Six Little Ducklings
Copyright© 2025 by Katharine Pyle
Chapter 6
WHEN the ducklings stayed at home instead of going to the river (that was when it was too cold and stormy for them to swim) they had a number of toys to play with. Squdge and Queek had a little cart, and they had a tame beetle that they had trained to pull it. Sometimes they gave the dolls a ride in the cart. There were two dolls; one belonged to Fluffy, and one belonged to Curly-Tail. Mrs. Muskrat had made the dolls for them;—the same old muskrat who had made the picnic basket for their mother. The dolls were made of two old gnarled pieces of root that Mrs. Muskrat had gnawed and shaped with her sharp teeth until they looked just like two little wooden ducklings.
The two fowls were pleased to see each other
Fluffy and Curly-Tail loved these two little duckling dolls better than anything they had; they dressed and undressed them, and took them to bed with them at night, and sometimes even took them down to the river with them.
The other ducklings often wished they had dolls, too, but Mrs. Muskrat had only made the two, one for Fluffy, and one for Curly-Tail. The way she had happened to make the dolls for them and not for the others was this:
One day the duck family had gone down to the river for their usual swim, and afterward Mother Duck felt very sleepy. She sat down on the bank in the warm sun, and all the little ducklings sat around her, and blinked and blinked, and after a while they all went to sleep. The ducklings were the first to waken. They opened their eyes and stirred about, and presently they said, “Mother, may we go up the river bank a little way?” For they were tired of staying in one place.
Mother Duck was too sleepy to do more than open her eyes a tiny crack. “Yes; only don’t go too far, and don’t go in the water.”
The little ducks promised they wouldn’t, and then they ran merrily away together.
Soon they came to a place where the bank was quite high and overhung the water. Here they began to amuse themselves by pushing bits of mud and pebbles over into the water to make a splash.
Presently they heard something stirring and rustling down there beneath. They stopped and listened and looked. Squdge and Pin-Toes even crept to the edge of the bank and leaned far over trying to see what was there. Fluffy was afraid if they did not take care they might fall into the river.
Instead of taking it Bright Eyes looked quite disgusted
Suddenly out from under the bank swam old Mrs. Muskrat. Her house was just exactly under where the ducklings were standing, though they had not known it. She had been busy finishing her housework and now she was starting out on some errand she had down the river. She always swam when she wanted to go anywhere. She could go more quickly and safely that way than by land. She had on a calico dress and a white apron, and a pair of big spectacles were on her nose. (All her clothes were waterproof, and shed off the water just the way a duck’s feathers do.) She looked so funny with her nose almost under water and her dress bunching up, and her tail dragging behind her, that some of the ducklings began to laugh.
“Oh don’t laugh,” begged Fluffy, who was a very polite little duckling. “She might hear you.”
“No she won’t; she can’t hear us down there,” said Queek.
“I don’t care whether she does or not,” cried Squdge, “she’s so funny looking.” And he laughed till he almost fell over.
Then all the other ducklings began to laugh, too;—all except Fluffy and Curly-Tail. Fluffy and Curly-Tail did not laugh. They were troubled to think their brothers and sister could behave so rudely, and to an older animal. To be sure Mrs. Muskrat never looked round to see who they were, and that was some comfort.
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