le maid listens
to-night with burning cheeks and shining eyes, eager to repeat her
success with the pretty story of

THE FALCON AND THE DUCK

The wintry winds had already begun to whistle and the waves to rise when
the Drake and his mate gathered their half-grown brood together on the
shores of their far northern lake.

"Wife," said he, "it is now time to take the children southward, to the
Warm Countries which they have never yet seen!"

Very early the next morning they set out on their long journey, forming
a great V against the sky in their flight. The mother led her flock and
the father brought up the rear, keeping a sharp lookout for stragglers.

[Illustration]

All day they flew high in the keen air, over wide prairies and great
forests of northern pine, until toward evening they saw below them a
chain of lakes, glittering like a string of dark-blue stones. Swinging
round in a half circle, they dropped lower and lower, ready to alight
and rest upon the smooth surface of the nearest lake.

Suddenly their leader heard a whizz sound like that of a bullet as it
cuts the air, and she quickly gave the warning: "Honk! honk! Danger,
danger!" All descended in dizzy spirals, but as the great Falcon swooped
toward them with upraised wing, the ducklings scattered wildly hither
and thither. The old Drake came last, and it was he who was struck!

"Honk, honk!" cried all the Ducks in terror, and for a minute the air
was full of soft downy feathers like flakes of snow. But the force of
the blow was lost upon the well-cushioned body of the Drake, he soon got
over his fright and went on his way southward with his family, while the
Falcon dropped heavily to the water's edge with a broken wing.

There he stayed and hunted mice as best he could from day to day,
sleeping at night in a hollow log to be out of the way of the Fox and
the Weasel. All the wit he had was not too much whereby to keep himself
alive through the long, hard winter.

Toward spring, however, the Falcon's wing had healed and he could fly a
little, though feebly. The sun rose higher and higher in the blue
heavens, and the Ducks began to return to their cool northern home.
Every day a flock or two flew over the lake; but the Falcon dared not
charge upon the flocks, much as he wished to do so. He was weak with
hunger, and afraid to trust to the strength of the broken wing.

One fine day a chattering flock of Mallards alighted quite near him,
cooling thei