Nature Study

NATURE STUDY

         Maud was dead. We found her in the morning on her nest. She had lived a long time, for a duck, but now, as it must for us all, her time had come. She was still warm and the eggs beneath her body had not cooled, so we did the only thing we could do. We put them under two setting hens. The barred rock rejected the alien eggs but the Rhode Island red accepted the two we gave her. The duck eggs were white and huge compared to her own nice brown ones but no matter. An egg is an egg to a broody hen. She welcomed the orphans and continued to sit on all eight eggs.

         In the fullness of time six chicks hatched and a few days later, two ducklings. Rhodie must have noticed that two of her children looked different, but if she did, it did not seem to matter to her. She loved them all the same. If two of her children weren't quite right, they were still her babies. Soon Rhodie was proudly leading her family all around the barnyard.

         There was no real problem with the blended family until the ducklings discovered the pond hole. They were ducks after all, and this was water. Nobody had to tell them about it. There is a rule all ducklings live by. If there is water, be in it.

         Rhodie watched in horror as her two babies ran to the pond and happily splashed into the water. Soon they were paddling around among the reeds and cattails, in duckling heaven.

         Rhodie ran up and down the edge of the pond flapping clucking and squawking to no avail. The ducklings were in the water. They knew they belonged in water and there was nothing Rhodie could say to them in chicken language that made any difference.

         Rhodie tried her best to counteract the instinct of the ducklings to swim. She did all she could, but keeping a duck out of water cannot be done and she might as well accept it.

         Which brings me to my freshman year at college. This was back in the 1940s and the school was a Christian institution with very strict rules especially concerning relationships between men and women.

         We had a dean of women, Miss Eldridge, who was the quintessential old maid. She distrusted men and was determined to keep her girls safe, whatever it took.

         Like poor old Rhodie she took on the forces of nature and valiantly fought to keep her girls away from 'them.'

         It did not make her life any easier, that fall of 1946, that about half the freshman class consisted of young men who had recently come home from war. The GI Bill had kicked in and the young vets were off to college. These were not the young boys Miss Eldridge was accustomed to dealing with, just out of high school. These were men and they had been through a shooting war. Their lives had been interrupted by the war and now they wanted to get on with living.

         Nature herself was at work and love finds a way.Miss Eldridge could flap and squawk all she liked. She could not keep her ducklings out of the water.