shoes, and he
went and stamped so hard on the ice that it broke, and then he picked up
the duckling and tucked him under his sheepskin coat, where his frozen
bones began to thaw a little.

Instead of going on his work, the man turned back and took the bird to
his children, who gave him a warm mess to eat and put him in a box
by the fire, and when they came back from school he was much more
comfortable than he had been since he had left the old woman's cottage.
They were kind little children, and wanted to play with him; but, alas!
the poor fellow had never played in his life, and thought they wanted
to tease him, and flew straight into the milk-pan, and then into the
butter-dish, and from that into the meal-barrel, and at last, terrified
at the noise and confusion, right out of the door, and hid himself in
the snow amongst the bushes at the back of the house.

He never could tell afterwards exactly how he had spent the rest of the
winter. He only knew that he was very miserable and that he never
had enough to eat. But by-and-by things grew better. The earth became
softer, the sun hotter, the birds sang, and the flowers once more
appeared in the grass. When he stood up, he felt different, somehow,
from what he had done before he fell asleep among the reeds to which
he had wandered after he had escaped from the peasant's hut. His body
seemed larger, and his wings stronger. Something pink looked at him from
the side of a hill. He thought he would fly towards it and see what it
was.

Oh, how glorious it felt to be rushing through the air, wheeling first
one way and then the other! He had never thought that flying could be
like that! The duckling was almost sorry when he drew near the pink
cloud and found it was made up of apple blossoms growing beside a
cottage whose garden ran down to the banks of the canal. He fluttered
slowly to the ground and paused for a few minutes under a thicket of
syringas, and while he was gazing about him, there walked slowly past
a flock of the same beautiful birds he had seen so many months ago.
Fascinated, he watched them one by one step into the canal, and float
quietly upon the waters as if they were part of them.

'I will follow them,' said the duckling to himself; 'ugly though I am, I
would rather be killed by them than suffer all I have suffered from
cold and hunger, and from the ducks and fowls who should have treated
me kindly.' And flying quickly down to the water, he swam after th