trees which stretched out their branches far over the rushes. The blue smoke floated in the air like clouds between the dark trees, and extended far over the water; the dogs bounded right into the mud, splash, splash! Rushes and reeds swayed to and fro in all directions; the poor duckling was in a terrible fright; he turned his head to put it under his wing, when suddenly a terrible big dog, with his tongue hanging far out of his mouth and his eyes glaring wildly, stood right in front of him; he thrust his open jaws right against the duckling, showing his sharp teeth, when, splash! off he went without touching him.
"Thank Heaven," said the duckling, "1 am so ugly that even the dog does not care to touch me."
And so he lay quite still, while the shots were whistling through the rushes and report after report went off.
It was late in the day before everything became quiet, but the poor youngster did not as yet venture to move; he still waited for some hours before he looked around him, and then he hurried off from the moor as fast as he could. He ran across fields and meadows in the face of such a wind that he had great difficulty in getting on.
Toward evening he came to a poor little farm-house; it was in such a miserable state that it did not know to what side it would tumble down, and therefore it remained standing. The wind blew so hard against the duckling that he was obliged to sit down to keep up against it, but it grew worse and worse. He then noticed that one of the hinges of the door had given way, and that in consequence the door hung in such a slanting position that he was able to slip through the opening into the room, which he did.
In this house lived an old woman with a cat and a hen. The cat, which she called Sonny, could raise his back and purr, and his coat would even bristle with sparks, but then one had to stroke him the wrong way. The hen had quite small, short legs, and was therefore called Henny Shortlegs; she laid good eggs, and the woman loved her as if she were her own child.
In the morning they at once noticed the stranger duckling, and the cat began to purr and the hen to cluck.
"What's this?" said the woman, looking around her; but she could not see well, and so she believed the duckling was a fat duck that had lost her way.
"Why, what a rare catch!" she said; "I can now get duck's eggs, if only it isn't a drake. I must find out."
And so the duckling was taken on trial for three weeks, but there came no eggs. The cat was the master of the house and the hen was the mistress, and they always used to say, "We and the world," for they believed that they were one half of it, and by far the better half. The duckling thought it might be possible to hold a different opinion, but the hen would not stand that.
