old mother hen stood on the bank and watched them.

Pretty soon the ducks had had enough of swimming, and they came out on
dry land, waddling from side to side in the funny way ducks do when they
walk.

"Oh! How glad the old hen is to see them safe on shore again!" cried
Sue.

And, indeed, the mother hen did seem glad to have her family with her
once more. She clucked over them, and tried to hover them under her warm
wings, thinking, maybe, that she would dry them after their bath.

But ducks' feathers do not get wet in the water the way the feathers of
chickens do, for ducks feathers have a sort of oil in them. So the
little ducks did not need to get dry. They ran about in the sun,
quacking in their baby voices, and the mother hen followed them about,
clucking and scratching in the gravel to dig up things for them to eat.

"They'll be all right now," said Grandpa Brown. "The next time the
little ducks go into the water the old hen mother won't be at all
frightened, for she will know it is all right. This always happens when
we let a chicken hatch out ducks' eggs."

"And I thought the little chickens were drowning!" laughed Sue, as she
put on her shoes again.

"Well, that's just what the mother hen thought," said Grandpa Brown.
"But what have you children been doing?"