JOHNNIE GREENHEAD 47 



returned with another duckling which she dropped in the 

 same way. Now the two ducklings swam round and round 

 together while the mother went back for a third. This 

 was kept up until fourteen baby ducklings had been 

 dropped into the water, when the mother herself alighted 

 and led them across the river to where the water was 

 shallow and the reeds were plentiful, where they began 

 to feed. 



This certainly was to be a red letter day for the boy. 

 He not only had learned that the wood duck nests in trees, 

 but had been so fortunate as actually to witness her carrying 

 her brood to the water, now that they were old enough to 

 require food and not to be injured by swimming in the 

 water. 



Some Sabbath days, if the weather was fair, the boy 

 stayed in the woods most of the day, and he decided that 

 this was going to be one of those days. After spending 

 two or three hours watching this mother wood duck feed 

 her babies, he followed the river up to the mouth of 

 Wymore^s branch and decided to follow this creek home. 

 Not far from where this creek runs into the river in those 

 days there was a small marsh, no more than a rod or two 

 square, in which bulrushes and sweet flags grew. The boy 

 was fond of chewing sweet flag root, calamus he called it, 

 and he decided to get a piece of this root. Carefully 

 picking his way from tussock to tussock in order to reach 

 the finest calamus bed, he was startled by seeing a mother 

 mallard duck fly out of a clump of rushes. He had been 

 told that wood ducks occasionally still nested along the 

 Skunk River, but to find a mallard's nest was a surprize 

 indeed. In this nest were a dozen green eggs a little larger 

 than a hen's ^gg. The boy put them into his hat, that con- 



