"O, you darling auntie! May I keep the dolly?"
There was no sting now to mar Dotty's pleasure in her new possession. Her troubles seemed to be over; life was blossoming into beauty once more.
"Good news! Good news!" she cried, rushing into the house, her head, with its multitude of curl-papers, looking like a huge corn-ball. "Two duckies have pecked out!"
"You don't say so!" said Susy, coolly. "High time, I should think!"
So thought the patient and astonished old hen, who had been wondering every day for a week if this wasn't an uncommonly "backward season." But at last the eggs, like riches, had taken to themselves wings.
The soft, speckled creatures found plenty of admiring friends to welcome them as they tried their first "peep" at the world. They did not see much of the world, however, for some time, it must be confessed, on account of the corn-meal dough which the children sprinkled into their eyes.
"We won't let you starve, our ony dony Ducky Daddleses," said Dotty.
"Our deenty doiny Diddleses," said Katie after her, running hither and thither like a squirrel.
It was a time of great satisfaction. Dotty regretted that Jennie Vance had gone to Boston, for it would have been pleasant to see Jennie envious. What were gold rings compared to ducklings? The blunt little beaks pecked out very fast. As soon as they were all out, except the two eggs which were addled, the step-mother hen gathered her family together and went to house-keeping, gipsy fashion, in the back yard. She clucked to the ducklings, and they followed her, their little feet going pat, pat, on the soft grass. A nice time they had, no doubt, eating picked-up dinners, with now and then a banquet of corn-meal dough. There were eleven ducklings, five for Dotty, five for Prudy, and one for Katie, the little girl with flying hair.
After they had been alive two days, Prudy thought they ought to have a bath; so she took the large iron pan which Ruth used for baking johnny-cakes, filled it with water, put the tiny creatures in, and bade them "swim," to Madam Biddy's great alarm. They did it well, though they were as badly crowded as the five and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.