"Look at them," said he: "they can't be quiet a minute, they keep splashing and floundering about all the time. It 'ould make me giddy to go on that way."
"I can't see," said Emmerence, looking very thoughtful, "how these ducklings found out that they can swim. If a duck had hatched 'em out, she might show 'em; but the hen never looked at 'em; and, for all that, as fast as they could waddle they toddled on till they got into the water."
Here the thoughts of two infant souls stood at the mysterious portal of nature. There was silence a little while, and then Ivo said,--
"The ducklings all keep together and never part. My mother said we must do so too; and brothers and sisters belong together; and, when the cluck culls, all the chickens run up."
"Oh, the nasty chickens! The great big things eat up all I bring my poor ducklings. If it would only rain right hard once more and make my ducklings grow! At night I always put 'em in a basket,--they're too soft to take in your hand,--and then they crowd up to each other, just as I crowd up to my grandmother; and my grandmother says when they grow up she'll pull out the feathers and make me a pillow."
Thus chatted Emmerence. Ivo suddenly began to sing,--
"Far up on the hill is a white, white horse, A horse as white as snow; He'll take the little boys that are good little boys To where they want to go."
"The little boys and the good little boys Sha'n't go too far away; The little girls that are good little girls Must go as far as they."
"Far up on the hill is a black, black man, A man as black as a coal; He open'd his mouth and he grit his teeth, And he wanted to swallow me whole."
Then they sang on, sometimes one beginning a verse, and sometimes the other.
"Sweetheart, see, see! There comes the big flea: He has a little boy on his back, And a little girl in his ear.
"Don't you hear the bird sing? Don't you hear it say, In the wood, out of the wood, Sweetheart, where dost thou stay?
"Don't you run over my meadow, And don't you run over my corn, Or I'll give you the awfullest waling, As sure as you were born."
Many such little rhymes did the children sing, as if each tried to outdo the other in the number of songs they knew. At length Ivo said, "Now you drive your duckies home; I'm coming soon too." He was a little ashamed of going home with Emmerence, though conscious of nothing but the fear that his silly comrades would tease him. After she had been gone for some time he followed with his calf.