On a farm long ago, a Mama Duck sat on her nest.  “How long must I wait for my babies to hatch?” she said.  “I have to sit here all alone! And no one comes to visit me.”  But what could she do? A Mama duck must keep her eggs warm till they hatch.  

At last, the eggs began to crack.  One by one, yellow ducklings stepped out of their shells.  They shook their wings and said, “Quack, quack!”

The next day, the big egg started to hatch.  Out came a baby boy bird. But if one may say so, it was an odd-looking thing.  This bird was much bigger than others. He was not yellow at all - he was dark-gray from his head to his feet.  And he walked with a funny wobble.

One of the yellow ducklings pointed.  “What is THAT? He cannot be one of us!”

“I have never seen such an ugly duckling!” said another.  

“How can you say such a thing?” said Mama Duck in a stern voice. “You are only one day old!  Your brother hatched from the very same nest as you did. Now line up. We will go to the lake

for your very first swim.”

Yet the other ducklings quacked, “Ugly!  Ugly! Ugly!” The Ugly Duckling did not know why the other ducklings were yelling at him.  He took the last spot in the line.

Each yellow duck jumped in the river and swam behind Mama Duck.  When it was his turn, the Ugly Duckling jumped in and started to paddle, too.  “At least he can swim,” Mama Duck thought to herself.

When they left the water and started to play, the Ugly Duckling tried to play with his brothers and sisters, too.  They yelled, “Go away! We will not play with you! You are ugly. And you walk weird, too!”

When Mama Duck was close by, she would not let them talk in this way.  “Be nice!” she would scold. But she was not always close by.