Opening, part 9 · page 21 2101Something pink looked at him from the side of a hill.102He thought he would fly towards it and see what it was.103Oh, how glorious it felt to be rushing through the air, wheeling first one way and then the other!104He had never thought that flying could be like that!105The duckling was almost sorry when he drew near the pink cloud and found it was made up of apple blossoms growing beside a cottage whose garden ran down to the banks of the canal.106He fluttered slowly to the ground and paused for a few minutes under a thicket of syringas, and while he was gazing about him, there walked slowly past a flock of the same beautiful birds he had seen so many months ago.107Fascinated, he watched them one by one step into the canal, and float quietly upon the waters as if they were part of them.108'I will follow them,' said the duckling to himself; 'ugly though I am, I would rather be killed by them than suffer all I have suffered from cold and hunger, and from the ducks and fowls who should have treated me kindly.'109And flying quickly down to the water, he swam after them as fast as he could.110It did not take him long to reach them, for they had stopped to rest in a green pool shaded by a tree whose branches swept the water.111And directly they saw him coming some of the younger ones swam out to meet him with cries of welcome, which again the duckling hardly understood.112He approached them glad, yet trembling, and turning to one of the older birds, who by this time had left the shade of the tree, he said:1 2← previousOpening, part 8next →Opening, part 10↑ back to The Orange Fairy BookThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/9/page/2/