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Grade 1, Osage Hills School, Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Once there was a mother duck sitting on a nest with six eggs.  One of the eggs was much bigger than the rest.  One day the eggs started to crack.  They all hatched but the biggest one.  The mother duck had to sit on the big egg all the next day and night but finally it hatched and out came a big ugly duckling.  It did not look like the rest of her ducklings.

The animals in the barnyard made fun of the big ugly duckling.  One of the other ducks even bit the ugly duckling on the neck.  Even his brothers and sisters made fun of him so he ran away.  He found a pond with lots of grass to stay until hunters and their dogs scared him away.

The ugly duckling finally found a house where a woman, a cat and a hen lived.  He spent the night in the house but because he couldn’t purr, or lay eggs they made fun of him.  The ugly duckling grew restless so he went into the wild world.  Then autumn came and the tree leaves changed colors and the river started to freeze 

One night it got so cold it froze his feet into the ice.  A farmer found him and took him home to his children, but the ugly duckling was afraid of them so he ran away. One day he stretched his wings out in the sun and flew to a pond.  There were beautiful swans at the pond and they came over to greet him.  When he looked into the water he saw himself and he had become a swan like them.  He was the best swan ever.