She came up one day with her stick in her hand, her goggles on, and the gray cat sitting on her hump, where he went up and down, down and up, at every "hoppity-kick" she gave, and stopped to watch her granddaughter feed the ducklings. "Why, what a greedy little duckling that is beside you," said granny, pointing to it with her horn-handled stick; "he doesn't seem willing to let his little brothers and sisters have a taste of the food you are giving them, pecking and flying at them, and driving them off in the way he does. I'm sure he is a nasty, greedy little duckling, and when he gets big enough I'll have him killed." "I don't think he's so greedy, granny," replied the little maid, taking him up in both her hands, and kissing him; "it's only because he's so fond of me, and jealous of the other ducklings when they come close to me. Look how still he lies, and how he nestles up to me! He's very fond of me." "Humph; fond of you for what he can get, like a good many more in the world," said old Granny Grunt, while the gray cat gave a "mew, mew," as if to say, "Right you are, old granny;" then off she went, "hoppity-kick, hoppity-kick," back again into her cottage, the hem of her quilted petticoat making bobs up and down all the way she went. "You're not a greedy little thing, are you, ducky?" said the little maid to the duckling, kissing it again, when her grandmother and the cat had gone. "It's because you love me so, isn't it? and don't like any of the other little ducklings to be noticed, do you?" "O, what a silly Sukey you are!" thought the Greedy Duckling, laying its head on one side of her face, as if to show it was so fond of her it didn't know what to do. "Do you think I would make such a pretended fuss over you as I do if you didn't give me three times as much to eat as any of the rest of the ducklings get? Not I. I often feel as if I should like to bite a bit off the end of your silly little nose when you are kissing and fondling me. Do you know I would much rather have my head under the water, and be poking about among the mud for worms, little eels, and frogs, and such like things, than have your lips so near me? Why, the other day you'd been eating onions; and though I dare say I shall smell strong enough of 'em some day, and sage too, as I've heard your old granny say when I have to be roasted, yet that time won't come yet for a long while, and I don't want to be reminded of my end before it does come. Why don't you empty your old granny's jam pots, or her honey jar; that smell wouldn't be so bad to bear as onions,--Fah!"