The Ducks were not much interested in the new poultry-house. To be
sure the Hens talked of hardly anything else now, and several had said
that they would be glad to lay in the new nest-boxes as soon as they
should be lined with hay for them. So the Ducks heard enough about the
house, but did not really care for it at all.
"It is too far from the river," said they. "We are quite contented
with the old Pig-pen. Since the Hog and her children were taken away
and the Man has cleaned it out, we find it an excellent place. There
is room for all of us in the little shed where the Hog used to live,
and the Man has thrown in straw and fixed good places for egg-laying.
Besides, there is no door, and we can go in and out as often as we
choose."
That was exactly like the Ducks. They seemed to think that to go where
they wished and when they wished was the best part of life. The best
part of sleeping in the old Pigpen, they thought, was being able to
leave it whenever they chose. They knew perfectly well, if they
stopped to think about it, that a Weasel or Rat could get in quite as
easily as they, and it was only their luck which had kept them safe so
long.
The Ducks were very pleasant people to know. They never worried about
anything for more than a few minutes, and had charmingly happy and
contented ways. There were only a few of them on the farm, and no two
exactly alike in color and size. The Farmer had never paid much
attention to them, and the Boy, who bought and kept them for pets, had
tired of them so soon that they had been allowed to go wherever they
pleased, until they expected always to have their own way.
They took their share of the food thrown out for the poultry, and then
went off to the river for the day. During the hot weather they stayed
there until after all respectable Hens had gone to roost. Even the
Geese left the water long before they did. When they went to sleep,
they settled down on the floor and dozed off. "It is much easier than
flying up to roosts and then down again," they said. "Find a place you
like, and then stay there. We see no reason why people should make
such a fuss about going to sleep."
When the Shanghai Cock heard these things, he shook his head until his
wattles swung. "That is all very well for the Ducks," said he, "but
from the way this Man acts, I think there may be a change coming for
them by and by. I notice that things are more different every day."
The Ducks soon began to see that it was different with them. Ducks,
you know, are always very careless about where they lay their eggs.
Some of these were so old that they seldom laid eggs, only the Pekin
Duck and her big friend, the Aylesbury Duck, laid them quite often
after the middle of winter. At first the Man looked in the old Pig-pen
for them, but after he had looked many days and found only one, he
drew a book out of his pocket and read a bit. Then he called the
Little Girls to him and talked to them. "I want you to watch each of
those white Ducks," said he, "and for every one of their eggs which
you find I will give you a penny."
Each morning for some days after that, the two Ducks were followed by
two hopeful Little Girls. "I don't mind it so much now," the Pekin
Duck said to her friends on the third day, "but at first I didn't know
what to do. I would no sooner sit down to lay under a bush or in some
cosy corner than a Little Girl would sit on the ground in front and
watch me. Then I would move to another place, and she would move too.
I must say, however, that they are very good children. The Boy who
lived here often threw stones at us. These children never do. I
sometimes think there may be as much difference in Boys and Girls as
there is in Ducklings."
When the Little Girls tired of watching for eggs to be laid, the Pekin
Duck decided to do something she had never tried before. She was the
youngest of the flock, and she wanted Ducklings. The older Ducks tried
to discourage her. "Have a good time while you can," said the
Aylesbury Duck, who was about her age, and thought Ducklings a bother.
"I don't want to be troubled with a lot of children."
The old Ducks advised her not to try it. "You think it will be very
fine," said they, "but you will find that you cannot go wherever you
want to, and do whatever you please with Ducklings tagging along. The
sitting alone is enough to tire a Duck out."
"Oh, I think I could stand it," remarked the Pekin Duck, quietly.
"Didn't some Duck stand it long enough to hatch me?"
"Hatch you? No indeed," laughed an old Rouen Duck, who could remember
quite distinctly things which had happened three years before on the
farm from which they had all come to this. "Hatch you? A Shanghai Hen
hatched you and half a dozen other Ducklings in a box with hay in it
and slats across the front. I remember quite well how cross she became
when she thought it time for her Chickens to chip the shell, and they
did not chip. She never dreamed that she was sitting on Ducks' eggs,
although every Duck on the place knew it and thought it a good joke.
She was a stupid thing, or she would have known without being told.
Any bright Hen knows that Ducks' eggs are larger, darker, and greasier
looking than her own."
