busy finishing her housework and now she was starting[43]
[44]
[45] out on some errand she had down the river. She always swam when she wanted to go anywhere. She could go more quickly and safely that way than by land. She had on a calico dress and a white apron, and a pair of big spectacles were on her nose. (All her clothes were waterproof, and shed off the water just the way a duck’s feathers do.) She looked so funny with her nose almost under water and her dress bunching up, and her tail dragging behind her, that some of the ducklings began to laugh.

“Oh don’t laugh,” begged Fluffy, who was a very polite little duckling. “She might hear you.”

“No she won’t; she can’t hear us down there,” said Queek.

“I don’t care whether she does or not,” cried Squdge, “she’s so funny looking.” And he laughed till he almost fell over.

Then all the other ducklings began to laugh, too;—all except Fluffy and Curly-Tail. Fluffy and Curly-Tail did not laugh. They were troubled to think their brothers and sister could behave so rudely, and to an older animal. To be sure Mrs. Muskrat never looked round to see who they were, and that was some comfort.

Now as it happened the old muskrat did not have to look round in order to see them, though the ducklings did not know that. When the light shone on her spectacles it made them just like looking-glasses, and she could see in them what was happening behind her. She saw, in her spectacles, that Squdge was laughing and pointing at her. She saw the others laughing, too, all except Fluffy and Curly-Tail, and she saw that those two did not laugh, but looked worried and sorry. She saw all this, but she did not take any notice of it. She just swam quietly on down the river and out of sight.

But two or three days afterward an old toad knocked at the hollow tree and said he had a message for Mrs. Duck.

The chicks huddled together on the leaf while the ducklings pulled it

This toad had been living down by the river for some time, but it was so damp there that it had given him rheumatism, so he had determined to come up and live in the wood where it was dryer.

Mrs. Muskrat had heard of this, and so she asked him, as he would be going past the hollow tree to leave a message there for her.

This was the message. She wanted Mother Duck to send the two little ducklings who hadn’t laughed at her the other day down to see her. It was about something very important.

“That’s me and Curly-Tail, mother! We were the ones who didn’t laugh,” cried Fluffy. “But what do you s’pose she wants with us, mother?”

“I don’t know, but you had better go and see.”

The two little ducklings were not very anxious to do this. They felt very shy about going all alone down the river to make a visit.

“I’ll go,” said Squdge. “I don’t mind.”

“No indeed you won’t go,” said the mother. “You’ve been too naughty. Mrs. Muskrat doesn’t want to see any little duckling that has been as rude to her as you have been.” At last she told Fluffy and Curly-Tail that she herself would go part of the way with them.

She took them down within sight of the muskrat’s house, and then she sent them on alone.

Fluffy and Curly-Tail walked on very slowly, often stopping to look back at their mother as she stood there watching them.

“Will you knock when we get there, Curly-Tail?”