1. Her friends at the old home had all walked on dry land. But here she found many ducks and drakes, besides odd-looking fowls1 with feathers down their legs.[Pg 129]
2. Spring came, and Betty paced the yard with twelve fine chickens behind her. All of them had five toes on each little foot, as their mother had when she was born. So they were all right.
3. Down the velvet2 back of each chick were stripes of dark brown, which was the proper pattern for their first short coats. After a time they would put off baby-clothes, and be dressed in pure white like their mother.
4. As her chicks slept under her wings, or chirped3 with their merry little voices, she forgot all else but her darlings. What did it matter having one claw too few, now that she had her dear babies?
5. Betty took care to keep her children neat, and to teach them good manners. "You may gobble up a worm, children, as fast as you like, when you find it, so that no one else may get it," said she.
6. "But don't let me see two of you having a fight, or both tugging4 at the same worm. You must not ruffle5 up your feathers at each other, or fight, though you may do so if you meet a rat."[Pg 130]
7. As Betty was such an anxious and watchful6 mother herself, she could not help feeling quite vexed7 at the way in which Snowdrop, one of the ducks, went on.
8. This big white duck did not seem to mind a bit whether her children were a credit to her or not. "See!" said this good hen, pointing to her twelve clean little chicks. "Where will you find such children as mine?
9. &quo............