“Well,” said Royal, “I will see if I can contrive some way to make a door.”
Royal then went and got a small block of wood, which he brought to the duck yard, and put it down before it, close to the board upon one side. When he had it properly placed, he said,—
“There, Lucy, that will do for a step, and you can step up by that, and so get over easily; and you can call that a door. Won’t that do?”
Lucy said that it would do very well; and she stepped over by means of her step, and back again, several times. She said it made a very good door indeed.
By the time that all this had been doing, the water in the little pond had become quite clear, and Lucy could see that it had a smooth, sandy bottom. So they both wanted to bring the duck out, and see it swim. Lucy was afraid that it was too little to swim; but Royal insisted that a duck could swim just as quick as it could get out of the shell. Lucy said that she meant to ask Joanna; and they accordingly both went into the house to ask Joanna if it would do to put their little duck into the water.
Joanna said that she thought he could swim, and, at any rate, that she would go out with them, and carry him, and see. Then they all went out together.
Joanna said that she liked the pond, and the house, and the yard, all very much indeed.
“But I think,” she added, “that it would be better to keep the little duck in the house at night, for a while, where he can be kept warm, until he gets a little older. Then, in the daytime, while the sun is out, you can keep him here in his house; and then, after some time, when he gets older and stronger, you can let him stay in his house all the time, day and night.”
So saying, Joanna gently put the duck down upon the edge of his pond, in order to see what he would do. He ran right into it at once, and immediately began to swim about as dexterously as if he had been accustomed to the water as long as his mother had been.