Seven O'Clock Stories Part 12

"Don't--don't--don't--don't you do it," she was shouting still.

But little black Duckie had made up his mind. He was headed straight for that s.h.i.+ning water.

Around Mother Wyandotte gathered all her relatives to talk over the matter.

They were disgusted. That one of their family should disgrace them so!

"Respectable chickens spend their time on the ground," said Granny Wyandotte with a toss of her comb, "and never, never get wet, if they can help it, not even their feet."

"True--true--quite true," all the Wyandotte Aunties agreed.

But their second cousins and the third cousins too, the ducks and the geese and the swans, said they were wrong.

"Little Duckie's a sensible chap. What better place can there be to play in than that nice cool pond?"

And all the fishes swimming around, from the big pickerel down to the littlest "minnie," waggled their fins and tails to show they agreed too, while the froggies on the lily-pad croaked:

"Gomme on--gomme on!"

They were giving little Duckie a warm invitation to play in the water, you see.

Duckie was right at the edge now and Mother Hen, who was really his step-mother, made one last appeal, but the ducks one and all called:

"Back, back, back!"

They weren't talking to Duckie. They meant the White Wyandottes. They were taking his part, you see, though not for one minute did they guess he was _their_ child, _their very own_.

Duckie appreciated that too. Perhaps Old Father Drake, the head of all the Duck family, wouldn't let Step-father Wyandotte punish him that night if he did try the water.

I don't believe Step-father Wyandotte really cared very much. At first he was a little mad but, after scolding a little, he shouted:

"Through, through, through--I'm through with yooooooouuu."

He wouldn't have anything more to do with little Duckie. I guess he suspected he was just a step-child after all. So he just grumbled to himself as he speared a fat tumble-bug with his beak:

"Ur, ur--I don't care!"

He had enough children anyway. But the Gold Rooster on the top of the barn looked down, laughing at him. He couldn't really laugh, you know, or flap his wings, but he swung from west to southwest and back again, as if to say:

"I knew it. I knew it. They fooled you!"

Old Father Drake, the head of the duck family, started for the water.

Mother Duck and all the little ducks went in too. They were going to show Duckie the way.

He just couldn't stand it any longer. So--_plopp_ in he went and paddled around after the others, and ducked his head under the water to catch his dinner, just as a real duckling should.

"Better than grubbing for bugs in the dirty earth, this nice clean cool water," quacked he, and he was as happy as happy could be.

The Toyman was looking at him with a smile on his face.

"He's just like me," he said at last, and the children, surprised at that, asked all together:

"_Who's_ like you?"

"That little duck there."

"Like you!" Jehosophat shouted. "Why he doesn't look like you at all!"

The Toyman puffed away on his corncob pipe before he answered:

"Oh _inside_ he's the same. I was just like him when I was a kid. I had a step-mother, too, and she and all the step-uncles and aunts scolded and scolded, and whipped me besides, because _I_ wanted to go to sea on a great big s.h.i.+p."

"What did you do?"

They didn't really need to ask that question, for hadn't the Toyman been most everywhere, and hadn't he told them many a story about the great sea and the s.h.i.+ps?

"Yes, they all said I would drown or become a wicked bad man."

Marmaduke thought he would like to do something to those step-uncles and aunts who treated the Toyman so badly.

"They don't know what they're talking about," he shouted. "You're good as anybody in the world."

"Thank you, little feller," replied the Toyman, patting his head. "But they said I would, just the same. They talked just like those old Wyandottes there.

"But I fooled them all," he went on. "And one night, when it was dark, just a few stars out, I climbed out of bed and jumped out of the window and ran away.

"I walked and I walked, miles and miles, till I came to a big town by the sea. There were lots of big s.h.i.+ps at the docks, and I asked a man, with a great big beard, to take me too. So he took me on board, and I was a little cabin boy. But bye and bye I got to be a real sailor, and I sailed all over the world in the s.h.i.+p, and saw lots of people, yellow, and black, and brown, and funny places and queer houses and--"

"Be careful, Frank!"

They all turned at once. There was Mother, standing right near them. All the time she had been listening, near the Crying Tree.

"Now, Frank," she repeated, "be careful or you'll put _notions_ in those children's heads, and some day they'll be running away from _me_."

Still she didn't look cross, and she smiled at the Toyman, especially when he answered:

"Not from a mother like you, Mis' Green. How about it, kiddies?"

And Marmaduke and Jehosophat were very sure they never could run away--not even to sea in a beautiful s.h.i.+p. So they kissed her and hugged her too.

Now the froggies were singing their evening song. The sun was getting close to his home in the west. Little Duckie and his real mother and father came out of the water and waddled off towards the barn. The Swans folded their wings and came to the sh.o.r.e. So the Toyman brought the s.h.i.+p to the harbour and anch.o.r.ed her for the night.

THIRTEENTH NIGHT

THE TALL ENEMY