Judy Dunn - The Little Duck

Copyright 1976, renewed 2004 by Judy Spangenberg. Photographs copyright 1976, renewed 2004 by Phoebe Dunn. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House Company. PICTUREBACK, RANDOM HOUSE, and the Random House colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
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eBook ISBN: 978-0-385-38527-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006938269 v3.1 O ne morning in early spring, a little boy was fishing in the pond near his farm. Again and again he threw out his line and pulled it in.

At last he caught a fish. The boy gathered his things to go home. Suddenly he saw something nestled in the tall grass at the ponds edge. It was an egga ducks egg. The little boy carried the egg home with him. He placed the egg in an incubator so it would keep warm.

Every day the boy turned the egg over as gently as a mother duck. Finally, after twenty-eight days of waiting and watching, the boy heard something peeping and pecking inside the egg. The shell cracked... and broke open. Henry, the little duck, was hatched. His feathers were wet, and they stuck to his body. His feathers were wet, and they stuck to his body.

His feet were enormous. The little duck stood up on his big orange feet. He tried a few small steps. Then he stretched his spindly wings and wiggled them as fast as he could. He began to get dry and fluffy. Getting hatched is hard work.

Henry was tired. He put his head down beside his empty shell and went to sleep. When Henry woke up, his fluffy yellow down was completely dry. Now he looked like a duck. After a few days the boy placed him in a wading pool. It was time for the little ducks first swim.

Henry tried hard to paddle. But the more he paddled, the deeper he sank. Ducks cannot float without oil on their feathers. Baby ducks usually get this oil from their mothers feathers when she sits in the nest with them. But Henrys mother was an incubator. The boy quickly scooped Henry up from the bottom of the pool and wrapped him in a towel. Henry was shivering and sputtering. The boy was afraid he would catch cold. The boy was afraid he would catch cold.

So he set the hairdryer on warm and dried Henrys feathers in no time. When the little duck was dry again, he found a cozy resting place on the broad back of the family dog. Together they dozed in the sunshine. Through the summer Henry kept growing. The boy fed him cracked corn and duck mash. One day as Henry was standing beside a puddle, his reflection showed stiff white feathers growing over his yellow down.