He wouldn't have anything more to do with little Duckie. I guess he suspected he was just a step-child after all. So he just grumbled to himself as he speared a fat tumble-bug with his beak:
"Ur, ur—I don't care!"
He had enough children anyway. But the Gold Rooster on the top of the barn looked down, laughing at him. He couldn't really laugh, you know, or flap his wings, but he swung from west to southwest and back again, as if to say:
"I knew it. I knew it. They fooled you!"
Old Father Drake, the head of the duck family, started for the water. Mother Duck and all the little ducks went in too. They were going to show Duckie the way.
He just couldn't stand it any longer. So—plopp in he went and paddled around after the others, and ducked his head under the water to catch his dinner, just as a real duckling should.
"Better than grubbing for bugs in the dirty earth, this nice clean cool water," quacked he, and he was as happy as happy could be.
The Toyman was looking at him with a smile on his face.
"He's just like me," he said at last, and the children, surprised at that, asked all together:
"Who's like you?"