Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
Ask the cat, he is the cleverest animal I know, ask him how he would like to swim about on the water, or to dive under it, for I will not speak of my own opinion; ask our mistress, the old woman there is no one in the world more clever than she is. Do you think she would like to swim, or to let the water close over her head?" "You don't understand me," said the duckling. "We don't understand you?
Oh, how glorious it felt to be rushing through the air, wheeling first one way and then the other! He had never thought that flying could be like that! The duckling was almost sorry when he drew near the pink cloud and found it was made up of apple blossoms growing beside a cottage whose garden ran down to the banks of the canal.
A lame duckling, shall we say?" He suggested that a lame duckling might grow up into a wonderful swan, and munched his apple ruminatively. Neither happened to think of a certain incident, much discussed, in which that edible figured prominently. And he did not ask a question. "But how does he get his work done, with such a crew?" "We're not all lame ducks, you know. And you work hard, don't you?"
His jaws were open, his tongue hung from his mouth, and his eyes glared fearfully. He thrust his nose close to the duckling, showing his sharp teeth, and then, "splash, splash," he went into the water without touching him, "Oh," sighed the duckling, "how thankful I am for being so ugly; even a dog will not bite me."
Had its mother known what was inside of the bundle, she would no doubt have remonstrated with her head-strong child, but, old and sagacious though that mother was, she was completely deceived. She was not even astonished when her duckling suddenly disappeared beneath the water, thinking, no doubt, that it had dived.
"Well, it will do now," growled the Ogress, feeling the edge of the blade with her horny finger; and, having seen the darning-needle once more at work, she went to fetch up one of the children. As she went, she hummed what cookmaids sing "Dilly, dilly duckling, come and be killed!" But it sounded like the wheezing and groaning of a heavy old door upon its rusty hinges.
"Quack! quack!" she said, and one duckling after another plunged in. The water closed over their heads, but they came up in an instant, and swam capitally; their legs went of themselves, and they were all in the water. The ugly gray Duckling swam with them. "No, it's not a turkey," said she; "look how well it can use its legs, and how straight it holds itself. It is my own child!
She was, in fact, the "ugly duckling" of a good-looking family, removed by a whole world from her beautiful eldest sister Charlotte, who counted among her many admirers no less exalted a wooer than Prince Frederick William, the King's nephew and heir to his throne.
The story of the ugly duckling is much truer than many a bald statement of fact. The English-speaking world bears witness to its verity in constant use of the title as an identifying phrase: "It is the old story of the ugly duckling," we say, or "He has turned out a real ugly duckling." And we know that our hearers understand the whole situation.
And the words were hardly out of his mouth, when 'Pif! pah! and the two new-comers were stretched dead beside him. At the sound of the gun the wild ducks in the rushes flew into the air, and for a few minutes the firing continued. Luckily for himself the duckling could not fly, and he floundered along through the water till he could hide himself amidst some tall ferns which grew in a hollow.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking