CHAPTER II
Quackalina thought she had laid twice as many as ten eggs in the nest, but she could not be quite sure, and neither could Sir Sooty, though he thought so, too.
Very few poetic people are good at arithmetic, and even fine mathematicians are said to forget how to count when they are in love.
Certain it is, however, that when Quackalina finally decided to be satisfied to begin sitting, there were exactly ten eggs in the nest—just enough for her to cover well with her warm down and feathers.
"Sitting-time" may seem stupid to those who are not sitting; but Quackalina's breast was filled with a gentle content as she sat, day by day, behind the golden-rod, and blinked and reflected and listened for the dear "paddle, paddle" of Sir Sooty's feet, and his loving "qua', qua'"—a sort of caressing baby-talk that he had adopted in speaking to her ever since she had begun her long sitting.
"'I'M GOIN' TO SWAP 'EM'"
Quackalina was a patient little creature, and seldom left her nest, so that when she did so for a short walk in the glaring sun, she was apt to be dizzy and to see strange spots before her eyes. But this would all pass away when she got back to her cozy nest in the cool shade.
But one day it did not pass away—it got worse, or, at least, she thought it did. Instead of ten eggs in the nest she seemed to see twenty, and they were of a strange, dull color, and their shape seemed all wrong. She blinked her eyes nineteen times, and even rubbed them with her web-feet, so that she might not see double, but it was all in vain. Before her dazzled eyes twenty little pointed eggs lay, and when she sat upon them they felt strange to her breast. And then she grew faint and was too weak even to call Sir Sooty, but when he came waddling along presently, he found her so pale around the bill that he made her put out her tongue, and examined her symptoms generally.
Sir Sooty was not a regular doctor, but he was a very good quack, and she believed in him, which, in many cases, is the main thing.
So when he grew so tender that his words were almost like "qu, qu," and told her that she had been confined too closely and was threatened with foie gras, she only sighed and closed her eyes, and, keeping her fears to herself, hoped that the trouble was all in her eyes indeed—or her liver.
Now the sad part of this tale is that the trouble was not with poor little Quackalina's eyes at all. It was in the nest. The same farmer's boy who had kept her sitting of eggs down to ten by taking out one every day until poor Quackalina's patience was worn out—the same boy who had not used her as a decoy only because he wanted her to stay at home and raise little decoy-ducks—this boy it was who had now chosen to take her ten beautiful eggs and put them under a guinea-hen, and to fetch the setting of twenty guinea eggs for Quackalina to hatch out.
He did this just because, as he said, "That old black duck 'll hatch out as many eggs again as a guinea-hen will, an' the guinea 'll cover her ten eggs easy. I'm goin' to swap 'em." And "swap 'em" he did.
Nobody knows how the guinea-hen liked her sitting, for none but herself and the boy knew where her nest was hidden in a pile of old rubbish down by the cow-pond.
"MADE HER PUT OUT HER TONGUE"
When a night had passed, and a new day showed poor Quackalina the twenty little eggs actually under her breast—eggs so little that she could roll two at once under her foot—she did not know what to think. But like many patient people when great sorrows come, she kept very still and never told her fears.
She had never seen a guinea egg before in all her life. There were birds' nests in some of the reeds along shore, and she knew their little toy eggs. She knew the eggs of snakes, too, and of terrapins, or "tarrups," as they are called by the farmer folk along the bay.
When first she discovered the trouble in the nest she thought of these, and the very idea of a great procession of little turtles starting out from under her some fine morning startled her so that her head lay limp against the golden-rod for fully thirteen seconds. Then she got better, but it was not until she had taken a nip at the pepper-grass that she was sufficiently warmed up to hold up her head and think. And when she thought, she was comforted. These dainty pointed eggs were not in the least like the soft clumsy "double-enders" that the turtles lay in the sand. Besides, how could turtle-eggs have gotten there anyway? How much easier for one head to go wrong than twenty eggs.
She chuckled at the very folly of her fears, and nestling down into the place, she soon began to nod. And presently she had a funny, funny dream, which is much too long to go into this story, which is a great pity, for her dream is quite as interesting as the real story, although it is not half so true.
