1. Her friends at the old home had all walked on dry land. But here she
found many ducks and drakes, besides odd-looking fowls with feathers
down their legs.
2. Spring came, and Betty paced the yard with twelve fine chickens
behind her. All of them had five toes on each little foot, as their
mother had when she was born. So they were all right.
3. Down the velvet back of each chick were stripes of dark brown, which
was the proper pattern for their first short coats. After a time they
would put off baby-clothes, and be dressed in pure white like their
mother.
4. As her chicks slept under her wings, or chirped with their merry
little voices, she forgot all else but her darlings. What did it matter
having one claw too few, now that she had her dear babies?
5. Betty took care to keep her children neat, and to teach them good
manners. "You may gobble up a worm, children, as fast as you like, when
you find it, so that no one else may get it," said she.
6. "But don't let me see two of you having a fight, or both tugging at
the same worm. You must not ruffle up your feathers at each other, or
fight, though you may do so if you meet a rat."
7. As Betty was such an anxious and watchful mother herself, she could
not help feeling quite vexed at the way in which Snowdrop, one of the
ducks, went on.
8. This big white duck did not seem to mind a bit whether her children
were a credit to her or not. "See!" said this good hen, pointing to her
twelve clean little chicks. "Where will you find such children as mine?
9. "I spend all my time in teaching them how to behave themselves. I
show them how to walk nicely, and how to pick up their meals in a
proper way.
10. "I show them how to keep their feathers combed and brushed. But
you, bad mother that you are, allow your poor little yellow ducklings
to shuffle in the mud up to their wings.
11. "And twice I have seen them at the very edge of the pond. It made
me shudder! It will be a wonder if they do not get drowned, or catch
their death of cold. How thin and pale they look!"
12. As Betty said these words to Snowdrop, the old duck shook her bill,
and after a few more quacks turned her back and waddled off.
[Illustration: BETTY'S CHICKS.]
13. Soon after this, a magpie came down to tell all the fowls in the
yard that one of Snowdrop's ducklings had been eaten by a rat, and that
a second had been stolen by a hawk.
14. Two more of them had run away under the gate and had strayed
towards a tent where some gipsies lived. As they never came back, it
was thought that the gipsies had taken them off.
15. A fifth of the brood, which had been weakly from birth, had caught
cold in a bitter wind and died. And the last had pined away from
feeling lonely after losing all its brothers and sisters.
* * * * *
_Write:_ The hen had now twelve chicks. She took more care of her
children than the duck did of hers. Betty thought Snowdrop a bad
mother.
Questions: 1. What other creatures did Betty see in the
yard? 2. How many chickens had she? 3. What did she teach
them? 4. What was the name of the duck? 5. What sort of
mother was she? 6. What did Betty say to her?