The Sheep and Lamb

  THE GREEDY DUCKLING.

  DUCK AND DUCKLINGS.]

  ALTHOUGH you cannot see her cottage, you can look at a portion of thebrook that runs by the end of her garden, in which the old white duckand three of her little ducklings are swimming, while the remainder haveleft the water and got out on the grass to be fed. That is the oldwoman's little granddaughter who is holding the duckling in both herhands, and kissing it, and the other is her companion, who lives overthe hill where you see a little morsel of blue sky between theoverhanging leaves, and who has come all the way along that footpath toplay with her, and feed the little ducklings. If you notice the ducklingthe granddaughter is petting, you will see it has got its eye on thefood in the little girl's hand; and if you could read its thoughts, youwould find it was saying to itself, "O, bother your fuss and stew! Iwish you would put me down, and let me gobble up some of that nice newbread before it is all gone. Kissing, and patting, and nursing me won'tfill my belly, I can tell you; though it's all well enough, when I'veeaten until I'm full to the very top of my neck, to snuggle to you andbe kept nice and warm, while I have a good long nap." You can see by itseye it's a sly little duckling; and though it pretends to be so fond ofthe child, lying still and such like, yet it's all of a fidget to getdown, and quite envies the little ducklings that are feeding out of theother girl's hand. That is the Greedy duckling.

  Now the grandmother is such a funny little old woman, having one legshorter than the other, which causes her to go up and down as she walks!The villagers call her Old Hoppity-kick, because, when she walks withher horn-handled stick and moves it along, she goes "hop," and when shemoves both her feet she goes "hoppity," and when she pulls up her shortleg to start again, she gives a kind of a little "kick" with it; so thatwhat with her long leg, her short leg, and her stick, the noise shemakes when she walks rather fast sounds a good deal like "hoppity-kick,hoppity-kick."

  Then she has a sharp, hooked nose, not much unlike the beak of a pollparrot; and she wears round spectacles with horn rims, and these shealways calls her "goggles;" and, besides all this, she is hump-backed,and has an old gray cat that is very fond of jumping on her hump, andsitting there when she goes out into her garden, looking about him aswell as she does, as if to see how things are getting on. She talks toher old cat, when she has no one else to speak to, just as she does toher granddaughter.

  She came up one day with her stick in her hand, her goggles on, and thegray cat sitting on her hump, where he went up and down, down and up, atevery "hoppity-kick" she gave, and stopped to watch her granddaughterfeed the ducklings. "Why, what a greedy little duckling that is besideyou," said granny, pointing to it with her horn-handled stick; "hedoesn't seem willing to let his little brothers and sisters have a tasteof the food you are giving them, pecking and flying at them, and drivingthem off in the way he does. I'm sure he is a nasty, greedy littleduckling, and when he gets big enough I'll have him killed."

  "I don't think he's so greedy, granny," replied the little maid, takinghim up in both her hands, and kissing him; "it's only because he's sofond of me, and jealous of the other ducklings when they come close tome. Look how still he lies, and how he nestles up to me! He's very fondof me."

  "Humph; fond of you for what he can get, like a good many more in theworld," said old Granny Grunt, while the gray cat gave a "mew, mew," asif to say, "Right you are, old granny;" then off she went,"hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick," back again into her cottage, the hem ofher quilted petticoat making bobs up and down all the way she went.

  "You're not a greedy little thing, are you, ducky?" said the little maidto the duckling, kissing it again, when her grandmother and the cat hadgone. "It's because you love me so, isn't it? and don't like any of theother little ducklings to be noticed, do you?"

  "O, what a silly Sukey you are!" thought the Greedy Duckling, laying itshead on one side of her face, as if to show it was so fond of her itdidn't know what to do. "Do you think I would make such a pretended fussover you as I do if you didn't give me three times as much to eat as anyof the rest of the ducklings get? Not I. I often feel as if I shouldlike to bite a bit off the end of your silly little nose when you arekissing and fondling me. Do you know I would much rather have my headunder the water, and be poking about among the mud for worms, littleeels, and frogs, and such like things, than have your lips so near me?Why, the other day you'd been eating onions; and though I dare say Ishall smell strong enough of 'em some day, and sage too, as I've heardyour old granny say when I have to be roasted, yet that time won't comeyet for a long while, and I don't want to be reminded of my end beforeit does come. Why don't you empty your old granny's jam pots, or herhoney jar; that smell wouldn't be so bad to bear as onions,--Fah!"

