“What an experience!” they said to themselves—“Oh, how much better to be ducks than shoes! Surely no happy duck in a pond ever witnessed such scenes! The life of a duck in a pond is so peaceful—so placid!”
“Oh, if they had never disobeyed their good, kind Mother-Duck,” they thought!—but, in spite of their recollections, they were compelled to go swimming on as they were, and so they got carried by a cross current out of the ocean down a great river, and out of the great river into a smaller one, and out of that into a lake,—a beautiful clear lake which they seemed to remember. As they floated along pleasant memories came into them, and they felt as if something strange was about to happen.
Suddenly they saw a beautiful duck with shining feathers coming towards them, and they nearly jumped out of the water in their excitement, for they moaned creakily to themselves,—
“We were ducks once! we were ducks once!”
“Yes,” said a soft voice near—“Poor little Nanette was alive once, but she disobeyed her mother, and now where is she?”
The shoes trembled in the water, and then said to themselves,—
“If we could be ducks again, we would never disobey our mother!”
Scarcely had they thought this than they felt a most curious change coming over them, and ere they had time to consider what it was, lo and behold!—they saw themselves mirrored in the water, two beautiful plump ducks, with rainbow-tinted plumes and sleek shining heads, swimming gracefully along!
“Quack! quack!” they said—“Now we know where we are! This is the same lake where we were born, and where we used to float,—and there is our dear home, over there by the shore! Let us find our mother, and we will never disobey her again!”
And neither they did. They were heartily welcomed home; and their strange adventures served to amuse the whole farm-yard for several months, though a cross old Turkey-cock was one day heard to gobble out,—