Sitting-time, after this, seemed very long to Quackalina, but after a while she began to know by various little stirrings under her downy breast that it was almost over. At the first real movement against her wing she felt as if everything about her was singing and saying, "mother! mother!" and bowing to her.
Even the pepper-grass nodded and the golden-rod, and careless roosters as they passed seemed to lower their combs to her and to forget themselves, just for a minute. And a great song was in her own bosom—a great song of joy—and although the sound that came from her beautiful coral bill was only a soft "qua', qua'," to common ears, to those who have the finest hearing it was full of a heavenly tenderness. But there was a tremor in it, too—a tremor of fear; and the fear was so terrible that it kept her from looking down even when she knew a little head was thrusting itself up through her great warm wing. She drew the wing as a caressing arm lovingly about it though, and saying to herself, "I must wait till they are all come; then I'll look," she gazed upward at the moon that was just showing a rim of gold over the hay-stack—and closed her eyes.
There was no sleep that long night for little mother Quackalina.
It was a great, great night. Under her breast, wonderful happenings every minute; outside, the white moonlight; and always in sight across the yard, just a dark object against the ground—Sir Sooty, sound asleep, like a philosopher!
Oh yes, it was a great, great night. Its last hours before day were very dark and sorrowful, and by the time a golden gleam shot out of the east Quackalina knew that her first glance into the nest must bring her grief. The tiny restless things beneath her brooding wings were chirping in an unknown tongue. But their wiry Japanesy voices, that clinked together like little copper kettles, were very young and helpless, and Quackalina was a true mother-duck, and her heart went out to them.
When the fatal moment came and she really looked down into the nest, her relief in seeing beautiful feathered things, at least, was greater than any other feeling. It was something not to have to mother a lot of "tarrups," certainly.
Little guineas are very beautiful, and when presently Quackalina found herself crossing the yard with her twenty dainty red-booted hatchlings, although she longed for her own dear, ugly, smoky, "beautiful" ducklings, she could not help feeling pleasure and pride in the exquisite little creatures that had stepped so briskly into life from beneath her own breast.
It was natural that she should have hurried to the pond with her brood. Wouldn't she have taken her own ducklings there? If these were only little "step-ducks," she was resolved that, in the language of step-mothers, "they should never know the difference." She would begin by taking them in swimming.
Besides, she longed for the pond herself. It was the place where she could best think quietly and get things straightened in her mind.
Sir Sooty had not seen her start off with her new family. He had said to himself that he had lost so much rest all night that he must have a good breakfast, and so, at the moment when Quackalina and the guineas slipped around the stable to the cow-pond, he was actually floundering in the very centre of one of the feed-troughs in the yard, and letting the farmer turn the great mass of cooked "feed" all over him. Greedy ducks often act that way. Even the snow-white Pekins do it. It is bad enough any time, but on the great morning when one becomes a papa-duck he ought to try to be dignified, and Sir Sooty knew it. And he knew full well that events had been happening all night in the nest, and that was why he said he had lost rest. But he hadn't. A great many people are like Sir Sooty. They say they lose sleep when they don't.
But listen to what was taking place at the cow-pond, for it is this that made this story seem worth the telling.
When Quackalina reached the pond, she flapped her tired wings three times from pure gladness at the sight of the beautiful water. And then, plunging in, she took one delightful dive before she turned to the shore, and in the sweetest tones invited the little ones to follow her.
But they—
Well, they just looked down at their red satin boots and shook their heads. And then it was that Quackalina noticed their feet, and saw that they would never swim.
It was a great shock to her. She paddled along shore quite near them for a while, trying to be resigned to it. And then she waddled out on the grassy bank, and fed them with some newts, and a tadpole, and a few blue-bottle flies, and a snail, and several other delicacies, which they seemed to enjoy quite as much as if they had been young ducks. And then Quackalina, seeing them quite happy, struck out for the very middle of the pond. She would have one glorious outing, at least. Oh, how sweet the water was! How it soothed the tender spots under her weary wings! How it cooled her ears and her tired eyelids! And now—and now—and now—as she dived and dipped and plunged—how it cheered and comforted her heart! How faithfully it bore her on its cool bosom! For a few minutes, in the simple joy of her bath, she even forgot to be sorrowful.
