Six Little Ducklings
Copyright© 2025 by Katharine Pyle
Chapter 8
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.”
On and on ran the chicken, and on and on ran the ducklings
“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 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?”