Chapter 4 - Page 2

Henrietta Hen took one long last look at him. She guessed that she might have stood there forever cackling for him to come back and he wouldn't have paid the slightest heed to her.

Then she gathered her children--her really own--about her. "Come!" she said to them, "We'll go back home now."

"What about him?" they demanded, pointing to the truant duckling who was bobbing about on the rippling water. "Aren't you going to make him come, too?"

"No!" said their mother. "We're well rid of him. He has been more trouble to me than all the rest of you.... To tell the truth, I never liked him very well."