“Ho, ho,” laughed the duck. “You’ve been talking to the quail. Of course not. We’re Mallards. We fly faster than the wind. Now I’ll tell you something. This wind is carrying more than ducks. Can’t you smell it?”
Nibble sat up and sniffed very carefully. “It’s queer and dry,” he said, “and it seems to make my fur want to stand on end.”
“Go make yourself a nest, Bunny,” said the duck good-naturedly. “What you smell is a Terrible Storm coming, and it’s coming mighty fast.” He turned back his shining green head to fix the little curly feathers that quirked up over his tail. Below his white collar he wore a vest of the rich red which all rabbits especially admire, and Nibble was quite awed by his elegance.
“Come along,” he called to the other ducks who were paddling about in the shallow water and feeding among the roots of the water lilies. “It’s time you put your wings in order for a long trip.” And he set the example by spreading his own feathers and laying them very cleverly with his wide beak.
Nibble noticed a lady duck who wore the same colours as himself. She stood on her head with just her tail and her yellow legs showing out of water, until he was really afraid she was drowning. When she did come up straight again she paddled ashore as fast as she could. “The fish know,” she told her mate. “There’s not a fin stirring, and that big pickerel I was afraid of has buried himself in the mud. When the fish know about a storm it’s high time we were gone.” And site began preening her feathers in a great hurry.
“Are you afraid of a fish?” Nibble was surprised.
“Sometimes,” said she. “If it’s big enough to catch us by the leg and pull us under the water. We take turns watching while we have our heads down. Everything is afraid of something. But I’m much more afraid of that big black cloud and the thing that’s driving it.” And she went back to preening harder than ever.
“You see, Bunny,” said her good-natured mate, “this is really no ordinary storm. We saw it grow. We were way up north where the wind sings in the pines and the ice cracks like the shot of a gun. And this storm woke up. It wasn’t very big at first, and it cried very softly. Pretty soon it stood up over the tree tops, taller and taller every minute. And then it began to howl. It howled so loudly that even the wolves stopped to listen. But we didn’t We came away very quickly, before it could catch us. And we’ll keep on going until it stops.”
“What will it do if it catches you?” demanded Nibble, opening his eyes very wide.
“It’ll throw snow all over us so we can’t see our way to fly,” answered the lady duck. “It’ll cover up all the water with ice so we can’t feed. When it’s very had we can’t even find a hole big enough to thaw our feet in. Ugh! I hate to fly so fast. We ought to have come three days ago. I knew what it was the first day when it snarled at the wind. It wasn’t afraid!”