  Now you begin to see what a deal of truth there was in what old GrannyGrunt said, and what a wicked and ungrateful duckling this was, to havesuch evil thoughts, pretending to be so fond of the little granddaughterall the time. It was quite as bad as if a naughty child, after having asmany "goodies" given it as it could eat, made fun of the giver behindthe back, while before the face it pretended to be all love, and honey,and sugar. It's deceit, that's what it is, done for what may be got; andif anything, deceit's worse than story-telling, as you pretend to bewhat you are not, and to feel what you do not, while a story once toldis done with, if you don't tell another on the top of it, and have thehonesty to confess it was a story when close questioned and you speakthe truth. But deceit! it's so dreadfully shocking! it's hypocrisy, andI know not what besides, as you have to keep it up, wear a mask, seemwhat you are not. O, dear! O, dear! I can't say how bad it is, it's sovery bad.

  Now the Greedy Duckling knew which way the granddaughter came, and usedto watch and wait for her, often a good way from the others, when shewas coming with food; and if the little girl in the drawn andmagenta-colored bonnet happened to be with her, she would say, "Look atthe dear little duckling! Though it's so fat it can hardly waddle, itcouldn't stop till I came, but is so fond of me it's come to meet me!"Then she began to feed it, giving it as much as ever it could eat, whilethe other dear ducklings, that were waiting so patiently by the brook,hadn't even so much as a smell, until that nasty, greedy little wretchhad been crammed full to the very throat. Let us hope he was oftentroubled with a touch of the bile as a just punishment for hisgreediness. He was now so fat that he used to fall asleep on the water,and the wind blew him on like a floating feather, while his littlebrothers and sisters were diving, and swimming, and playing, andsplashing about, and having such jolly games as made one quite wish tojoin them on a hot summer's day. This was the first judgment thatovertook him for his greediness: he was too fat to play, and if hetried, puffed and blew like a broken-winded horse, and was out of breathin no time; for his liver was not only out of order, but what littleheart he had, and that wasn't much, was buried in fat.

  He now took to eating out of spite, so that there might be next tonothing left for the other little ducklings. Whether he was hungry ornot, he would stand in the centre of the food that was thrown down, andthough he couldn't eat it himself, bite and fly at every duckling thatattempted to touch a morsel. One of his little brothers one day went athim, and gave him "pepper," I can tell you; and when he found he'd methis match, what did the fat, artful wretch do but throw himself on hisback, quacking out, "You ain't a-going to hit me when I'm down?"

  Now, selfish and greedy although he was, and disliked by the rest of thefamily, he had a little sister,--which was, that dear duckling you seeswimming at the front of its mother, as if asking her if it may go outof the water for a little time, and have a waddle on the grass, for itis a most dutiful duckling,--and this little sister was the only one ofthe family that treated the Greedy Duckling kindly, for she used to say,"Bad as he is, he's my brother, and it's my duty to bear with him."After a time, when, on account of his selfishness and greediness, therest of the family had "sent him to Coventry," which means that theywouldn't have anything to do with him,--neither eat, drink, nor swimwith him, nor even exchange so much a
s a friendly "quack,"--then it wasthat he began to appreciate the kindness and self-sacrifice of hislittle sister, who would go and sit with him for the hour together,though he was too sulky at first even to "quack" to her.

  It so happened one day, when his pretty little sister had been talkingto him, and telling him how much happier his life would be if he weremore social, and how greatly his health would be improved if he ateless, that after saying, "I don't care if they won't have me amongst'em; little Sukey gives me plenty to eat, and I can sleep well enough bymyself, and much better than if they were all quacking about me; andthough you come and stay with me, I don't ask you, nor I don't wantyou; and I dare say you only do it to please yourself, and----," beforehe could say another word, his little sister said, "Run, run!" for shehad seen a shadow on the grass, and knew that a great hawk was hangingover them; and they had only just time to pop under the long, trailingcanes of a bramble, before down the hawk came with such a sweep, thatthey could feel the cold wind raised by the flapping of his great wings,though he could not reach them for the bramble; nor did he try to get atthem where they were sheltered, for the hawk only strikes his prey whileon the wing, picking it up and keeping hold of it somehow, just asBetty does a lump of coal, which she has made a snap at, and seized withthe tongs.

  "He would have been sure to have had you," said the little sister, afterthe hawk had flown away over the trees, "as you stood the farthest out,and are so fat; and I was so near the bramble, he would hardly have hadroom for the full spread of his wings, if he had made a snap at me."

