THE GREEDY DUCKLING.
Duck and Ducklings.
LTHOUGH you cannot see her cottage, you can look at a portion of the brook that runs by the end of her garden, in which the old white duck and three of her little ducklings are swimming, while the remainder have left the water and got out on the grass to be fed. That is the old woman's little granddaughter who is holding the duckling in both her hands, and kissing it, and the other is her companion, who lives over the hill where you see a little morsel of blue sky between the overhanging leaves, and who has come all the way along that footpath to play with her, and feed the little ducklings. If you notice the duckling the granddaughter is petting, you will see it has got its eye on the food in the little girl's hand; and if you could read its thoughts, you would find it was saying to itself, "O, bother your fuss and stew! I wish you would put me down, and let me gobble up some of that nice new bread before it is all gone. Kissing, and patting, and nursing me won't fill my belly, I can tell you; though it's all well enough, when I've eaten until I'm full to the very top of my neck, to snuggle to you and be kept nice and warm, while I have a good long nap." You can see by its eye it's a sly little duckling; and though it pretends to be so fond of the child, lying still and such like, yet it's all of a fidget to get down, and quite envies the little ducklings that are feeding out of the other girl's hand. That is the Greedy duckling.
Now the grandmother is such a funny little old woman, having one leg shorter than the other, which causes her to go up and down as she walks! The villagers call her Old Hoppity-kick, because, when she walks with her horn-handled stick and moves it along, she goes "hop," and when she moves both her feet she goes "hoppity," and when she pulls up her short leg to start again, she gives a kind of a little "kick" with it; so that what with her long leg, her short leg, and her stick, the noise she makes when she walks rather fast sounds a good deal like "hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick."
Then she has a sharp, hooked nose, not much unlike the beak of a poll parrot; and she wears round spectacles with horn rims, and these she always calls her "goggles;" and, besides all this, she is hump-backed, and has an old gray cat that is very fond of jumping on her hump, and sitting there when she goes out into her garden, looking about him as well as she does, as if to see how things are getting on. She talks to her old cat, when she has no one else to speak to, just as she does to her granddaughter.
She came up one day with her stick in her hand, her goggles on, and the gray cat sitting on her hump, where he went up and down, down and up, at every "hoppity-kick" she gave, and stopped to watch her granddaughter feed the ducklings. "Why, what a greedy little duckling that is beside you," said granny, pointing to it with her horn-handled stick; "he doesn't seem willing to let his little brothers and sisters have a taste of the food you are giving them, pecking and flying at them, and driving them off in the way he does. I'm sure he is a nasty, greedy little duckling, and when he gets big enough I'll have him killed."
"I don't think he's so greedy, granny," replied the little maid, taking him up in both her hands, and kissing him; "it's only because he's so fond of me, and jealous of the other ducklings when they come close to me. Look how still he lies, and how he nestles up to me! He's very fond of me."
"Humph; fond of you for what he can get, like a good many more in the world," said old Granny Grunt, while the gray cat gave a "mew, mew," as if to say, "Right you are, old granny;" then off she went, "hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick," back again into her cottage, the hem of her quilted petticoat making bobs up and down all the way she went.
"You're not a greedy little thing, are you, ducky?" said the little maid to the duckling, kissing it again, when her grandmother and the cat had gone. "It's because you love me so, isn't it? and don't like any of the other little ducklings to be noticed, do you?"
"O, what a silly Sukey you are!" thought the Greedy Duckling, laying its head on one side of her face, as if to show it was so fond of her it didn't know what to do. "Do you think I would make such a pretended fuss over you as I do if you didn't give me three times as much to eat as any of the rest of the ducklings get? Not I. I often feel as if I should like to bite a bit off the end of your silly little nose when you are kissing and fondling me. Do you know I would much rather have my head under the water, and be poking about among the mud for worms, little eels, and frogs, and such like things, than have your lips so near me? Why, the other day you'd been eating onions; and though I dare say I shall smell strong enough of 'em some day, and sage too, as I've heard your old granny say when I have to be roasted, yet that time won't come yet for a long while, and I don't want to be reminded of my end before it does come. Why don't you empty your old granny's jam pots, or her honey jar; that smell wouldn't be so bad to bear as onions,—Fah!"
