the memory: _that_ I can
never lose."

THE UGLY DUCKLING

From 'Riverside Literature Series': 1891, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

I--THE DUCKLING IS BORN

It was glorious in the country. It was summer; the cornfields were
yellow, the oats were green, the hay had been put up in stacks in the
green meadows; and the stork went about on his long red legs, and
chattered Egyptian, for this was the language he had learned from his
mother. All around the fields and meadows were great woods, and in the
midst of these woods deep lakes. Yes, it was right glorious in
the country.

In the midst of the sunshine there lay an old farm, with deep canals
about it; and from the wall down to the water grew great burdocks, so
high that little children could stand upright under the tallest of them.
It was just as wild there as in the deepest wood, and here sat a Duck
upon her nest. She had to hatch her ducklings, but she was almost tired
out before the little ones came; and she seldom had visitors. The other
ducks liked better to swim about in the canals than to run up to sit
under a burdock and gabble with her.

At last one egg-shell after another burst open. "Pip! pip!" each cried,
and in all the eggs there were little things that stuck out their heads.

"Quack! quack!" said the Duck, and they all came quacking out as fast as
they could, looking all around them under the green leaves; and the
mother let them look as much as they liked, for green is good for
the eye.

"How wide the world is!" said all the young ones; for they certainly had
much more room now than when they were inside the eggs.

"D'ye think this is all the world?" said the mother. "That stretches far
across the other side of the garden, quite into the parson's field; but
I have never been there yet. I hope you are all together," and she stood
up. "No, I have not all. The largest egg still lies there. How long is
that to last? I am really tired of it." And so she sat down again.

"Well, how goes it?" asked an old Duck who had come to pay her a visit.

"It lasts a long time with this one egg," said the Duck who sat there.
"It will not open. Now, only look at the others! They are the prettiest
little ducks I ever saw. They are all like their father: the rogue, he
never comes to see me."

"Let me see the egg which will not burst," said the old Duck. "You may
be sure it is a turkey's egg. I was once cheated in that way, and had
much care and trouble with