The great swans swam round the newcomer and stroked his back with their beaks as a welcome. Some children came into the garden and threw bread and cake into the water.

"Oh, look!” cried one of the children. "There is a new swan. He is the most beautiful of all! Just look!" They ran to their father and mother, dancing and clapping their hands crying, "Another swan has come, a beautiful new one!"

The old swans bowed their heads before him, and the young swan hid his head under his wing, he was so happy! He had always been called ugly and now he heard the children say that he was beautiful.

He raised his slender white neck and cried, "Oh, I never dreamed of such happiness as this while I was an ugly duckling!"

-Hans Christian Andersen

DAME DUCK'S LESSONS TO HER
DUCKLINGS

Old Mother Duck has hatched a brood
Of ducklings small and callow;
Their little wings are short, their down
Is mottled gray and yellow.

There is a quiet little stream,

That runs into the moat,

Where tall green sedges spread their leaves,
And water-lilies float.

Close by the margin of the brook
The old duck made her nest,
Of straw and leaves and withered grass
And down, from her own breast.

And then she sat for four long weeks
In rainy days and fine,

Until the ducklings all came out-
Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

One peeped out from beneath her wing,
One scrambled on her back;

"That's very rude," said old dame Duck, "Get off! quack, quack, quack, quack!"

"Tis close," said Dame Duck, shoving out The egg-shells with her bill; "Besides, it never suits young ducks To keep them sitting still."

So, rising from her nest, she said,
"Now, children, look at me;

A well-bred duck should waddle so,
From side to side, do you see?"

"Yes," said the little ones, and then
She went on to explain:

"A well-bred duck turns in his toes As I do, try again."

"Yes," said the ducklings, waddling on: "That's better," said their mother; "But well-bred ducks walk in a row, Straight-one behind another."

"Yes," said the little ducks again,

All waddling in a row:

"Now to the pond," said old Dame Duck. Splash, splash, and in they go.

“Let me swim first," said old Dame Duck, "To this side, now to that;

There, snap at those great brown-winged flies,

They make young ducklings fat.

"Now when you reach the poultry-yard,

The hen-wife, Molly Head,

Will feed you with the other fowls,

On bran and mashed-up bread.