--splash, splash!--on he went
without seizing it.

"Oh, Heaven be thanked!" sighed the Duckling. "I am so ugly that even
the dog does not like to bite me!"

And so it lay quite quiet, while the shots rattled through the reeds and
gun after gun was fired. At last, late in the day, silence was restored;
but the poor Duckling did not dare to rise up; it waited several hours
before it looked round, and then hastened away out of the moor as fast
as it could. It ran on over field and meadow; there was such a storm
raging that it was difficult to get from one place to another.

Toward evening the Duck came to a little miserable peasant's hut. This
hut was so dilapidated that it did not know on which side it should
fall; and that's why it remained standing. The storm whistled round the
Duckling in such a way that the poor creature was obliged to sit down,
to stand against it; and the tempest grew worse and worse. Then the
Duckling noticed that one of the hinges of the door had given way, and
the door hung so slanting that the Duckling could slip through the crack
into the room; and it did so.

Here lived a woman with her Tom Cat and her Hen. And the Tom Cat, whom
she called Sonnie, could arch his back and purr. He could even give out
sparks; but for that one had to stroke his fur the wrong way. The Hen
had quite little short legs, and therefore she was called
Chickabiddy-shortshanks; she laid good eggs, and the woman loved her as
her own child.

In the morning the strange Duckling was at once noticed, and the Tom Cat
began to purr, and the Hen to cluck.

"What's this?" said the woman, and looked all round; but she could not
see well, and therefore she thought the Duckling was a fat duck that had
strayed. "This is a rare prize," she said. "Now I shall have duck's
eggs. I hope it is not a drake. We must try that."

And so the Duckling was admitted on trial for three weeks; but no eggs
came. And the Tom Cat was master of the house, and the Hen was the lady,
and they always said, "We and the world!" for they thought they were
half the world, and by far the better half. The Duckling thought one
might have a different opinion, but the Hen would not allow it.

"Can you lay eggs?" she asked.

"No."

"Then you'll have the goodness to hold your tongue."

And the Tom Cat said, "Can you curve your back, and purr, and give out
sparks?"

"No."

"Then you cannot have any opinion of your own when sensible people are
speaking.