“Well, maybe not the eggs of an ostrich,” answered Grandpa Brown.  “I guess a hen could only cover one of those at a time.  But a hen can hatch ducks’ or turkeys’ eggs as well as her own kind.”

“So as we don’t always have a duck that wants to hatch out little ones, we put the ducks’ eggs under a hen.  And every time, as soon as the little ducks find water, after they are hatched, they go in for a swim, just as if they had a duck for a mother instead of a hen.

“And, of course, the mother hen thinks she has little chickens, for at first she can’t tell the little ducks from chickens.  And when they go into the water she thinks, just as you did, Sue, that they will be drowned.  So she makes a great fuss.  But she soon gets over it.”

“I guess she’s over it now,” said Bunny.

Indeed, the old mother hen was not clucking so loudly now, nor was she rushing up and down on the shore of the pond with her wings all fluffed up.  She seemed to know that the little family she had hatched out, even if they were not like any others she had taken care of, were all right, and very nice.  And she seemed to think that for them to go in the water was all right, too.

As for the little ducklings, they paddled about, and quacked and whistled (as baby ducks always do) and had a perfectly lovely time.  The 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?”

“Getting ready for a circus,” answered Bunny Brown.

“A circus!” exclaimed grandpa, in surprise.

“Yes,” explained Sue.  “Bunny is going to get a trapeze, and fall down in the hay, where it doesn’t hurt.  And he’s going to paint his half of our dog Splash, so Splash will look like a tiger, and we’re going to have a horse, and Bunker Blue is going to hold me on so I can ride and—­and——­”