By the side of my home a river runs; and down close by the banks of it lives a good family named Allen. Mr. Allen keeps a large number of hens and ducks. One old hen had twice been put to sit on ducks' eggs, and hatched two broods of ducks.

The first brood she hatched took to the water as soon as they saw it, as all little ducks will. The old hen was almost crazy at such behavior on the part of her chicks, and flew down to the water's edge, clucking and calling at a great rate. However,—to her great surprise, probably,—they all came safely to land. Every day after that, when the little ducks went for a swim, their hen-mother walked nervously back and forth on the shore, and was not easy till they came out of the water.

By and by, after those ducks had all grown large, the hen hatched another brood. These, too, at first sight of the water, went in for a swim. The old hen was not quite as frightened as before, but stood and looked at them, clucking a little to herself, as if to say, "Strange chickens these of mine; but yet, if they like it, I don't know as I need care, so long as they don't ask me to go with them." So, after a while, that brood grew to be big ducks.

One day last summer, as I sat on the bank of the river, looking at the pretty blue rippling water, who should come walking proudly down to the water's-edge but, Mrs. Hen with another brood of little, waddling, yellow ducks behind her! She led them clear to the edge of the water, saw them start off, and, turning away, went contentedly to scratching at some weeds on the shore, taking no more notice of her little family. She had come to regard this swimming business as a matter of course.

Now one little duck, for some reason,—maybe he was not so strong as the others,—had not gone into the water with the rest, but remained sitting on the shore. Presently the mother-hen, turning round, happened to spy him. She stopped scratching, and looked at him as if she were saying, "All my chickens swim: now what is the matter with you? I know it must be laziness; and I won't have that."

Then spreading out her wings, and making an angry clucking, she flew towards the unlucky duckling, took him by the back of his neck in her beak, and threw him as far as possible into the water. As she walked back to her weeds again; it seemed almost as if I could hear her say,—

"The chicken who can swim and won't swim must be made to swim."