The Ugly Duckling

One summer a mother duck sat on her nest, waiting for her eggs to hatch.One by one they broke open, and out came small yellow ducklings — all except the largest egg.At last that one cracked too, and a big, grey, clumsy bird tumbled out.

“How ugly he is,” said the other ducks, and they would not make room for him.His brothers and sisters pushed him away, the hens pecked him, and the girl who fed the birds pushed him aside with her foot.Everywhere he went the animals laughed at him, so one day he ran away from the farm.

He hid among the reeds by a lake, but the wild birds there thought he was strange too.Winter came, cold and lonely; the water froze, and he was often hungry.A farmer found him half-frozen and took him home, but the noisy children frightened him and he escaped again.

He lived through the long winter as best he could, hiding in the marsh.Then the sun grew warm, the birds began to sing, and spring had come at last.On the bright water he saw three beautiful white swans gliding slowly toward him.

“I will go to them, even if such splendid birds drive me away,” he thought.He bent his head low over the water — and in his reflection he saw not a grey bird, but a white swan.The other swans swam around him and welcomed him as one of their own.

Children came to the water’s edge and said the new swan was the most beautiful of them all.He thought of the hard days and was glad: it did not matter that he was born in a duck yard, because he had come from a swan’s egg.