"Come, wash your hands; supper is ready," said Mrs. Rabbit, as she took the carrot muffins out of the oven and dished the stewed lollypops.
HENNY PENNY'S MISTAKE
There was great excitement at the Old Barn Yard. A big mistake had been made. Whose fault it was no one could tell; but the fact was that Henny Penny had hatched out a brood of ducklings.
At first nobody thought anything was wrong, except that, perhaps, her little brood had very large bills and feet, much larger than those of any little chicks at the farm.
But one day when the whole brood waddled off down to the Old Duck Pond and jumped in everybody knew that Henny Penny had little ducks and not little chickens.
Poor little Henny Penny! She stood upon the bank and clucked and clucked to them to come back.
"You'll be drowned, my darlings!" she cried. But the little ducks threw out their great brown feet as cleverly as if they had taken swimming lessons all their lives and sailed off on the Old Duck Pond, away, away among the ferns, under the pink azaleas, through reeds and rushes and arrowheads and pickerel weed, the happiest ducks that ever were born. And soon they were quite out of sight.
Poor little Henny Penny. She didn't know how to swim, so she sat down on the bank and waited for her little ducks to come back. Now and then she wiped her eyes on her downy breast feathers.