Now you begin to see what a deal of truth there was in what old Granny Grunt said, and what a wicked and ungrateful duckling this was, to have such evil thoughts, pretending to be so fond of the little granddaughter all the time. It was quite as bad as if a naughty child, after having as many "goodies" given it as it could eat, made fun of the giver behind the back, while before the face it pretended to be all love, and honey, and sugar. It's deceit, that's what it is, done for what may be got; and if anything, deceit's worse than story-telling, as you pretend to be what you are not, and to feel what you do not, while a story once told is done with, if you don't tell another on the top of it, and have the honesty to confess it was a story when close questioned and you speak the truth. But deceit! it's so dreadfully shocking! it's hypocrisy, and I know not what besides, as you have to keep it up, wear a mask, seem what you are not. O, dear! O, dear! I can't say how bad it is, it's so very bad.
Now the Greedy Duckling knew which way the granddaughter came, and used to watch and wait for her, often a good way from the others, when she was coming with food; and if the little girl in the drawn and magenta-colored bonnet happened to be with her, she would say, "Look at the dear little duckling! Though it's so fat it can hardly waddle, it couldn't stop till I came, but is so fond of me it's come to meet me!" Then she began to feed it, giving it as much as ever it could eat, while the other dear ducklings, that were waiting so patiently by the brook, hadn't even so much as a smell, until that nasty, greedy little wretch had been crammed full to the very throat. Let us hope he was often troubled with a touch of the bile as a just punishment for his greediness. He was now so fat that he used to fall asleep on the water, and the wind blew him on like a floating feather, while his little brothers and sisters were diving, and swimming, and playing, and splashing about, and having such jolly games as made one quite wish to join them on a hot summer's day. This was the first judgment that overtook him for his greediness: he was too fat to play, and if he tried, puffed and blew like a broken-winded horse, and was out of breath in no time; for his liver was not only out of order, but what little heart he had, and that wasn't much, was buried in fat.
He now took to eating out of spite, so that there might be next to nothing left for the other little ducklings. Whether he was hungry or not, he would stand in the centre of the food that was thrown down, and though he couldn't eat it himself, bite and fly at every duckling that attempted to touch a morsel. One of his little brothers one day went at him, and gave him "pepper," I can tell you; and when he found he'd met his match, what did the fat, artful wretch do but throw himself on his back, quacking out, "You ain't a-going to hit me when I'm down?"
Now, selfish and greedy although he was, and disliked by the rest of the family, he had a little sister,—which was, that dear duckling you see swimming at the front of its mother, as if asking her if it may go out of the water for a little time, and have a waddle on the grass, for it is a most dutiful duckling,—and this little sister was the only one of the family that treated the Greedy Duckling kindly, for she used to say, "Bad as he is, he's my brother, and it's my duty to bear with him." After a time, when, on account of his selfishness and greediness, the rest of the family had "sent him to Coventry," which means that they wouldn't have anything to do with him,—neither eat, drink, nor swim with him, nor even exchange so much as a friendly "quack,"—then it was that he began to appreciate the kindness and self-sacrifice of his little sister, who would go and sit with him for the hour together, though he was too sulky at first even to "quack" to her.
It so happened one day, when his pretty little sister had been talking to him, and telling him how much happier his life would be if he were more social, and how greatly his health would be improved if he ate less, that after saying, "I don't care if they won't have me amongst 'em; little Sukey gives me plenty to eat, and I can sleep well enough by myself, and much better than if they were all quacking about me; and though you come and stay with me, I don't ask you, nor I don't want you; and I dare say you only do it to please yourself, and——," before he could say another word, his little sister said, "Run, run!" for she had seen a shadow on the grass, and knew that a great hawk was hanging over them; and they had only just time to pop under the long, trailing canes of a bramble, before down the hawk came with such a sweep, that they could feel the cold wind raised by the flapping of his great wings, though he could not reach them for the bramble; nor did he try to get at them where they were sheltered, for the hawk only strikes his prey while on the wing, picking it up and keeping hold of it somehow, just as Betty does a lump of coal, which she has made a snap at, and seized with the tongs.
"He would have been sure to have had you," said the little sister, after the hawk had flown away over the trees, "as you stood the farthest out, and are so fat; and I was so near the bramble, he would hardly have had room for the full spread of his wings, if he had made a snap at me."
