On a warm summer morning, a mother duck sat on her nest, waiting for her eggs to hatch. One by one the ducklings broke free -- small, yellow, and quick. But the last egg was the biggest, and when it finally cracked, out tumbled a duckling who was large, gray, and clumsy.

The other ducklings were proud of their fine yellow feathers. They lifted their heads high and paddled in a neat little row. When they saw their gray brother stumble into the water, they laughed. "What an ugly duckling!" they cried, pecking and pushing him away. "You don't belong here."

The gray duckling did not peck back. He only lowered his head and swam a little apart, hoping that if he stayed quiet and kind, the others might let him stay. But no matter how gently he behaved, the barnyard ducks turned up their beaks. "A proper duck is yellow and small," they said. "You are neither."

Heartbroken, the duckling ran away. He wandered through cold marshes and empty fields. Wild ducks laughed at him, and a busy hen asked, "Can you do anything useful?" The duckling only hung his head and moved on, never once unkind to the creatures who were unkind to him.

Winter came, and he nearly froze in an icy pond. A farmer carried him home, but the frightened bird knocked over a milk pail and flapped into the butter, and the farmer's wife chased him back into the snow. Through the long, lonely winter, the duckling survived on his own.

When spring arrived at last, he stretched his wings and found, to his surprise, that he could fly. He landed on a wide pond where three swans glided across the water. "They will chase me away too," he thought sadly. But when he looked down at his reflection, he did not see a gray, clumsy duckling. He saw a swan.

The swans swam close to welcome him, and children on the shore pointed and called, "The new one is the most beautiful of all!" The young swan remembered the proud barnyard ducks who had pushed him away, and he thought, "I never dreamed I could be this happy when I was the ugly duckling."