In a nest hidden by broad green leaves, a mother duck waited over her eggs. One by one, the shells cracked, and yellow ducklings tumbled out, blinking at the pond light. Only one egg still lay whole. It was larger than the rest, and the mother duck turned it with her bill more than once before it finally split. Out came a gray duckling with a long neck, big feet, and damp feathers that would not lie smooth.
The mother duck led her brood to the water that very same morning. The yellow ducklings slipped in neatly and paddled after her, while the gray one leaped in and swam just as well as any of them. Yet when they came among the other ducks near the farm pond, heads turned. A young duck moved aside on the bank, and two hens pecked their grain in a different corner. Even the ducklings from the next nest gathered close together, staring at him for a moment before they looked away.
For a few days, the gray duckling tried his best to stay near his family. If they rested in the shade, he folded himself beside them, and if they crossed the yard, he hurried close behind. But there was always a little space left around him, as if no one quite knew where he ought to stand. At last, when the others settled for the evening under the dock roots, he did not tuck himself in. Instead, he slipped quietly through the …
6 chapters