"I don't see that," replied the Greedy Duckling, "for as I'm so heavy, I think he would have been glad to have dropped me before he had reached his nest; while as for you, you're such a light bit of a thing, he would have carried you off as easily almost as he would a fly that had settled on his back."
"But supposing he had dropped you after flying with you about six times the height of a tall tree; what use would you have been after you had fallen?" asked the little duckling. "Why, there would have been neither make nor shape in you, but you would have looked like a small handful of feathers somebody had thrown down on the place where oil had been spilt. Our dear old mother would not have known you, for you would no more have looked like what you are now, than a snail that a wagon wheel had gone over did before it was crushed, when he was travelling comfortably along the rut, and carrying his sharp-pointed house on his back."
"Well, as I don't care much about my shape now, I suppose the thought of it would have troubled me less after I'd been killed," said the Greedy Duckling; "all I care for in this life is to have as much to eat as I can tuck under my wings, and not to have any noise about me while I'm asleep. As to washing myself much, that's a trouble, though I do manage to give my head a dip when I have a drink. There was an old man used to come and sit under the tree beside our brook, and read poetry; and sometimes, between sleeping and waking, I used to pick up a line or two; and I liked those best of all that said,—
'I just do nothing all the day,
And soundly sleep the night away,'—
because they just suited me to a T."
In vain did the clean little sister endeavor to persuade him to wash himself oftener, take more exercise, mingle more with his family, eat less, and try to make himself more respected; it was all of no use: instead of becoming better, he got worse.
There was a hole under the wooden steps that led up to old Granny's cottage, and the Greedy Duckling, having found it out, used to creep in and watch until the old woman's back was turned, when Sukey would be sure to feed him; and very often he found food about, and helped himself to it, no matter what it was. One day Granny had made a custard, which she left standing on the table until the oven was hot, when the Greedy Duckling got at it, and after putting in his beak, and having had a good drink, he held his head aside, and said, "Bless me! though rather thick, it's very nice—not at all like muddy water. I can taste milk, and I'm sure there are eggs, also plenty of sugar; what that brown powder is floating at the top I don't know; but it must be spice, I think, for it warms the stomach. But here comes old Granny: I must hide under the table until she goes out, or I shall have another taste of that horn-handled stick of hers; then, if she hits me fairly on the leg, I shall have to go hoppity kick, as she does. I should like to finish that lot very much, it's so good. O, how comfortably I could sleep after in my little nest under the step! I'll keep a sharp eye on old Granny and her cat."
The cat had been blamed for many things it had never touched, which the Greedy Duckling had gobbled up; and as he sat washing himself on the hob, which was beginning to be warm, Granny having lighted a fire to heat the oven, he spied the duckling under the table, and kept his eye on him without seeming to take any notice at all.
"I shall be having the cat lapping up all this custard, if I don't put it somewhere out of the way," said the grandmother; "it will be the safest here;" and she put it into the oven without quite shutting the door, then went out to get some more wood to put under the oven, which was hardly warm.
"I shall have time enough to finish that lot before old Granny comes back, for she has the wood to break into short pieces," said the Greedy Duckling, who had seen her put the custard into the oven; so he just put out his wings and went in after it, and began pegging away at the custard, for it was a big oven and there was plenty of room.
"I've been blamed often enough for things you've stolen and eaten, and I'll get out of that," said the cat; "for though I know you'll be out of the oven and hiding somewhere the instant you hear her hoppity kick on the cottage floor, yet if she looks at the custard before she shuts the oven door, and finds half of it eaten, she'll say I've had it." So saying, the cat made a spring from off the oven on to the floor, and while doing so, his hinder legs caught the oven door, and, with the force of the spring, shut it to with a loud clap and a click, for the handle always caught when the door was pushed to sharp. Away ran the cat, and in came old Granny with the stick, which she began to shove under the oven, until in time it was so hot that she couldn't take hold of the handle to turn her custard without holding it with the dishclout. "Why, I declare, if it isn't burnt to a cinder!" exclaimed old Granny, as she threw open the oven door; when there was such a smell of burnt feathers and fat as nearly knocked her down; for the fat duckling first ran all to dripping, which ran all over the oven bottom, and then got burnt black, it was so hot; and she never could, nor never did, nor never will make out what it was that made her oven in such a mess and spoiled her custard, nor what became of her Greedy Duckling.
JUVENILE BOOKS.
PUBLISHED BY
SHELDON & COMPANY,
NEW YORK.