ONCE upon a time there were some children, and once upon a time there
were some ducks. It was upon the same time, too, and they all lived
together in one house. That was funny, wasn’t it?
And there were two reasons for it. In the first place, it was so cold
where they lived that the ducks could not stay out of doors, except
in summer; and in the second place, the good man of the house, the
children’s father, was so poor that he could not afford to have a
separate house for the ducks.
Indeed, there were only three rooms in the house. One was the kitchen,
which was parlor and dining-room and sitting-room as well, and one was
the children’s room, and the third was the parents’ room. So there
they all lived together, and they were very sociable. The names of the
children were Greta, Minna, Lisa, Carl and Baby Fritz. The names of
the ducks were Red-top, Waggle-tail, Gobbler and Spottle-toe; and the
children were all good, but the ducks were all naughty, as you shall
hear.
The father had made a nice wooden box for the ducks, and this was
always filled with hay and kept beside the great porcelain stove in
winter, so that the pets might be warm. But were they grateful for
this kindness? Not a bit of it. They were always getting out of their
box and poking their bills into all sorts of places where they had
no business to be. You might find Waggle-tail inside the mother’s
Sunday cap, and Gobbler tasting the soup on the table, and Red-top and
Spottle-toe pulling the baby’s doll to pieces. These were things that
happened every day. And, indeed, what else can be expected, when one
keeps one’s ducks in the kitchen? But one day something very much worse
than all this came.
The mother was ill, so ill that she was obliged to stay in bed and send
for the doctor, and that was something very unusual. The doctor came
and gave her a box of pills, telling her to take one every day until
she was better. He told her to put her feet in a hot mustard-bath,
as that would draw the pain down from her head; then he patted the
children, and mounting his old gray pony, rode away again.
Well, the mother took her pill, and then closed her eyes for a short
nap, laying the pill-box down on the low stool beside the bed.
Presently Greta, the eldest daughter, came in with the hot foot-bath,
and seeing her mother asleep, set it down softly and went out again to
get the warm shawl that the good woman would need when she sat up.
Now, it happened that she left the door open, and as this was what the
four ducks had been waiting for all day, they immediately waddled into
the mother’s room. Poking about in their usual way, they soon found the
box of pills, and supposing them to be something particularly nice,
they gobbled them all up in the twinkling of an eye. Now, you know that
pills are not apt to be nice, and these pills were very particularly
nasty, as the ducks soon found out.
“What’s this?” said Gobbler.
“Ugh! quack! ugh! What is it?” exclaimed Red-top.
Waggle-tail had swallowed four pills, and his feelings were too deep
for words. His one thought was “something to drink!” and seeing the
foot-bath, he plunged his bill in and took a good draught of the hot
mustard and water.
Oh, then, what a clamour arose! The other ducks had hastened to follow
his example, and now they were all screaming and sputtering and
flapping their wings in a way that was dreadful to hear. The poor
mother woke up in a fright; Greta and all the children came rushing
in, followed by the dog; finally the father came, armed with a heavy
stick, and the terrified ducks were driven out of doors, where they
sat, shivering, on the doorstep, declaring that they would never eat or
drink anything again.