Moss and the Blue Bucket

At the bottom of the hillside, a stream ran past a patch of soft green moss.

Charlotte sat on a flat stone with her blue bucket. She wanted a friend to play with. Every other child at the stream already had one.

"Hello," she said to a boy with a net. "Do you want to play?"

"I'm busy," he said. "I'm catching a frog." He splashed away.

Charlotte tried again. She held up her bucket to two girls building a dam. "Do you want to fill this?"

"Not now," said one. "We're making a dam."

Charlotte sat down again. The stream went glug, glug, glug.

Then she noticed something. A little brown duck kept pacing back and forth along the bank. It looked at the water, then at the dam, then at the water again. The girls had piled stones across the stream, and now the water had nowhere to go but around.

The duck's nest sat on the far side, and the duck could not get across.

"Oh," said Charlotte. "You need a way over."

She did not have a net, and she did not have stones. She had a bucket. She scooped up water from the stream and tipped it onto the moss, one bucket after another, until a shallow puddle ran across the bank.

The duck waddled in. It paddled, quack by quack, all the way to the other side.

The girls stopped building. "Look!" said one. "She made a little river!"

"It's a duck road," said Charlotte.

"Can we help?" asked the other.

Charlotte held out her bucket. "Yes. You fill it, and I'll pour."

So they did. The boy came back with his empty net and watched. "No frog," he said. "Can I pour too?"

Soon four children stood in a line, passing the blue bucket from hand to hand. Glug, glug, glug, went the stream, and the duck settled onto her nest, warm and dry, with the water running quietly beside her.