best of things, and she at once decided that if they couldn't have
their home where they wanted it, they would have it where they could
have it. She was determined that they should have a home anyway,
and Paddy the Beaver's little pond was not such a bad place after
all.

So she wasted no time. She examined every inch of the shore of that
little pond. At last, a little back from the water, she found a
place to suit her, a place so well hidden by bushes that only the
sharpest eyes ever would find it. And a little later it would be
still harder to find, as she well knew, for all about clumps of
tall ferns were springing up, and when they had fully unfolded, not
even the keen eyes of Sammy Jay looking down from a near-by tree
would be able to discover her secret. There she made a nest on the
ground, a nest of dried grass and leaves, and lined it with the
softest and most beautiful of linings, down plucked from her own
breast. In it she laid ten eggs. Then came long weeks of patient
sitting on them, watching the wonder of growing things about her,
the bursting into bloom of shy wood flowers, the unfolding of leaves
on bush and tree, the springing up in a night of queer mushrooms,
which people call toadstools, and all the time dreaming beautiful
Duck dreams of the babies which would one day hatch from those
precious eggs. She never left them save to get a little food and
just enough exercise to keep her well and strong, and when she did
leave them, she always carefully pulled soft down over them to keep
them warm while she was away.

Mr. Quack knew all about that nest, though he had taken no part
in building it and had no share in the care of those eggs. He was
very willing that she should do all the work and thought it quite