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.
[Illustration: How cosy it was there in the hollow tree]
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.”
[Illustration: So he got right under the rain-pipe where the water
spouted hardest]
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.
[Illustration: Pinching it tight he began to pull]