Ducky
This is the Mallard duckling that I hatched when I was 16 years old. My sister's German Shepherd brought an egg up from the beach and set it on the lawn. It was warm. I put it in a cardboard box with a light bulb and a household thermometer. I set it at the temperature for incubating duck eggs as per the encyclopedia. He hatched on the 31st day. I taught him to swim and fly. He stayed with me for the summer, travelling with me around the island where I lived. Come fall, he took his first flight around the harbor, and fortunately returned to land right at my feet. He came and went for that winter, coming home to eat and flying off again. The next summer, his visits became fewer and farther between, until finally he joined the flock of wild mallard ducks permanently. I think of Ducky as my first born child.
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