The Ugly Duckling

It was so beautiful out in the country. It was summer-time. The wheat was yellow, the oats were green, the hay was stacked up in the grassy meadows, and there the stork walked about on his long red legs, chattering in the language he had learned from his mother. The fields and meadows were full of wildflowers, and in the midst of it all sat a duck upon her nest, watching her eggs.

One by one the eggs cracked open. 'Peep! peep!' said the little ones, as they came tumbling out. The duck counted them: five beautiful yellow ducklings and one very large grey one. 'How dreadfully big he is!' she thought. 'He cannot possibly be my child.' But she gave him the same care as the others.

The next day was sunny and the mother took her children to the duck-yard. The other ducks looked at the grey bird and sneered. 'He is too ugly! Look at that creature!' The turkeys pecked at him, the geese hissed, and even his own brothers and sisters were unkind. 'You ugly thing!' they cried.

Day after day the the ugly duckling was teased, bitten, pushed around, and chased. Even his own mother wished he had never been born. At last he could bear it no longer and fled into the great marsh where the wild ducks lived.

Autumn came and the leaves turned gold and red. The ugly duckling was now larger and stronger, but no happier. One evening he saw a flock of beautiful white birds flying overhead. They were swans, migrating south. The duckling felt a strange yearning he had never known before.

Winter was cruel. The water froze and the duckling was trapped in the ice. A peasant found him and broke the ice, but the duckling was so frightened by the noisy children that he fled again into the freezing marsh.

Spring came at last. The sun grew warm, the larks sang, and the duckling found his wings had grown strong. He flew to a great garden where three beautiful white swans swam on the pond. 'I will fly to them,' he thought. 'If they kill me, so be it. It is better to die by beautiful birds than to live being pecked and chased.'

He flew down to the water and bowed his head. But what did he see in the clear water? His own reflection — no longer a dark grey, ungainly bird, but a graceful, beautiful white swan. He had been born a swan, and no bird in all the garden was more lovely than he.

The children came to the water and threw breadcrumbs. 'There is a new one!' they cried with delight. The other swans swam around him and and stroked him with their beaks. He felt perfectly happy, yet not a bit proud. 'I never dreamed such happiness when I was the ugly duckling.'