Six Little Ducklings
Katharine Pyle
Six Little Ducklings
Written and Illustrated
by
New York
Dodd, Mead & Company
1915
Copyright, 1915
By Dodd, Mead & Company
Six Little Ducklings
I
OLD MOTHER DUCK and her six little ducklings lived in a hollow tree down by the river, and here they were all as happy as the day was long. They had the whole of the broad bright river to swim about on, and there was no one to bother them or drive them about.
Mother Duck had not always lived in the hollow tree. Once she had lived in a farmyard back in the country and away from the river. But she had not been very happy there. For one thing, there was a very cross old watch-dog in the farmyard. He was kept chained to his dog-house through the day, and never set loose until the other animals had gone to bed, but he used to snap at the ducks and chickens whenever they came near his dog-house, and that frightened them.
Then there was no place to swim but in a muddy little duck-pond that almost dried up in the heat of summer.
But the worst thing of all at the farmhouse was the way the farmer’s wife used to steal the duck’s eggs. No matter how carefully Mrs. Duck hid her eggs, Mrs. Farmer always found them and took them away. Once she put a number of them in a hen’s nest, and allowed a hen to set on them. After a while the hen hatched out eleven of the cunningest, fuzziest, yellowest ducklings that ever were seen. The hen was just as pleased and proud as though she had laid the eggs herself. But she didn’t in the least know how to bring up a brood of ducklings. Mrs. Duck could see that very plainly. She didn’t even want them to get their feet wet and she almost had a fit when they went into the water one day.
After that Mrs. Duck made up her mind she would not stay at the farm any longer. She started off into the wide world early one morning without saying anything to any one, and waddled on and on and on until after a while she came to the hollow tree beside the river.
Here she made a nest and hatched out a little brood for herself, and brought them up the way young ducklings should be brought up, and was very happy.
II
THERE were six of the little ducklings, and their names, beginning with the eldest were, Squdge and Queek, Buff, Pin-Toes and Fluffy, and the littlest and cunningest one of all was named Curly Tail.
Buff and Fluffy and Curly-Tail were girls, and the other three were boys.
One fine day when the wind was blowing, and the leaves were rustling, and the little wood-rabbits jumping high and kicking their heels for joy, Mother Duck told the little ducklings she was going to take them for a picnic.
“Oh, goody! goody!” they cried, and clapped their wings for joy.
Mother Duck got out a little basket of meadow grass that an old muskrat had made for her, and she and the children packed it full of luncheon. There were crisp watercress, and wild celery, and little snails, and all sorts of good things such as little ducklings like to eat.
As soon as the basket was packed they started off.
The ducklings thought they would probably go down to the river, but instead of that Mother Duck led the way off into the wood, directly away from the water.
“Where are we going, mother? Where are we going?” asked the little ducklings. But the mother only smiled and shook her head and would not tell them.
After a while they came out of the wood and into a meadow-land where there was a heap of high rocks.
“Here’s where we’ll have our picnic,” said Mother Duck.
She put down the basket, and unpacked the food, and then she and the ducklings sat down around it, and ate and ate. And how good it all tasted! Just as food always does on picnics.
After they had all finished, and could eat no more, Mother Duck said, “Come now; let us climb up to the top of the rocks and see what we can see.”
That was fun, too—clambering up over the rocks. The ducklings scrambled and slipped and queeked, and their mother helped them; so after a while they found themselves on the very tip top of the highest rock of all, and oh, how the wind did blow up there.
“Now look!” said Mother Duck. “Do you see over there?” and she pointed with her wing to a farmyard in the distance. “That is where I used to live.”
“Why, mother,” cried the ducklings, “we thought you’d always lived down by the river in our tree!”
“No, indeed; I lived right there in that farmyard,” answered their mother; and then she began to tell them about it, and of her life there, and of how if she had stayed there they might have had a hen for their mother instead of her. That seemed a horrible thing to the little ducklings—that they might have had some other mother instead of their own. They wanted to know what a hen was, because of course they had never seen one, living where they did. Their mother tried to tell them, but they could not understand very well.
“I wouldn’t like a hen for a mother,” cried Squdge; “but I would like to see a farmyard, and to hear a dog bark, and a cow moo. Do they make as big a noise as thunder? Will you take me there some time, mother?”
But Mother Duck told him, no indeed. It would be very dangerous to go back to the farmyard. If the farmer and his wife saw the ducklings they might catch them and shut them up in a coop, and never let them get away again.
The thought of that frightened the other ducklings—only Squdge said stoutly, “She couldn’t catch me! I can peck too hard and run too fast, and I wish you would take me there some time, mother, just to see it all.”
Mother Duck made no answer, for looking up she saw that rain-clouds were gathering over head.
“Hurry, children, hurry,” she cried. “There’s going to be a storm, and we must get home before it begins.”
Down they scrambled in a great hurry, and started off through the woods as fast as they could, and they made such good time that they reached the hollow tree just as the first great drops began to fall.
They were all out of breath and rather tired, especially Curly-Tail, but as their mother said, that did not really matter as long as they had escaped a wetting.
III
HOW cosy it was there in the dry hollow of the tree, with the rain beating harder and harder outside and streaming down the tree trunks.
After a while the ducklings got out their play-things and began to play with them, but soon they tired of this, and nestling down about their mother they begged her to tell them a story.
“A story?” said Mother Duck. “Very well. What shall it be about?”
“Tell about Wiggle-Waggle-Wisk-Tail!” cried Squdge and Queek.
“No, no; don’t tell about that,” begged Curly-Tail, almost in tears. “That’s too sad a story, mother. It always makes me cry.”
“Pshaw! I wouldn’t be such a baby as to cry over a story,” cried Squdge. “Go ahead, mother! Tell it, won’t you?”
The other four little ducklings wanted to hear it, too, so Mother Duck told Curly-Tail if she didn’t want to listen she could run over in the corner and play by herself for awhile, and when that story was finished she could come back and choose another one—any one that she liked, and her mother would tell it next.
So Curly-Tail, who was always sweet and obedient, went over in the corner and got out her doll, and began to play, while Mother Duck told the others the story.
And this is the sad tale of Wiggle-Waggle-Wisk-Tail.