The Pekin Duck remembered very little of her life before coming to the
farm, so she was glad to hear of it from the old Rouen Duck. "What did
my mother do when her eggs didn't hatch?" said she.
"Do?" repeated the Rouen Duck. "Do? Why she did the only thing that
any sitting fowl can do. She kept on sitting."
"How long?" asked the Pekin Duck.
"You don't suppose I can remember that, do you?" replied the Rouen
Duck, twitching her little pointed tail from side to side. "Besides, I
never count things. All I know is that she said one of the Cocks, who
was a friend of hers, declared that the moon was quite new when she
began sitting, and that she sat there until it was quite new again. He
was roosting in a tree just then, and knew more about the moon because
he always awakened to crow during the night. She thought it was
dreadful to have to sit so long."
The Pekin Duck saw that the Rouen Duck was still trying to discourage
her. "I suppose it was harder for her because her legs were longer,"
she said. "If they were longer they would ache more, wouldn't they?"
The Rouen Duck smiled all around her bill "Your mother had her worst
time later on, though," she said. "When you and your brothers and
sisters were hatched, she could not understand why you were so
different from all the other children she had ever raised. She said
that not one of you looked like her family, and the Shanghai Cock was
very disagreeable to her about it. He said she should be more careful
whose eggs she hatched. And when you children went into the water,
your mother would walk up and down the bank of the pond, clucking as
hard as she could, and begging you to come ashore at once. At night,
too, there was trouble, for you would never go to bed as early as she
thought proper. After a while she learned to march off at a time that
suited her, and let you come when you were ready."
"Thank you ever so much for telling me," said the Pekin Duck, sweetly.
"It must be horrid to have the wrong kind of children. I promise you
that I will not sit on Hens' eggs." Then she waddled away.
"I want some Ducklings," said she, putting her pretty webbed feet down
somewhat harder than usual. "I want Ducklings, and I am going to steal
a nest at once." She was a Duck of determination, and made a start by
finding a cosy spot under some burdock plants and laying an egg
before she went in swimming. She was in such haste to make a beginning
that she had actually to come back later to finish her nest, which she
did by adding more dried leaves and grass and lining it with down
which she plucked from her breast.
After that, of course, all her friends knew that it was useless to
talk to her about it, for when a Duck goes around at that season of
the year with her breast all ragged from her plucking it, people may
be very sure that she is planning to hatch a brood. It is not at all
becoming, but it is a great help, for when the sitting Duck is tired
or hungry, she can pull the down over the eggs and leave her nest,
knowing that the down will keep them warm for a long time.
Of course the other Ducks talked about her a good deal when she was
not around, and said she would be sorry she had undertaken all that
work and care, and that it was exactly as well to drop one's eggs
anywhere and let the Man pick them up to put under some sitting Hen.
"Yes," said the Aylesbury Duck, "or else give them to the fat table
for hatching." Then they all laughed. It seemed such a joke to them
that a table should take to hatching eggs.
Nearly every day the Pekin Duck laid an egg, and she soon had enough
to begin sitting. After that, she did not go up to the Pig-pen at
night with her friends. It was quite lonely in the clump of burdocks,
and if the Pekin Duck had been at all timid she might have had some
bad nights, for Weasels, Rats, and Skunks were out after dark, looking
for something to eat. Yet they must always have found food before they
reached the burdocks, for the Duck was not disturbed. During the day
her friends came along for a chat, and often the Drake waddled up for
a visit. He seemed to think her a very sensible sort of Duck. He had
not the Gobbler's dislike of children, although he never shared the
labor of hatching them, like his friend the Gander. He thought one
could be a good father without going quite as far as that.
The days were long and the nights seemed longer to the tired Pekin
Duck, but her courage never failed. When her legs cramped so that she
could hardly step off the nest, she smiled and said to herself,
"Suppose I were a Thousand-Legged Worm!" She fancied it made her feel
better to think of such things, and she never remembered that
Thousand-Legged-Worms do not sit on nests and hatch out their children
in that way. It is probably better that she did not. If it does one
good to think of Thousand-Legged-Worms, it is wise to think about
them, even if one does make a slight mistake of this sort.
When the rain came, the burdock leaves kept off most of it, and the
few drops which fell between the leaves rolled off the Duck's back
without wetting her at all. That was because her feathers were so oily
that the rain could not stay on them. Ducks, you know, always have on
their water-proofs, and can slip in and out of the water at any time
without getting really wet.
