the female duck was smaller and exhausted by her labors. The girl took the duck by the head and lifted it and swung it and broke the neck so quickly that the male did not even sense in his slumber that his mate was gone. In the morning, he would awaken to find his dream of mate and nest and ducklings had been robbed of him in the night; he would find himself lonely, and he would wail with the sound of a trumpet and flap his wings and burst up into the sky because his grief could find no other outlet than in flying. She felt a pang in imagining this, for she herself had known the confused
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