ONE day Mother Duck got up bright and early, and put on her bonnet and her shawl, and took a market basket on her wing.

“Now, children, I’m going to market,” she said. “Don’t go out of sight of home while I’m away, and don’t go down to the river, and don’t talk with any stranger animals.”

And all the little ducklings answered, “No, mother.”

Then the old duck put on her bonnet and her shawl, and took her basket on her arm and started off.

For awhile after she had gone the little ducks played about close to the hollow tree, and then they wandered a little further off, and then they began to see how far they could go without losing sight of home.

“I wish mother would hurry back,” said Squdge at last, “I’m getting hungry. Wouldn’t a tadpole or some watercress taste good now!”

“Indeed it would,” said Queek. “Or even a beetle if we could find one.”

Just as Queek said that a bright long-tailed fly flew close by over Buff’s head. “Catch it, catch it, Buff!” cried Queek.

Buff made a jump and missed it, though his beak just grazed its tail.

“Catch it!” cried Squdge, starting after it with leaps and bounds; and—“Catch it! catch it!” cried the others, running after him as fast as they could. Their mother’s words were all forgotten.

On and on they went, leaping and snatching, and sometimes falling over each other in their hurry. At last their chase led them out into a road, and then the fly rose straight up over their heads, up and up until it was lost to sight in the sunlit air. The ducklings stood gaping after it hungrily.

“Hey there, you young ’uns! What do you think you’re doing?” asked a rough voice.

The ducklings started.

Before them, in the road, stood a ragged, impudent-looking, half-grown chicken.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked again.

“Oh, if you please, sir, we were trying to catch a fly,” answered Queek rather timidly.

“A fly! What did you want to catch a fly for?”

“We thought we’d eat it.”

“Eat it! Eat a fly? Haven’t you any corn or bread or things of that kind at home?”

Queek shook his head. “We don’t know what corn is, or bread either.”

“Don’t know what they are! Why, at the farmyard where I live the farmer’s wife comes out twice a day and gives us all we can eat. Sometimes she gives us a dish of curds, too; or a meat bone to pick. Though mostly we have to share our meat bones with the watch-dog. He’s a great friend of mine, old Mr. Tige is. He’d let me have his bones any time if I wanted them.”

“Mr. Tige!” cried Squdge. “Why, that’s the name of the watch-dog at the farm where our mother used to live. Where is your farmyard?”

“Oh, over there,” said the chicken, pointing with his wing. “Who is your mother, anyway?”

The ducklings told him who their mother was, and where they lived, and all about themselves.

They, in turn, asked him about the farmyard.

“I’m just sure that’s where our mother used to live,” said Buff. “Oh, how I wish we could see it.”

“Well, you can. Come along with me, and I’ll show it to you.”

“All right,” cried Squdge and Queek.

The other four ducklings were afraid they oughtn’t to go, but Squdge and Queek were so eager to, and so unwilling to turn back, that after a while the others, too, agreed to go on to the[85]
[86]
[87] farmyard. The ragged chicken led the way, and they all followed.

As they went the chicken’s talk was all about himself and the farmyard. He told them of how much the farmer’s wife thought of him, and about his friend the turkey-cock, and about old Tige.

“Why,” he cried, “I don’t know what Tige would do if anything was to happen to me. I guess he’d just break his chain and come out to look for me.”

The ducklings thought the chicken must be a very important person indeed for every one to be so fond of him.

After a while they came to a high board fence. The chicken slipped through a hole, and the ducklings followed him, and at once they were in the farmyard.

Once inside they looked about them wonderingly. Not far from them a hen was busily scratching for a brood of chickens. At first they thought it must be the hen they had met down by the river, but then they saw that this was a larger, darker hen. A cock on the dung-hill crowed loud and clear, and the ducklings started. “What’s that?” asked Squdge in a frightened voice.

“That? Oh, that’s nothing. That’s just a rooster crowing. Didn’t you ever hear one before?”

Over in a sunny corner were four great moving, breathing things, lifted far, far up in the air on great thick legs. “And what are those?” asked Squdge, pointing at them.

“Cows. Didn’t you ever see cows before? Oh, my! You certainly don’t know much,” said the chicken scornfully.

The little ducklings looked at the cows with awe. Any one of those great feet, if it happened to tread on them would crush them as easily as though they were beetles or tadpoles.

“And where’s your friend, Mr. Tige?”

“Old Tige?” said the chicken, hesitatingly. “Well, you see he may be asleep. If he is I wouldn’t like to waken him. He has to bark so much in the night that sometimes he’s very tired in the day-time.”

