And, indeed, the mother hen did seem glad to have her family with her once more. She clucked over them, and tried to hover them under her warm wings, thinking, maybe, that she would dry them after their bath.
But ducks' feathers do not get wet in the water the way the feathers of chickens do, for ducks feathers have a sort of oil in them. So the little ducks did not need to get dry. They ran about in the sun, quacking in their baby voices, and the mother hen followed them about, clucking and scratching in the gravel to dig up things for them to eat.
"They'll be all right now," said Grandpa Brown. "The next time the little ducks go into the water the old hen mother won't be at all frightened, for she will know it is all right. This always happens when we let a chicken hatch out ducks' eggs."
"And I thought the little chickens were drowning!" laughed Sue, as she put on her shoes again.
"Well, that's just what the mother hen thought," said Grandpa Brown. "But what have you children been doing?"
"Getting ready for a circus," answered Bunny Brown.
"A circus!" exclaimed grandpa, in surprise.
"Yes," explained Sue. "Bunny is going to get a trapeze, and fall down in the hay, where it doesn't hurt. And he's going to paint his half of our dog Splash, so Splash will look like a tiger, and we're going to have a horse, and Bunker Blue is going to hold me on so I can ride and—and——"
But that was all Sue could think of just then.
Grandpa Brown looked surprised and, taking off his straw hat, scratched his head, as he always did when thinking.