“If we could be ducks again, we would never disobey our mother!”
Scarcely had they thought this than they felt a most curious change
coming over them, and ere they had time to consider what it was, lo and
behold!--they saw themselves mirrored in the water, two beautiful plump
ducks, with rainbow-tinted plumes and sleek shining heads, swimming
gracefully along!
“Quack! quack!” they said--“Now we know where we are! This is the same
lake where we were born, and where we used to float,--and there is our
dear home, over there by the shore! Let us find our mother, and we will
never disobey her again!”
And neither they did. They were heartily welcomed home; and their
strange adventures served to amuse the whole farm-yard for several
months, though a cross old Turkey-cock was one day heard to gobble
out,--
“I don’t believe they were ever shoes at all! When they disobeyed their
mother, they lost themselves and got frightened;--then they hid away
for a time, and came back with an absurd story they just invented to
make themselves look important!”
But whoever pays attention to the gobblings of a Turkey-cock?