Wings, Wings, Wings 55 



In numbers, next to the pigeons, came the ducks 

 in flocks so vast that the individual members 

 seemed as the stars of heaven. The pigeons be- 

 longed to a single variety, 'but the ducks to in- 

 numerable varieties no two of whom seemed 

 alike. When the hunting was good in the fall, 

 as Adolph put it, which simply meant the birds 

 had come down from the north, he often took 

 the small boy with him to help retrieve the game ; 

 and that meant to help pick up a boat load. At 

 such times he would devote some attention to 

 the small boy's education, when they unloaded 

 and sorted the duck, by telling him the names 

 of the different kinds. The small boy long cher- 

 ished in his memory some of the names, though 

 at the time he half suspected that the resourceful 

 little Frenchman depended for them more upon 

 his imagination than upon his memory; "Ze 

 Melard, ze blue and green-winged tel, ze butter 

 bel, ze wisle wing, ze wood, ze canvas cover, ze 

 pin tail, ze old squaw." The last two names 

 were accepted with great mental reservation and 

 were regarded as likely imaginary, but turned 

 out to be correct. Adolph thought he was doing 

 a land office business if he got 60 cents a dozen 

 for his ducks, often, half of which were Canvas- 

 back; and no one dreamed that the time would 

 ever come when duck of that variety would sell 

 in the New York market for $10.00 each, a price 



