The country was lovely just then; it was summer! The wheat was golden
and the oats still green; the hay was stacked in the rich, low-lying
meadows, where the stork was marching about on his long red legs,
chattering Egyptian, the language his mother had taught him.
Round about field and meadow lay great woods, in the midst of which
were deep lakes. Yes, the country certainly was delicious. In the
sunniest spot stood an old mansion surrounded by a deep moat, and
great dock leaves grew from the walls of the house right down to the
water's edge, some of them were so tall that a small child could
stand upright under them. In among the leaves it was as secluded as in
the depths of a forest, and there a duck was sitting on her nest. Her
little ducklings were just about to be hatched, but she was nearly
tired of sitting, for it had lasted such a long time. Moreover, she
had very few visitors, as the other ducks liked swimming about in the
moat better than waddling up to sit under the dock leaves and gossip
with her.
At last one egg after another began to crack. "Cheep, cheep!" they
said. All the chicks had come to life, and were poking their heads
out.
"Quack! quack!" said the duck; and then they all quacked their
hardest, and looked about them on all sides among the green leaves;
their mother allowed them to look as much as they liked, for green is
good for the eyes.
"How big the world is to be sure!" said all the young ones; for they
certainly had ever so much more room to move about than when they were
inside the egg-shell.
"Do you imagine this is the whole world?" said the mother. "It
stretches a long way on the other side of the garden, right into the
parson's field; but I have never been as far as that! I suppose you
are all here now?" and she got up. "No! I declare I have not got you
all yet! The biggest egg is still there; how long is it going to
last?" and then she settled herself on the nest again.
"Well, how are you getting on?" said an old duck who had come to pay
her a visit.
"This one egg is taking such a long time," answered the sitting duck,
"the shell will not crack; but now you must look at the others; they
are the finest ducklings I have ever seen! they are all exactly like
their father, the rascal! he never comes to see me."
"Let me look at the egg which won't crack," said the old duck. "You
may be sure that it is a turkey's egg! I have been cheated like that
once, and I had no end of trouble and worry with the creatures, for I
may tell you that they are afraid of the water. I could not get them
into it; I quacked and snapped at them, but it was no good. Let me see
the egg! Yes, it is a turkey's egg! You just leave it alone and teach
the other children to swim."
"I will sit on it a little longer; I have sat so long already that I
may as well go on till the Midsummer Fair comes round."
"Please yourself," said the old duck, and she went away.
At last the big egg cracked. "Cheep, cheep!" said the young one and
tumbled out; how big and ugly he was! The duck looked at him.
"That is a monstrous big duckling," she said; "none of the others
looked like that; can he be a turkey chick? well, we shall soon find
that out; into the water he shall go, if I have to kick him in
myself."
Next day was gloriously fine, and the sun shone on all the green dock
leaves. The mother duck with her whole family went down to the moat.
Splash, into the water she sprang. "Quack, quack!" she said, and one
duckling plumped in after the other. The water dashed over their
heads, but they came up again and floated beautifully; their legs went
of themselves, and they were all there, even the big ugly gray one
swam about with them.
"No, that is no turkey," she said; "see how beautifully he uses his
legs and how erect he holds himself; he is my own chick! after all, he
is not so bad when you come to look at him properly. Quack, quack! Now
come with me and I will take you into the world, and introduce you to
the duckyard; but keep close to me all the time, so that no one may
tread upon you, and beware of the cat!"
Then they went into the duckyard. There was a fearful uproar going on,
for two broods were fighting for the head of an eel, and in the end
the cat captured it.
"That's how things go in this world," said the mother duck; and she
licked her bill, for she wanted the eel's head for herself.
"Use your legs," said she; "mind you quack properly, and bend your
necks to the old duck over there! She is the grandest of them all; she
has Spanish blood in her veins and that accounts for her size, and, do
you see? she has a red rag round her leg; that is a wonderfully fine
thing, and the most extraordinary mark of distinction any duck can
have. It shows clearly that she is not to be parted with, and that she
is worthy of recognition both by beasts and men! Quack now! don't
turn your toes in, a well brought up duckling keeps his legs wide
apart just like father and mother; that's it, now bend your necks, and
say quack!"
They did as they were bid, but the other ducks round about looked at
them and said, quite loud: "Just look there! now we are to have that
tribe! just as if there were not enough of us already, and, oh dear!
how ugly that duckling is, we won't stand him!" and a duck flew at him
at once and bit him in the neck.
"Let him be," said the mother; "he is doing no harm."
"Very likely not, but he is so ungainly and queer," said the biter,
"he must be whacked."
"They are handsome children mother has," said the old duck with the
rag round her leg; "all good looking except this one, and he is not a
good specimen; it's a pity you can't make him over again."
"That can't be done, your grace," said the mother duck; "he is not
handsome, but he is a thorough good creature, and he swims as
beautifully as any of the others; nay, I think I might venture even to
add that I think he will improve as he goes on, or perhaps in time he
may grow smaller! he was too long in the egg, and so he has not come
out with a very good figure." And then she patted his neck and stroked
him down. "Besides, he is a drake," said she; "so it does not matter
so much. I believe he will be very strong, and I don't doubt but he
will make his way in the world."
