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.
[Illustration: 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 shell.
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-cock, as she stood on one leg to listen.
14. "You are always in a hurry and a bustle. Don't mind so much about
the affairs of other people, and take things calmly, as I do. If you
had been more like me, you would not have made this mistake about the
duck."
15. "We have not all the same habits,--the same nature," said Mistress
Betty, softly. "And I see that it is of no use trying to make other
folks' children like our own." Dame Turkey nodded her head in a very
wise manner.
16. She must have been a very clever old dame, for she knew when to
keep silent. As for Betty, she grew to be a very modest, useful hen,
with no pride or conceit about her.
17. At the present time, though she is getting old, she is still a
worthy fowl. She lives at the same farm, and would divide her last worm
with a chicken or a friend. But she has never tried to turn ducklings
into chicks again.
* * * * *
_Write:_ The little ducks saw the pond. They ran to it and went in. It
was of no use for the hen to call them back. They went after their own
mother-duck.
Questions: 1. Where was Snowdrop to be found? 2. What did
the ducklings do when they saw the pond? 3. What did the
guinea-hen call out? 4. What did Betty do? 5. What did Dame
Turkey say? 6. What sort of hen did Betty become?