THE SQUABBLE IN THE POND.
"I looked towards the duck-pond. 'What lovely music!' cried one duckling to his comrade.
"'Hideous, you mean!' cried the other, and then they fought and quarrelled till scarcely a feather was left between them. This is the way with quick-tempered little ducklings: they fight for a worm, and are good friends again as soon as either of them has eaten it up. Sulky little boys and girls have a lesson to learn from them in this, so that even a duckling is a teacher at times, if we can only read our lesson aright.
"COME ALONG THEN."
"The noise the dogs were making reached even the end of the field, where a blackbird was busily engaged with an obstinate worm, who preferred his hole to the open air. And the terrified bird forsook half his dinner, in his anxiety to get away.
"My adventure, you see," continued Pussy, "at any rate created a noise in the neighbourhood! At length the dogs' master came out with a whip in his hand. He walked up to them, and must have laid about him pretty freely, for their howling increased to something indescribable. Then suddenly they stopped, and I heard the dog-whip flung fiercely at the crouching curs. And then their master went away, as I could tell by his retreating steps.
"FLUNG FIERCELY AT THE CURS."
"I was full of curiosity to see how they looked in their humbled frame of mind. So I with great difficulty scrambled up the wall. I looked over, and nearly tumbled over too, for I could hardly keep my balance, so great was my inward rejoicing at their discomfiture.