And now comes the dear part of the troublous tale of this little black mother-duck—the part that is so pleasant to write—the part that it will be good to read.
When at last Quackalina, turning, said to herself, "I must go ashore now and look after my little steppies," she raised her eyes and looked before her to see just where she was. And then the vision she seemed to see was so strange and so beautiful that—well, she said afterwards that she never knew just how she bore it.
Just before her, on the water, swimming easily on its trusty surface, were ten little ugly, smoky, "beautiful" ducks! Ten little ducks that looked precisely like every one of Quackalina's relations! And now they saw her and began swimming towards her.
Before she knew it, Quackalina had flapped her great wings and quacked aloud three times, and three times again! And she didn't know she was doing it, either.
She did know, though, that in less time than it has taken to tell it, her own ten beautiful ducks were close about her, and that she was kissing each one somewhere with her great red bill. And then she saw that upon the bank a nervous, hysterical guinea-hen was tearing along, and in a voice like a carving-knife screeching aloud with terror. It went through Quackalina's bosom like a neuralgia, but she didn't mind it very much. Indeed, she forgot it instantly when she looked down upon her ducklings again, and she even forgot to think about it any more. And so it was that the beautiful thing that was happening on the bank, under her very eyes almost, never came to Quackalina's knowledge at all.
When her own bosom was as full of joy as it could be, why should she have turned at the sound of the carving-knife voice to look ashore, and to notice that at its first note there were twenty little pocket-knife answers from over the pond, and that in a twinkling twenty pairs of red satin boots were running as fast as they could go to meet the great speckled mother-hen, whose blady voice was the sweetest music in all the world to them?
When, after quite a long time, Quackalina began to realize things, and thought of the little guineas, and said to herself, "Goodness gracious me!" she looked anxiously ashore for them, but not a red boot could she see. The whole delighted guinea family were at that moment having a happy time away off in the cornfield out of sight and hearing.
This was very startling, and Quackalina grieved a little because she couldn't grieve more. She didn't understand it at all, and it made her almost afraid to go ashore, so she kept her ten little ducklings out upon the water nearly all day.
And now comes a very amusing thing in this story.
When this great, eventful day was passed, and Quackalina was sitting happily among the reeds with her dear ones under her wings, while Sir Sooty waddled proudly around her with the waddle that Quackalina thought the most graceful walk in the world, she began to tell him what had happened, beginning at the time when she noticed that the eggs were wrong.
Sir Sooty listened very indulgently for a while, and then—it is a pity to tell it on him, but he actually burst out laughing, and told her, with the most patronizing quack in the world, that it was "all imagination."
"HER OWN TEN BEAUTIFUL DUCKS WERE CLOSE ABOUT HER"
And when Quackalina insisted with tears and even a sob or two that it was every word true, he quietly looked at her tongue again, and then he said a very long word for a quack doctor. It sounded like 'lucination. And he told Quackalina never, on any account, to tell any one else so absurd a tale, and that it was only a canard—which was very flippant and unkind, in several ways. There are times when even good jokes are out of place.
At this, Quackalina said that she would take him to the nest and show him the little pointed egg-shells. And she did take him there, too. Late at night, when all honest ducks, excepting somnambulists and such as have vindications on hand, are asleep, Quackalina led the way back to the old nest. But when she got there, although the clear, white moonlight lay upon everything and revealed every blade of grass, not a vestige of nest or straw or shell remained in sight.
The farmer's boy had cleared them all away.
By this time Quackalina began to be mystified herself, and after a while, seeing only her own ten ducks always near, and never sighting such a thing as little, flecked, red-booted guineas, she really came to doubt whether it had all happened or not.
And even to this day she is not quite sure. How she and all her family finally got away and became happy wild birds again is another story. But while Quackalina sits and blinks upon the bank among the mallows, with all her ugly "beautiful" children around her, she sometimes even yet wonders if the whole thing could have been a nightmare, after all.
But it was no nightmare. It was every word true. If anybody doesn't believe it, let him ask the guineas.