The next morning the boys went again, and brought back twenty
eggs of various kinds of wild duck, including four swans' eggs--to
obtain which they had to shoot the parent birds, which furnished
the larder for days--which they placed under the hens in place of
their own eggs, and then took the girls in triumph to see this
commencement of their tame duck project. The little girls were
delighted, and it was an immense amusement to them to go down
constantly to see if the eggs were hatched, as of course no one
could tell how long they had been sat upon previous to being taken.
They had remarked that four of the eggs were much larger than the
others, but had no idea that they were swans'. In the course of a
few days six of the young ducklings were hatched, and the hens were
both so unhappy at their difficulty of continuing to sit while they
had the care of their young ones on their mind, that one hen and
all the little ones were removed to a distance from the other's
nest, and the whole of the eggs were put under the remaining hen.
The four swans and five more ducks were safely hatched, when the
hen refused to sit longer, and the remaining eggs were lost. Now
that the swans were safely hatched, the boys told their sisters
what they really were, and their delight was extreme.
Pages:
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148