I can, and I advise you to do the same, and make the
most of your day.

Hoping to hear from you, I am, affectionately, your wild cousin.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

LETTER VII.

_THE TAME DUCK'S REPLY._

COUSIN WILDING,

I confess I did not at all expect to hear from you; for I always
believed you to be one of those thoughtless young creatures which are
to be found in other stations of life as well as in yours and mine, who,
as soon as they get fledged and able to get abroad, care no more for
their parents and those who brought them up than I care for a shower of
rain. However, you have escaped danger _twice_, and you have reason to
congratulate yourself. I have been sitting here upon ten eggs for three
weeks past, and of course have another week to be confined; but then the
thoughts of the pleasure I shall have in hatching and guiding my young
ones to the water, is ample payment for all my pains. They will look so
clean and so delighted, and will do as they are bid by the smallest
quack that I can utter, that I must be a bad mother indeed if I am not
proud of them. Perhaps you will wonder when I tell you that we have a
creature here--fledged indeed--which is called a hen; a strange,
cackling, flying, useless, noisy, silly creature, which is as much
afraid of water as you are of your decoy. I have often known one of
these birds to hatch nine or ten of my eggs; and then, if you wanted to
ridicule the lifted foot of conceit, and the dignity of assumed
importance, you should see her lead her young, or more properly, see the
young lead her to the nearest water they can find. In they go, and she
begins to call and scold, and run round the edge to save them from
drowning! Now, what fools these hens must be compared to us ducks! at
least, I, for one, am determined to think so. I have seen this same hen
with the brood about her scratching in our farmyard with all her might;
when, not considering who was behind her, or who under her feathers, she
has tricked away one little yellow duck with one of her claws, and
another with the other, till I wished I had her in a pond; I would have
given her a good sousing, depend upon it. But really, cousin, don't you
think that this way of contradicting our natures and propensities is
very wrong? Suppose, for instance, I should sit upon a dozen of that
silly creature's eggs which I mentioned above--for I will never consent
to have them matched with us--I should then, to