"So they are," said Leon. "Twelve of them. Won't mother be
pleased?"

She was not in the least. She said we were a sight to behold;
that she was ashamed to be the mother of two children who didn't
know tame ducks from wild ones. She remembered instantly that
Amanda Deam had set a speckled Dorking hen on Mallard duck
eggs, where she got the eggs, and what she paid for them. She
said the ducks had found the creek that flowed beside Deams'
barnyard before it entered our land, and they had swum away from
the hen, and both the hen and Amanda would be frantic. She put
the ducks into a basket and said to take them back soon as ever
we got our suppers, and we must hurry because we had to bathe and
learn our texts for Sunday-school in the morning.

We went through the orchard, down the hill and across the meadow
until we came to the creek. By that time we were tired of the
basket. It was one father had woven himself of shaved and soaked
hickory strips, and it was heavy. The sight of water suggested
the proper place for ducks, anyway. We talked it over and
decided that they would be much more comfortable swimming than in
the basket, and it was more fun to wade than to walk, so we went
above the deep place, I stood in the creek to keep them from
going down, and Leon poured them on the water. Pigs couldn't
have acted more contrary. Those ducks LIKED us. They wouldn't
go to Deams'. They just fought to swim back to us. Anyway, we
had the worst time you ever saw. Leon cut long switches to herd
them with, and both of us waded and tried to drive them, but they
would dart under embankments and roots, and dive and hide.