Six Little Ducklings
Copyright© 2025 by Katharine Pyle
Chapter 4
“WIGGLE-WAGGLE-WISK-TAIL was a very naughty little duckling. He quarrelled with his brothers and sisters, and he always wanted the best of everything for himself, and, worst of all, he was often disobedient to his dear good mother. Sometimes his mother hardly knew what to do, it worried her so to have him so naughty.
“Over and over again Wiggle-Waggle’s mother had told him that he must never go out of doors when it was raining. (You know I have often told you that myself, my dears,” said Mother Duck. “It is very, very bad for little ducks to go out in the rain. Flat water, like ponds and puddles and rivers, is good for them, but when water comes down from overhead like rain, or water-falls, it is very bad for them. Sometimes they get drowned in it.)
“One day it began to rain and rain and rain around Wiggle-Waggle-Wisk-Tail’s house.
“His mother was very busy that day. She did not have time to watch over the children, but she never thought any of them would be foolish enough to go out in the rain. She had told them too often about the danger of it.
“But Wiggle-Waggle-Wisk-Tail would not believe anything that any one told him. He waited until his brothers and sisters were busy over their play, and then he slipped away very quietly, and out into the rain.
“Oh, how good it felt. He raised his bill and caught greedily at the drops as they fell.
“‘It’s wet’, said Wiggle-Waggle-Wisk-Tail to himself, ‘but it isn’t wet enough.’
“Just around the corner a rain-pipe came down from the roof of the farmhouse. The rain roared down it and spouted out like a waterfall.
Out from under the bank swam old Mrs. Muskrat
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