killed them before they are born!"

said poor Betty, "for they never ought to have been laid so near a pond."

8. She sat on and on, for a fourth week. And, at the end of that time, she had her reward. There was a little faint tapping sound inside the sh.e.l.ls.

9. The baby ducks were trying to get out of prison. She helped them by picking away bits of the sh.e.l.l as it broke, to let the light in at their tiny windows.

10. At last seven little yellow things as soft as satin cried, "peep, peep!" in a pretty whisper round her feet. Their bills and their feet were rather flat, it is true, but what of that? Betty loved them as if they were her own chicks.

11. "Of course I do not expect that they will be quite so handsome, so clever, or so good as if born from my own eggs," said she.

12. "They will be poor weak little things. I can see that they are rather stupid, even now, from their staying in the sh.e.l.ls a week longer than they ought.

13. "But I must take a little extra care with them!" Very proud was Mother Betty, but in spite of all her fondness, the young ducks gave her much trouble.

14. They would not come when they were called. And they would play in the gutter. They dabbled with their little yellow feet in the black mud, as often as ever they could.

15. They liked digging in a dirty ditch for worms better than feeding from a nice clean plate. And they will gobble snails, sh.e.l.ls and all, no matter what Betty said.

_Write:_ It was four weeks before the eggs were hatched. Betty found that the young ducks did not like to feed as chicks did. They loved to dabble in the mud.

Questions: 1. What did the farmer's wife say when she saw Betty climb into the nest? 2. Where did she put the eggs? 3.

How long did Betty sit on them? 4. Where did the young ducks want to play? 5. What did they wish to eat? 6. Why did Betty think them stupid?

11. AN AWKWARD LOT.

1. But Betty was a hopeful hen. She did not give up trying to teach the young ducklings and bring them up well. She kept them with great care from speaking to any of their own kind.

2. She would not let them play with other ducklings. They had never seen that dreadful pond yet. She would not let them waddle within sight of it.

3. As to their bad manners, their love of dirt and snails and wet, she could only think that it came from their having once laid as eggs in that old straw cradle of theirs, among the green rushes.

4. "Or else it is because their feet are the wrong shape," said Betty, as she looked down at the yellow boots of her foster-sons and daughters. On the whole they did not behave so very badly, she thought.

5. They came up with the chickens at meal times, even if they did go straight back to that vile gutter the moment they had gobbled all they could get.

6. "What a clever hen is Betty Dorking!" the others said. "She has brought up the duck's brood and will make chickens of them!" It is true that the wise old gander laughed at this notion.

7. He said, "You never see a silk purse made out of any other thing but silk," and all his wives nodded their heads and cackled. They said it was witty, though they had no idea what the speech meant.

8. As the golden ears were taken by heaps into the rick-yard, the birds felt as glad as the farmer and his wife did. The great sheaves were stacked and the fowls gleaned after them.

9. Betty, as well as the rest, picked up plenty of loose grains. There was a little squabbling once, and the turkey-c.o.c.k trod on one of Betty's ducklings.

10. The great bird said nothing but "gobble gobble!" and did not even show that he was sorry. The peac.o.c.k was not too proud to come walking in among the rest, in a dainty way, holding up his train.

11. He liked wheat as much as any of them. But he could not bear soiling his dress. Betty now thought it was time to take her foster-children into the world, before winter came.

12. They were grown to a fair size, and as yet no cold water had ever come near them, except a few splashes, which their nurse could not prevent.

13. After a good deal of driving and shrieking to them, she got her brood into a small crowd, to see if they were neat. She smoothed their downy heads, she plumed their soft wings with loving care.

14. Then she said, "My dears, you are all as tidy as you can be made. I am now going to take you on a visit to your own mother, whom you have never yet seen.

15. "Behave well, and give me no cause to feel shame when she sees how I have brought you up. Now, Forward! March!"

_Write:_ The young ducks had never seen a pond. Their foster-mother made them tidy. She wished to take them into the world and show them their mother.

Questions: 1. What did the other hens say of Betty and her brood? 2. What did the gander say? 3. What bird came to pick up wheat with the fowls? 4. What did the turkey-c.o.c.k do? 5.

What did Betty say to her ducklings before taking them into the world? 6. To whom did she wish to show them?

12. THEIR OWN MOTHER.

1. And where was Snowdrop to be found? At the pond, of course, swimming round and round with half-a-dozen other ducks and drakes as happy and careless as herself.

2. She swam towards the brink when she saw Betty coming. The ducklings waddled as fast as they could lay their flat feet to the ground, as soon as they caught sight of the pond.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST SWIM.]

3. Betty could not keep up with them, for she had never quite lost a limp, after having her toe bitten off. "See," she said to Snowdrop, as she hobbled up, "here are your children.

4. "Look at them well! How unlike they are to any ducklings you ever brought up yourself! There are no ducks in the whole yard that can compare with them. Just watch how well they behave."

5. "Quack!" said Snowdrop. "It is all because of the pains I have taken," said Betty.

"Quack, quack!" said Snowdrop again.

6. "They have never been tempted to go into horrid cold water. They have never even seen a pond till now. What do you say to that?"

7. "Quack, quack, quack!" replied the snowy sailor, glancing her bright eye upon her little ones. The next moment the merry little ducks were sailing after her round the pond!

8. They dived head foremost, they grubbed for leeches, they paddled with their flat feet as if they had done nothing else since they were out of the sh.e.l.l.

9. Poor Betty with outspread wings danced round the pond crying at the top of her shrill voice, "Come back! come back! You will all be drowned."

10. But it was useless. The little ducks would obey her no longer. They went on swimming about after their own lily-white mother.

11. Snowdrop swam to the edge at last, and spoke thus to Betty. "I thank you for the good you meant to me and mine. But dry land will not give us your sharp toes to scratch with, any sooner than water will give you web-feet to swim with.

12. "All that you have taught my children on dry land, I shall be pleased to repay by teaching the next brood you have to swim and dive."

At this the gander stretched out his throat and laughed.

13. "You should allow yourself more time to think," said old Dame Turkey, the wife of the turkey-c.o.c.k, as she stood on one leg to listen.