"The other ducklings are very pretty," said the old duck. "Now make
yourselves quite at home, and if you find the head of an eel you may
bring it to me!"
After that they felt quite at home. But the poor duckling which had
been the last to come out of the shell, and who was so ugly, was
bitten, pushed about, and made fun of both by the ducks and the hens.
"He is too big," they all said; and the turkey-cock, who was born with
his spurs on, and therefore thought himself quite an emperor, puffed
himself up like a vessel in full sail, made for him, and gobbled and
gobbled till he became quite red in the face. The poor duckling was at
his wit's end, and did not know which way to turn; he was in despair
because he was so ugly and the butt of the whole duckyard.
So the first day passed, and afterwards matters grew worse and worse.
The poor duckling was chased and hustled by all of them; even his
brothers and sisters ill-used him, and they were always saying, "If
only the cat would get hold of you, you hideous object!" Even his
mother said, "I wish to goodness you were miles away." The ducks bit
him, the hens pecked him, and the girl who fed them kicked him aside.
Then he ran off and flew right over the hedge, where the little birds
flew up into the air in a fright.
"That is because I am so ugly," thought the poor duckling, shutting
his eyes, but he ran on all the same. Then he came to a great marsh
where the wild ducks lived; he was so tired and miserable that he
stayed there the whole night.
In the morning the wild ducks flew up to inspect their new comrade.
"What sort of a creature are you?" they inquired, as the duckling
turned from side to side and greeted them as well as he could. "You
are frightfully ugly," said the wild ducks; "but that does not matter
to us, so long as you do not marry into our family!" Poor fellow! he
had no thought of marriage; all he wanted was permission to lie among
the rushes, and to drink a little of the marsh water.
He stayed there two whole days; then two wild geese came, or, rather,
two wild ganders; they were not long out of the shell, and therefore
rather pert.
"I say, comrade," they said, "you are so ugly that we have taken quite
a fancy to you; will you join us and be a bird of passage? There is
another marsh close by, and there are some charming wild geese there;
all sweet young ladies, who can say quack! You are ugly enough to make
your fortune among them." Just at that moment, bang! bang! was heard
up above, and both the wild geese fell dead among the reeds, and the
water turned blood red. Bang! bang! went the guns, and whole flocks of
wild geese flew up from the rushes and the shot peppered among them
again.
There was a grand shooting-party, and the sportsmen lay hidden round
the marsh; some even sat on the branches of the trees which overhung
the water; the blue smoke rose like clouds among the dark trees and
swept over the pool.
The water-dogs wandered about in the swamp--splash! splash! The rushes
and reeds bent beneath their tread on all sides. It was terribly
alarming to the poor duckling. He twisted his head round to get it
under his wing, and just at that moment a frightful big dog appeared
close beside him; his tongue hung right out of his mouth and his eyes
glared wickedly. He opened his great chasm of a mouth close to the
duckling, showed his sharp teeth, and--splash!--went on without
touching him.
"Oh, thank Heaven!" sighed the duckling, "I am so ugly that even the
dog won't bite me!"
Then he lay quite still while the shot whistled among the bushes, and
bang after bang rent the air. It only became quiet late in the day,
but even then the poor duckling did not dare to get up; he waited
several hours more before he looked about, and then he hurried away
from the marsh as fast as he could. He ran across fields and meadows,
and there was such a wind that he had hard work to make his way.
Towards night he reached a poor little cottage; it was such a
miserable hovel that it could not make up its mind which way to fall
even, and so it remained standing. The wind whistled so fiercely round
the duckling that he had to sit on his tail to resist it, and it blew
harder and harder; then he saw that the door had fallen off one hinge
and hung so crookedly that he could creep into the house through the
crack, and by this means he made his way into the room. An old woman
lived there with her cat and her hen. The cat, which she called
"Sonnie," could arch his back, purr, and give off electric
sparks--that is to say, if you stroked his fur the wrong way. The hen
had quite tiny short legs, and so she was called "Chuckie-low-legs."
She laid good eggs, and the old woman was as fond of her as if she had
been her own child.
In the morning the strange duckling was discovered immediately, and
the cat began to purr and the hen to cluck.
"What on earth is that!" said the old woman, looking round; but her
sight was not good, and she thought the duckling was a fat duck which
had escaped. "This is a capital find," said she; "now I shall have
duck's eggs if only it is not a drake. We must find out about that!"
So she took the duckling on trial for three weeks, but no eggs made
their appearance. The cat was the master of the house and the hen the
mistress, and they always spoke of "we and the world," for they
thought that they represented the half of the world, and that quite
the better half.
The duckling thought there might be two opinions on the subject, but
the cat would not hear of it.
"Can you lay eggs?" she asked.
"No!"
"Will you have the goodness to hold your tongue, then!"