he little
ducks paddle about, "Oh, Bunny, I know what we can do."

"What?"

"We can give the hen mamma a ride on our boat. Poor thing! She never can
go paddling or swimming with her family. Let's take her on our boat, and
she can sail with her little ducks then, and not get wet."

"That's what we'll do!" Bunny cried. "I'm glad you thought of it, Sue.
We'll give the old hen a sail, and the ducks can paddle around with us."

Bunny steered the raft over to the shore where the hen was clucking
away, calling to her ducklings to come to dry land. Perhaps she thought
they had been in bathing long enough.

"Can we catch her?" asked Sue. "You know it's hard work to catch a
chicken. You couldn't catch the old rooster."

"Oh, this is easier," Bunny said. "The hen mother won't run away from
her little ducks."

And, for a wonder, Bunny was right. But then, as Grandma Brown told him
afterward, the old hen was a very tame one, and was used to being picked
up and petted.

So when Bunny and Sue reached the shore the hen did not run away. She
let Bunny pick her up, and she only clucked a little when he set her
down in a dry place on the door raft.

"Now we'll go sailing again," Bunny said, as he pushed off from the
shore.

The old hen clucked and fluttered her wings. She was calling to her
little ducks. And they came right up on to the raft, too. Perhaps they
wanted to see what sailing was like, and then, too, they may have had
enough of swimming and paddling for a time. At any rate, there the old
mother hen and her little ducks were on the raft, with the two children.

"Now we'll give them a fine ride!" cried Sue. "Aren't they cute,
Bunny?"

"Yes," said Bunny. He steered the raft, while Sue picked up one of the
little ducks and petted it in her hand.

"Oh, you dear, cute, sweet little thing!" murmured Sue. "I wish I had
you for a doll!"

On and on sailed Bunny and Sue, and I think it was the first time the
old hen mother ever went sailing with her family of ducks. She seemed to
like it, too, Bunny and Sue thought.

Finally, when the raft was in the middle of the pond, the little ducks
gave some quacks, a sort of whistle and into the water they fluttered
one after the other.

"Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!" went the hen mamma, fluttering her wings.
"Cluckity-cluck-cluck!"

I suppose that meant, in hen talk:

"Come back! Come back! Stay on the boat and have a nice ride!"

But the little ducks wanted to swim in the water.