  "I don't see that," replied the Greedy Duckling, "for as I'm so heavy, Ithink he would have been glad to have dropped me before he had reachedhis nest; while as for you, you're such a light bit of a thing, hewould have carried you off as easily almost as he would a fly that hadsettled on his back."

  "But supposing he had dropped you after flying with you about six timesthe height of a tall tree; what use would you have been after you hadfallen?" asked the little duckling. "Why, there would have been neithermake nor shape in you, but you would have looked like a small handful offeathers somebody had thrown down on the place where oil had been spilt.Our dear old mother would not have known you, for you would no more havelooked like what you are now, than a snail that a wagon wheel had goneover did before it was crushed, when he was travelling comfortably alongthe rut, and carrying his sharp-pointed house on his back."

  "Well, as I don't care much about my shape now, I suppose the thought ofit would have troubled me less after I'd been killed," said the GreedyDuckling; "all I care for in this life is to have as much to eat as Ican tuck under my wings, and not to have any noise about me while I'masleep. As to washing myself much, that's a trouble, though I do manageto give my head a dip when I have a drink. There was an old man used tocome and sit under the tree beside our brook, and read poetry; andsometimes, between sleeping and waking, I used to pick up a line or two;and I liked those best of all that said,--

  'I just do nothing all the day, And soundly sleep the night away,'--

  because they just suited me to a T."

  In vain did the clean little sister endeavor to persuade him to washhimself oftener, take more exercise, mingle more with his family, eatless, and try to make himself more respected; it was all of no use:instead of becoming better, he got worse.

  There was a hole under the wooden steps that led up to old Granny'scottage, and the Greedy Duckling, having found it out, used to creep inand watch until the old woman's back was turned, when Sukey would besure to feed him; and very often he found food about, and helped himselfto it, no matter what it was. One day Granny had made a custard, whichshe left standing on the table until the oven was hot, when the GreedyDuckling got at it, and after putting in his beak, and having had a gooddrink, he held his head aside, and said, "Bless me! though rather thick,it's very nice--not at all like muddy water. I can taste milk, and I'msure there are eggs, also plenty of sugar; what that brown powder isfloating at the top I don't know; but it must be spice, I think, for itwarms the stomach. But here comes old Granny: I must hide under thetable until she goes out, or I shall have another taste of thathorn-handled stick of hers; then, if she hits me fairly on the leg, Ishall have to go hoppity kick, as she does. I should like to finish thatlot very much, it's so good. O, how comfortably I could sleep after inmy little nest under the step! I'll keep a sharp eye on old Granny andher cat."

  The cat had been blamed for many things it had never touched, which theGreedy Duckling had gobbled up; and as he sat washing himself on thehob, which was beginning to be warm, Granny having lighted a fire toheat the oven, he spied the duckling under the table, and kept his eyeon him without seeming to take any notice at all.

  "I shall be having the cat lapping up all this custard, if I don't putit somewhere out of the way," said the grandmother; "it will be thesafest here;" and she put it into the oven without quite shutting thedoor, then went out to get some more wood to put under the oven, whichwas hardly warm.

  "I shall have time enough to finish that lot before old Granny comesback, for she has the wood to break into short pieces," said the GreedyDuckling, who had seen her put the custard into the oven; so he just putout his wings and went in after it, and began pegging away at thecustard, for it was a big oven and there was plenty of room.

  "I've been blamed often enough for things you've stolen and eaten, andI'll get out of that," said the cat; "for though I know you'll be out ofthe oven and hiding somewhere the instant you hear her hoppity kick onthe cottage floor, yet if she looks at the custard before she shuts theoven door, and finds half of it eaten, she'll say I've had it." Sosaying, the cat made a spring from off the oven on to the floor, andwhile doing so, his hinder legs caught the oven door, and, with theforce of the spring, shut it to with a loud clap and a click, for thehandle always caught when the door was pushed to sharp. Away ran thecat, and in came old Granny with the stick, which she began to shoveunder the oven, until in time it was so hot that she couldn't take holdof the handle to turn her custard without holding it with the dishclout."Why, I declare, if it isn't burnt to a cinder!" exclaimed old Granny,as she threw open the oven door; when there was such a smell of burntfeathers and fat as nearly knocked her down; for the fat duckling firstran all to dripping, which ran all over the oven bottom, and then gotburnt black, it was so hot; and she never could, nor never did, nornever will make out what it was that made her oven in such a mess andspoiled her custard, nor what became of her Greedy Duckling.