Mrs. Feathertop gave only one shriek and fainted dead away, and was carried home on a cabbage leaf, and Mr. Gray Cock was sent for, where he was waiting on Mrs. Red Comb through the squash vines. "It's a serious time in your family, sir," said Goody Kertarkut, "and you ought to be at home supporting your wife. Send for Doctor Peppercorn without delay." Now as the case was a very dreadful one, Doctor Peppercorn called a council from the barnyard of the Squire two miles off, and a brisk young Doctor Partlett appeared in a fine suit of brown and gold, with tail-feathers like meteors. A fine young fellow he was, lately from Paris, with all the modern scientific improvements fresh in his head. When he had listened to the whole story, he clapped his spur into the ground, and, leaning back laughed so loud that all the cocks in the neighborhood crowed. Mrs. Feathertop rose up out of her swoon, and Mr. Gray Cock was greatly enraged. "What do you mean, sir, by such behavior in the house of mourning?" "My dear sir, pardon me, but there is no occasion for mourning. My dear madam, let me congratulate you. There is no harm done. The simple matter is, dear madam, you have been under a hallucination all along. The neighborhood and my learned friend the doctor have all made a mistake in thinking that these children of yours were hens at all. They are ducks, ma'am, evidently ducks, and very finely formed ducks, I dare say." At this moment a quack was heard, and at a distance the whole tribe were seen coming waddling home, their feathers gleaming in green and gold, and they themselves in high good spirits. "Such a splendid day as we have had!" they all cried in a breath. "And we know now how to get our own living; we can take care of ourselves in future, so you need have no further trouble with us." "Madam," said the Doctor, making a bow with an air which displayed his tail-feathers to advantage, "let me congratulate you on the charming family you have raised. A finer brood of young healthy ducks I never saw. Give claw, my dear friend," he said, addressing the elder son. "In our barnyard no family is more respected than that of the ducks." And so Madam Feathertop came off glorious at last; and when after this the ducks used to go swimming up and down the river, like so many nabobs, among the admiring hens, Doctor Peppercorn used to look after them and say: "Ah! I had the care of their infancy!" And Mr. Gray Cock and his wife used to say to each other: "It was our system of education did that!" [Illustration: THE BALLAD OF PIPING WILL] BY ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH There was a lad named Piping Will With tattered coat and poor; He had no home to bide him in, But roamed from door to door. This lad had naught except a pipe On which he used to play; Yet never lad did laugh so free, Nor had a look so gay.