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| THE UGLY DUCK Don Bemis Once upon a time there was an egg. It lay in a forgotten nest near the edge of a stream. A pile of feathers nearby may help explain why the nest was forgotten. If that is not enough of a clue, I will tell you that a fox was moping in the woods. It is not well known, but there is a natural depressant in the flesh of fowl. Studies have shown that animals which eat birds tend to get down in the mouth. But enough of science. Back to our egg. A pair of mallards swam by, and the hen spied the nest. “Look, dear! That’s a nice looking home! I’d love to have it!” She batted her ducky eyes at him and tried to frame her bill into a winsome smile. What she really meant was she hated building nests. “I’m not too sure,” replied her mate. “What about that pile of feathers over there?” “Oh, pooh! You’re always looking at the dark side of things.” She tried to pout, but it looked pretty much like her smile. “That just means the fox isn’t hungry. I’ll bet he’s off moping.” She batted her beady eyes again. “Puleeeeze? Pretty pleeeeze with cracked corn on top?” “Puleeeeze” sounds pretty awful when said by a duck, unless the listener happens to be another duck. The drake could not resist. “Well, okay.” “Goody!” she squawked and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Ow!” he quacked, but she had already waddled up the bank to inspect her new home. She peered into the nest and beheld the egg. “Ooh, look! A poor little baby, all alone in the world!” She felt it. “And it’s still a little warm!” Her maternal hormones kicked in, and she settled atop the egg. The hen had several maternal hormones. Enough, in fact, that the orphaned egg was shortly surrounded by six others. It was the largest, though. After a while, they all hatched. There were six fuzzy little mallard ducklings with little yellow bills. And there was one other baby, slightly larger, with a mottled bill and a wrinkled face. It was a face that only a mother could love, and even she cringed a bit every time she looked at it. The ducklings would all walk to the water together behind their mother. Mostly together, that is. The six fuzzy mallards would march in line, singing insulting songs about their ugly brother. He would waddle along at the back. The mother would pretend not to hear the insults because, “Well, ducklings will be ducklings.” It was worse in the stream. Other mothers would bring their babies, and then thirty or forty ducklings could torment the ugly one together. They would swim under water and nip at his feet. It was a lot of fun for most of them. Time marched on. Eventually all of the ducklings reached the half-grown stage somewhere between cute and sleek, where no adjective can adequately describe their homeliness. However, they remained beautiful to their mothers and to each other. Except for the ugly one. His face grew more and more wrinkled. He was growing more quickly than the rest, and this gave them even more reason to taunt him. “Hey, Fatso!” they quacked at him one day. “Big as a goose and you walk like a chicken!” “Aw, leave me alone!” His voice was changing, and a peep crept into what he had intended to be a menacing quack. The other adolescent ducks laughed at him. Then they coalesced into a gangly mass and chased him off. The ugly duckling clambered ashore and waddled away. Eventually he passed a small, glassy pool and looked in. What he saw amazed him. He was no longer an ugly duckling. He was a Muscovy duck. And they are even uglier. Now you know why Muscovy ducks have such rotten dispositions. |
| We were living by the bank of the Beaver River in Pennsylvania when I wrote this. Along with beavers, there were muskrats, woodchucks, Canada geese, and ducks of all descriptions. Some of them were not beautiful. Some had poor attitudes. |
