At this, Quackalina said that she would take him to the nest and show him the little pointed egg-shells. And she did take him there, too. Late at night, when all honest ducks, excepting somnambulists and such as have vindications on hand, are asleep, Quackalina led the way back to the old nest. But when she got there, although the clear, white moonlight lay upon everything and revealed every blade of grass, not a vestige of nest or straw or shell remained in sight.
The farmer's boy had cleared them all away.
By this time Quackalina began to be mystified herself, and after a while, seeing only her own ten ducks always near, and never sighting such a thing as little, flecked, red-booted guineas, she really came to doubt whether it had all happened or not.
And even to this day she is not quite sure. How she and all her family finally got away and became happy wild birds again is another story. But while Quackalina sits and blinks upon the bank among the mallows, with all her ugly "beautiful" children around her, she sometimes even yet wonders if the whole thing could have been a nightmare, after all.
But it was no nightmare. It was every word true. If anybody doesn't believe it, let him ask the guineas.