1. But Betty was a hopeful hen. She did not give up trying to teach the young ducklings and bring them up well. She kept them with great care from speaking to any of their own kind.
2. She would not let them play with other ducklings. They had never seen that dreadful pond yet. She would not let them waddle1 within sight of it.[Pg 144]
3. As to their bad manners, their love of dirt and snails2 and wet, she could only think that it came from their having once laid as eggs in that old straw cradle of theirs, among the green rushes.
4. "Or else it is because their feet are the wrong shape," said Betty, as she looked down at the yellow boots of her foster-sons and daughters. On the whole they did not behave so very badly, she thought.
5. They came up with the chickens at meal times, even if they did go straight back to that vile3 gutter4 the moment they had gobbled all they could get.
6. "What a clever hen is Betty Dorking!" the others said. "She has brought up the duck's brood and will make chickens of them!" It is true that the wise old gander laughed at this notion.
7. He said, "You never see a silk purse made out of any other thing but silk," and all his wives nodded their heads and cackled. They said it was witty5, though they had no idea what the speech meant.
8. As the golden ears were taken by heaps into the rick-yard, the birds felt as[Pg 145] glad as the farmer and his wife did. The great sheaves were stacked and the fowls............