The Ugly Duckling

By Hans Christian Andersen

Mother Duck was on her nest, watching for her five eggs to hatch.

One shell cracked. Crack! Crack! Crack! And then another. Crack! Crack! Crack! A duckling came out from each egg.

The biggest egg was not yet hatched.

At last the egg broke, and a new duckling came out. “Four are quite pretty,” said Mother Duck. “But this one looks very plain.”

But its mother did not love it less on that account.  It could swim very well, so she knew it was not a young turkey, as an old duck had said it might be. She took it with all the rest of the brood to the farm-yard.  

“Oh, have you ever seen such an ugly duck!” said the other farm animals. They all laughed at him. The ducks pecked him, the fowls beat him, the girl who fed the chickens drove him away with a stick.

He was different. He was so big and ugly that even his brothers and sisters were unkind to him.

They pecked at him and said, “You are ugly. Go away!”

He felt miserable. So, the ugly duckling ran away.

He met two wild ducks. “What kind of a duck are you?” they

asked. “You are very ugly. Go away!” And so he left.

He walked on until he found himself in the middle of a hunt. The gun shots scared him very much.  In a moment, a large terrible dog passed quite near, without touching him.

“I am so ugly that even a dog won’t bite me,” he thought.

And he curled himself up in the soft grass till the shots died away in the distance.

 Then, he marched on till he got to a small cottage. He went in and slept there.

Now in the cottage lived an old woman, her cat, and a hen. It was only next morning that they noticed their visitor.

“Can you lay eggs?” asked the hen.

“No, I don't know how,” replied the duckling.

“Can you purr when you are pleased?” asked the cat. The duckling said that he could do nothing but swim.

The old woman let the duckling live in her house, hoping that by-and-by it might lay eggs.  

The duckling stayed with them for three weeks. Then, one day the duckling said sadly, "It is very dull here. How much I would like to swim in the water!" 

"What a foolish idea," said the hen.  "You don't understand

me," said the duckling.  "I think I must go into the world again.“

“Very well, go," said the hen; and the duckling went.  

The ugly duckling was by himself. His days were sad.

As time passed, he grew and grew.

One evening, a flock of beautiful birds came out of the bushes. They were swans. The duckling had never seen anything like them before. He wished to be as lovely as these beautiful creatures.

Then, he saw his own image on the water. He was a graceful and beautiful swan.

“The new one is the best of all,” said the children when they came down to feed the swans.

He had been mistreated for his ugliness, and now he was the most beautiful of all the birds. He was so happy!

The EndThe End

He never dreamed of such happiness as this when he was an ugly duckling.