1. "Pretty dear!" said the farmer's wife to Betty, as she saw her climb gently on to the eggs and spread out her small wings as far as she could.
2. "This will never do," she went on. "If you want to hatch them, my pretty, you had better do it in your own nest."
3. So she stooped down, stroked Betty's white back softly, and then, with a firm, gentle hand, pushed her aside while she took all the seven eggs into her apron1.
4. At first Betty did not like it. She did not know what Snowdrop would say, and besides, she had a longing2 inside her to finish the job. She wanted to see the dear little things come from the shells.
5. "I shall love them as my own," said she, "unless the farmer's wife takes them from me." But she was quite happy when she saw the eggs placed safely in her own snug3 dry nest.
6. Betty sat on the eggs for three long[Pg 141] weeks. She knew that was the proper time to wait for her own broods. But still no sign of the young ones was to be seen.
7. "I do believe that cold water has killed them before they are born!" said poor Betty, "for they never ought to have been laid so near a pond."
8. She sat on and on, for a fourth week. And, at the end of that time, she had her reward. There was a little faint tapping sound inside the shells.
9. The baby ducks were trying to get[Pg 142] out of prison. She helped them by picking away bits of the shell as it broke, to let the light in at their tiny windows.
10. At last seven little yellow things as soft as satin cried, "peep, peep!" in a pretty whi............