“But can’t we just see what he looks like?”

“Well—come on; maybe I can show you. He lives in that dog house over there.”

The chicken led the way toward the dog house, and the ducklings followed him. He walked on his tip-toes, and kept whispering to the ducklings not to make a noise. They might almost have thought that he was afraid of Tige if he hadn’t told them he wasn’t.

They reached the dog house and peeped around the corner of it. There, sure enough, lay old Tige in the sunshine, fast asleep. He was a big, fierce looking brindled dog. Now and then he twitched his ear or moved his paw in his dreams. It frightened the ducklings even to look at him.

When the chicken saw the dog was asleep he grew much bolder. “Yes, there he is, fast asleep, just like I told you,” he said. “Do you see that bone there by his nose? If he was only awake I’d ask him to give it to you. He would do it I know, if I asked him.”

Just then the great dog woke and opened one eye a little, but the chicken did not notice that, he was so busy boasting to the ducklings.

Now the dog was not really a friend of the chicken at all. In fact he hated it. It was always creeping up and trying to steal his food. Again and again he had tried to catch it, but always it kept just out of reach. But now it had come so near, that it almost seemed as though, with one bound he could grab it. Very, very quietly he drew himself together, without the chicken’s noticing it, and then suddenly with a bound and a roar he was up and at the chicken. He would have caught it, too, if his chain had only been a little longer. As it was his teeth just grazed its feathers.

The chicken gave a wild squawk, and fled with spread wings toward the hole in the fence. The[91]
[92]
[93] ducklings tumbled after it, almost scared out of their wits.

The chicken squeezed through the hole and rushed on down the road, and the little ducks, too, squeezed through the hole and ran after it.

On and on ran the chicken, and on and on ran the ducklings. For all they knew the dog might have broken his chain and be close at their heels.

After a while they came to the river and could go no further. But it was a part of the river that the ducklings had never seen before. Here the chicken turned on them angrily.

“Why don’t you go home?” he cried. “Why do you keep following me? I don’t want you. Go home I tell you.”

“But we don’t know how to get home,” cried the ducklings, and Curly-Tail began to cry.

“Well, I don’t care where you go, only don’t keep following me because I won’t have it. I’m tired of you.”

“We won’t; we won’t follow you if you’ll just tell us how to get home.”

“No, I won’t tell you. I’m going back to the farmyard. It must be feeding time now. And don’t you dare to come too. If you do I’ll peck you.”

The chicken was angry because the ducklings had seen him frightened, and because they had found out he was not a friend of the dog after all.

“Oh, what shall we do! We’re lost! We’re lost!” wept the ducklings.

But the chicken paid no attention to them. He gave them one scornful look, and then he stuck his wings in his pockets, and stalked away up the road, leaving them alone.

And now the poor little ducklings were very miserable indeed. They all wept bitter tears. Even Squdge began to cry. “Oh, if we could only get home,” they wept, “we’d never, never run away again, but always be good obedient little ducklings.”

Suddenly Queek, who had dried his eyes for a moment, looked up the river and gave a cry of joy.

“Look! Look!” he shouted.

The ducklings stared through their tears, and then they began to clap their wings and shout for joy. There, sailing quietly down the river, in her shawl and bonnet, her basket on her arm, came their own dear mother.

“Mother! Mother!” they shouted all together. “Here we are, mother! Come quick!”

The mother looked and stared and then came sailing over toward the bank. She could hardly believe her eyes.

“Why, children, whatever are you doing here?” she cried.

“Oh, we ran away from home, and we got lost, but if you’ll only take us back we’ll never be naughty disobedient little ducks again.”

They had indeed been very naughty to run away when their mother had told them not to, but they looked so frightened and sorrowful that she had not the heart to scold them.

“Well, well! We won’t talk about it now,” she said. “Perhaps you’ve been punished enough as it is by being so frightened. Slip down into the river and I’ll take you home this way.”

So the ducklings slid down into the water and sailed away at their mother’s side, and it was not long before they came within sight of their own dear home-landing and the hollow tree beyond. Then what thankful and happy little ducklings they were!

“Mother,” said Squdge solemnly, “I’m never, never going to be naughty again. I’m always going to do exactly what you tell me to do.”

And all the other little ducklings said the same.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” said their mother. “What a happy family we will be if I never have to scold you any more.”

But of course the little ducklings were naughty[97]
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[99] sometimes, even after that; but they were good enough for their mother to feel that on the whole her little ducklings were the dearest, sweetest, cunningest little ducklings in all the world—to her at least.

THE END