The pleasure which she missed most was seeing the changes which the
Man was making in the upper end of the pasture. The Drake told her how
great yards had been fenced in with wire netting, and how the fronts
of the scratching-shed had been covered with somewhat finer netting of
the same kind. "Not even a Weasel could get through it," he said. And
then the Pekin Duck wished that the Man would fix a place for her
Ducklings where Weasels could not get them. She had never feared such
creatures for herself, but when she thought of her children she was
afraid. That is always the way, since it is much easier for a mother
to be brave for herself than for her children.
On a beautiful morning in the last of May, the Pekin Duck was repaid
for all her patience and courage by having seven beautiful Ducklings
chip the shell. They were even more beautiful than she had thought
they would be, and she could not understand why her friends seemed no
more impressed. To be sure they said that they were fine Ducklings and
that they looked like their mother, and admired their dainty little
webbed feet and their bills. They spoke of the beautiful thick down
which covered them, and said that they were remarkably bright and
strong for their age. And yet the Pekin Duck could see that they had
not properly realized what wonderful creatures the Ducklings were.
It was when all the Ducks were gathered around to look at the
Ducklings that one of the Little Girls came along with her doll. When
she also saw the Ducklings, she was so excited that she hugged her
doll tightly to her heart and ran off to find her father.
A few minutes later the Pekin Duck saw her precious babies lifted into
a well-lined basket and carried off toward the house. She followed,
quacking anxiously, and keeping as close to the Man as possible. Twice
he lowered the basket to let her see that her children were quite
safe.
The Man carried the basket to a place beside the new poultry-house,
now all done, and quickly fixed the old down-lined nest, which the
Little Girl had been carrying in another basket, into a fine coop.
Next he put the nestlings into it and let the Pekin Duck cover them
with her wings. He stretched fine wire netting across the front of the
coop, and then the Pekin Duck was perfectly happy. Indeed it was not
until the middle of the following night that she remembered she had
not looked at the poultry-house at all.
[Illustration: SHE FOLLOWED QUACKING ANXIOUSLY. _Page 72_]
It was rather disappointing not to be able to take her children in
swimming for two days, but when she saw how carefully the Man fed them
on bread and milk and other soft food, and how particular he was about
having plenty of clean water for them to drink, she quite forgave him
for keeping them there. The other Ducks came to tell her how to care
for the Ducklings, to shake their sleek heads, and to tell her how
unfortunate it was that she could not take the Ducklings in swimming
at once. "You will need to know many things," said the old Rouen Duck,
"and I will tell you if you will come to me every time that you are
perplexed."
"Thank you," said the Pekin Duck. But she never went. She thought it
just as well that a Duck who had never hatched out children should not
be giving advice to people who had.
When the Ducklings were three days old, they were let out and started
at once for the river. When their mother had to stop to speak to her
friends on the way, they did not wait for her, but marched on ahead.
All the fowls spoke admiringly of them, and the Pekin Duck was truly
happy as she looked at her seven proper little Ducklings.
They were such bright children, too, waddling right down to the edge
of the brook and slipping in without a single question as to how it
should be done. Their mother followed after and showed them how she
fed from the bottom, reaching her head far down until she could fill
her orange-colored bill with the soft mud from the bottom. There were
many tiny creatures in the mud which were good to eat, and these she
kept and swallowed, letting the mud pass out between the rough edges
of her bill. If the water had been deeper, she could have showed them
how she dived, staying long under water and coming up in a most
unexpected place.
When they came out of the water and stood on the bank, their mother
stretched herself up as tall as she could and preened her feathers.
The seven little Ducklings stood as tall as they could and squeezed
the water out of their down with their tiny bills, which seemed so
much longer for them than their mother's did for her.
The Pekin Duck was much amused to see how the other Ducks flocked
around her children. Indeed, she laughed outright once, when she heard
the old Rouen Duck say to the White Cock, "Don't you think that our
Ducklings are growing finely?"
Of course the Pekin Duck was ashamed of having laughed at any one so
much older than she, so she stuck her head under her wing and
pretended to be arranging the feathers there. When she drew it out
again she was quite sober, but she was thinking "Our Ducklings! Our
Ducklings! They may all call them that if it makes them happy to do
so, but really they are my Ducklings, for I earned them, and they love
me as they love nobody else."