The next day my mouth and tongue were quite well once more, but it was more than a week before I got brave enough to hunt frogs again. In fact, I have never cared for frog-hunting very much since, and I only did it after that just to show Freya that I wasn’t afraid to. But I couldn’t get her to go with me. She’s rather a coward, Freya is. Just look at the time I scared the duck! The way she acted then made me quite ashamed of her!
That was months before I made the mistake about the toad and I was younger and sillier. I told you that there were ducks on our place. Well, they lived in a house next door to where the chickens were, and in the day time they all waddled out as soon as William opened the gate for them and went down to the pond. They are stupid things, ducks. They don’t do anything all day long but waddle around and wag their tails and eat and swim and say “quack!” I don’t know what “quack” means and I don’t believe they do, for they always say it just the same way and no matter what happens. If they see William with their dinner they say “quack” and if they see a chicken-hawk sailing about they say “quack” and if I so much as look at them—from a distance—they say “quack” just the same. I don’t believe “quack” means a thing. They just want you to think it does.
Well, one day I was trotting around by myself looking for something to do when I caught sight of a duck sitting in the grass on the side of the brook quite a ways beyond the pond. She didn’t see me because she had her head hidden under her wing in the silly way ducks have. It had been a very dull day so far and I wanted some fun. So I thought it would be a good joke to creep up on Mrs. Duck and give her a good scare and see if she would say anything more than just “Quack!”
Well, I did. I crept up very, very softly and when I was about two feet away I said “Bow-wow!” as loudly as I could. Mrs. Duck gave a start, pulled her head out and said “Quack!” much louder than I had said “Bow-wow!” And then, before I knew what she was up to, she spread her wings very wide and jumped right at me!
It—well, it sort of surprised me, because I didn’t know ducks did that. Besides, with her wings all spread open like that and her mouth very wide open, too, she looked almost as big as ten ducks! So—so I sort of backed away, not because I was afraid of her but just because I was so surprised. Besides, I’d had my fun and was ready to go away, anyhow. But she didn’t seem to understand that it was all just a joke and she came right at me, saying “Quack! Quack! Quack!” quite crossly. So I kept on backing away, and the faster I backed the faster she came for me and the louder she “quacked!”
I don’t know exactly how it happened, but I got between Mrs. Duck and the brook. I didn’t know it, of course, or I should have backed another way. Another thing I didn’t know—and I wished I had known it—was that she had a nest full of eggs there and was hatching out some little ducks. If I had known that I would not have gone near her. But I didn’t know it until afterwards. So I kept on backing and she kept on “quacking” and making dabs at me with her yellow bill and flapping her wings and [all of a sudden I backed right over the side of the bank into the brook!]
[All of a sudden I backed right over the side of the bank into the brook!]
There was not much water in the brook and I sat right down in a lot of soft, sticky mud. Of course I tried to get out, but the more I tried the faster I stuck in that nasty mud. And all the time that horrid, quarrelsome duck stood on the bank and said “Quack!” and scolded me. I was afraid she might come in after me, and that is why I tried so very hard to get out. But she didn’t. She just stood there and said a lot of mean things to me while the mud got stickier and stickier. And then I howled. Any one would have howled. I didn’t howl because I was afraid. I howled because I couldn’t get my feet out of the mud. No dog likes to be stuck in horrid black mud. Pretty soon Freya came and looked over the edge of the bank at me. But she didn’t come very near where Mrs. Duck stood.
“Why,” she said, “what are you doing down there, Fritz? William will be very angry with you for getting so dirty. You’d better come right out and take a bath in the pond before you go home.”