Quack. "It takes a lot of strength to fly
as we fly, and strength requires plenty of food. Mr. Quack knew all
the best feeding-places, for he had made the long journey several
times, so every day he would lead the way to one of these. He always
chose the wildest and most lonely looking places he could find, as
far as possible from the homes of men, but even then he was never
careless. He would lead us around back and forth over the place
he had chosen, and we would all look with all our might for signs
of danger. If we saw none, we would drop down a little nearer and
a little nearer. But with all our watchfulness, we never could be
sure, absolutely sure, that all was safe. Sometimes those terrible
two-legged creatures would be hiding in the very middle of the
wildest, most lonely looking marshes. They would be covered with
grass so that we couldn't see them. Then, as we flew over them,
would come the bang, bang, bang, bang of terrible guns, and always
some of our flock would drop. We would have to leave them behind,
for we knew if we wanted to live we must get beyond the reach of
those terrible guns. So we would fly our hardest. It was awful,
just simply awful!"
Mrs. Quack paused and shuddered, and Peter Rabbit and Jerry Muskrat
shuddered in sympathy.
"Sometimes we would have to try three or four feeding-places before
we found one where there were no terrible guns. And when we did
find one, we would be so tired and frightened that we couldn't
enjoy our food, and we didn't dare to sleep without some one on
watch all the time.
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