seldom received any visitors. The other ducks preferred swimming about in the moat to climbing up and sitting under a burdock gabbling to her. At last one egg after another began to crack, and "Peep! peep!" said the little ducklings; all the yolks had become living creatures and were popping out their heads.
"Quack! quack!" said the duck, and away they rushed as fast as they could, looking about them on all sides under the green leaves; their mother let them look around as much as they liked, for green is good for the eyes.
"How big the world is!" said all the young ones, for they had now more space to move about in than when they lay in the egg. "Do you think this is the whole world?" said the mother. "It stretches far away on the other side of the garden, right up to the parson's field, though I have never been there. I hope you are all here," she said, as she stood up. "No, I haven't got you all; the biggest egg is still there. How long is this going to last? I am getting tired of it." And so she settled down again.
"Well, how are you getting on?" said an old duck, who came to pay a visit.
"This egg takes such a long time!" said the duck on the nest; "it won't break! But now you must look at the others. They are the finest ducklings I have seen. They are all like their father, the wretch! He never comes to see me."
"Let me see the egg that won't break," said the old duck. "You'll find it is a turkey's egg. That was the way I was once deceived, and I had a lot of worry and anxiety with those youngsters, for they are afraid of the water. I may tell you, I could not get them to take to it. I quacked and snapped, but it was all of no use. Let me see the egg; yes, it's a turkey egg! Leave it, and teach your other children to swim."
"I'll sit on it just a little longer," said the duck. "I have now been sitting on it so long that 1 may as well go on for some days longer."
"Just as you like," said the old duck, and away she went.
At last the large egg broke. "Peep! peep!" said the youngster as he rolled out of the shell; he was very big and ugly. The duck looked at him: "You are a terribly big duckling, to be sure," she said; "none of the others look like you. I wonder if it is a young turkey, after all. Well, we shall soon find that out. Into the water he shall go, even if I have to push him in myself."
The next day the weather was most beautiful; the sun was shining upon all the green burdocks. The mother of the ducklings went down to the moat with all her little ones. Splash! and into the water she jumped. "Quack, quack!" she called out, and in the ducklings jumped, one after
