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“That is funny,” said Jehosophat.

Then the Toyman added:

“Just listen to that.”

Old Mother Wyandotte was right near them, clucking in fright.

“Don’t–don’t–don’t you do it!” she was calling to one of her children who was looking longingly at the cool pond.

Around her were all her children, fast growing up now. They were all soft and white but one. Like good little chickens they were looking for bugs, all but one.

He was the little fellow they had noticed before, the funny little fellow with a longer bill than the rest, and the odd-looking feet. His soft downy back was turning black. And he was starting for that pretty water shining in the pond.

Jehosophat looked him all over.

“Why, he looks like a duck.”

“What did you expect?” laughed the Toyman. “He is a duck. Old Mother Wyandotte thinks he’s her child, but he’s only a step-child. Ha! Ha! Somebody must have put another egg in her nest.”

Over in the garden were pretty flowers called Bleeding Hearts. They were very pink, and Jehosophat’s face turned the very same colour. Well he knew who had stolen into the House of the White Wyandottes and put that big duck’s egg under Old Mother Hen. And now it had turned out a real little duckling, that black little fellow Mother Wyandotte was scolding so.

“Don’t–don’t–don’t–don’t you do it,” she was shouting still.

But little black Duckie had made up his mind. He was headed straight for that shining water.

Around Mother Wyandotte gathered all her relatives to talk over the matter. They were disgusted. That one of their family should disgrace them so!

“Respectable chickens spend their time on the ground,” said Granny Wyandotte with a toss of her comb, “and never, never get wet, if they can help it, not even their feet.”

“True–true–quite true,” all the Wyandotte Aunties agreed.

But their second cousins and the third cousins too, the ducks and the geese and the swans, said they were wrong.

“Little Duckie’s a sensible chap. What better place can there be to play in than that nice cool pond?”

And all the fishes swimming around, from the big pickerel down to the littlest “minnie,” waggled their fins and tails to show they agreed too, while the froggies on the lily-pad croaked:

“Gomme on–gomme on!”

They were giving little Duckie a warm invitation to play in the water, you see.

Duckie was right at the edge now and Mother Hen, who was really his step-mother, made one last appeal, but the ducks one and all called:

“Back, back, back!”

They weren’t talking to Duckie. They meant the White Wyandottes. They were taking his part, you see, though not for one minute did they guess he was their child, their very own.

Duckie appreciated that too. Perhaps Old Father Drake, the head of all the Duck family, wouldn’t let Step-father Wyandotte punish him that night if he did try the water.

I don’t believe Step-father Wyandotte really cared very much. At first he was a little mad but, after scolding a little, he shouted:

“Through, through, through–I’m through with yooooooouuu.”

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.