The board dropped hard enough to throw the smallest duckling sideways, but he never reached the water.
I caught him against the rim of the feed bucket just before his left foot slipped over the edge.
The bucket struck my knee.
Cold muddy water splashed across my jeans, and the loose end of the board vanished into the ditch with a flat wooden slap.
For one second, the duckling lay inside the bucket among the cracked corn, blinking as if he had been placed there on purpose.
Then the mother duck came off the tilted board toward me.
Her wings opened wide, and the six ducklings crowded behind her so tightly that two of them stepped on the same leaf.
I lowered the bucket at once.
The smallest duckling tried to climb over the rim, but his bad foot folded beneath him and he dropped back into the grain.
The mother stopped less than a yard away.
She did not peck me.
She looked into the bucket, called once, and waited for him to answer.
His reply was thin but immediate.
The six ducklings answered too.
Their voices filled the space behind the feed shed while muddy water rushed through the ditch and carried the broken board toward the pond.
I had not eaten breakfast yet, and the coffee I had left on the porch would be cold by then, but I stayed crouched beside that bucket.
The mother duck stepped closer.
She stretched her neck over the rim until her bill almost touched the pale patch on the duckling’s back.
He pushed himself upright.
His body shook, though the morning was already warm enough to make the metal gate hot under my hand.
I tipped the bucket slowly until one edge rested against the gravel.
The cracked corn slid first.
The duckling followed it, half walking and half tumbling onto the path.
His mother moved beside him before I could reach out again.
For several seconds, nobody went anywhere.
The faster ducklings could have run toward the pond along the fence line, but they gathered around their smallest brother and pecked uselessly at wet pieces of corn.
One found a yellow button near the shed wall and carried it three steps before dropping it.
The mother turned away from the ditch.
That surprised me more than the rescue.
The pond was still visible through the reeds, and the other route was nearly four times longer, but she led the flock back toward the feed shed.
The smallest duckling managed five uneven steps.
On the sixth, he sat down.
The others stopped with him.
The mother called, walked two steps, then returned and stood over him while rainwater dripped from the feathers beneath her tail.
I opened the lower half of the shed door and backed away.
The building smelled of dry hay and old grain, and one torn feed label fluttered near the hinge even though there was no wind inside.
The mother studied the doorway.
She had never brought the flock into the shed before.
When I moved farther toward the gate, she walked in.
All six healthy ducklings followed.
The smallest remained outside, facing the raised wooden threshold.
It was barely two inches high.
That morning, it might as well have been another ditch.
He lifted his left foot and placed it against the wood, but he could not push his body over.
The mother came back through the doorway.
I expected her to circle behind him or nudge him forward.
Instead, she stood on the other side of the threshold and waited where he could see her.
The six ducklings crowded around her legs.
After a moment, one of them stepped back outside.
Then another did the same.
Soon all six were standing behind their smaller brother again, blocking the path I had just cleared.
I almost moved them.
My hand was already reaching down when I stopped.
The smallest duckling leaned forward, caught the edge with his chest, and kicked once with both feet.
He slid over the threshold and landed on his stomach.
The other six climbed over after him.
The mother entered last.
Inside the shed, she settled near a stack of empty burlap sacks, and the ducklings pressed beneath her body until only their feet and the ends of their tails were visible.
I set the feed bucket near the door and sat on an overturned milk crate.
A red plastic scoop lay upside down beside my boot.
I turned it over, then turned it back again.
It accomplished nothing.
About twenty minutes later, the smallest duckling emerged from beneath his mother.
He crossed the packed dirt floor slowly, stopped beside the bucket, and began eating the corn that had stuck to its wet rim.
His left foot still landed at an angle, but it held.
The others came out when they heard him pecking.
They ate around him instead of forcing him away from the grain.
By late morning, the rain had stopped.
The ditch remained high, and the board was wedged against a clump of reeds thirty feet downstream.
I pulled it free with a garden rake and dragged it behind the shed.
One end had split through the middle.
The wood looked solid from above, but the underside had softened until my thumb pressed into it.
I should have replaced it months earlier.
Mabel, our old brown farm dog, wandered over while I was examining the crack and sniffed the board.
She barked once at the ducks through the open shed door, sending all seven ducklings beneath their mother again.
I sent Mabel toward the porch.
She went as far as the gate, forgot why she was there, and lay down in the mud.
Sometime that afternoon, the flock came out of the shed.
The mother did not approach the ruined crossing.
She turned north along the fence, where the ground rose before curving back toward the pond.
It was the safe route, but it passed through tall grass that reached above the ducklings’ heads.
The first six entered without slowing.
The smallest stopped at the edge.
From where he stood, the grass must have looked like a wall.
The mother disappeared into it.
A moment later, her head rose above the stems.
She called.
The smallest duckling stepped forward.
The grass bent over his back, hiding the pale patch and everything below his neck.
His peeping became louder.
The six others turned around inside the grass and pushed back toward him, flattening a narrow lane as they came.
They did not pull him through.
They simply made enough room for him to see the mother again.
He followed.
I walked on the other side of the fence with the empty feed bucket knocking against my leg.
The longer route took almost half an hour.
Twice, the smallest duckling sat down.
Both times, the flock stopped.
No one called from the front.
They waited close enough for their feathers to touch his.
When they finally reached the pond, the healthy ducklings ran past their mother and splashed into the shallow edge.
The smallest remained on the bank.
He stretched his neck toward the water, but his body stayed low.
The mother entered the pond and turned around.
She floated less than a foot from shore.
He stepped in with his right foot.
The left followed.
For three seconds, he floated beside her.
Then his body rolled sharply toward the pale patch on his back.
His wings beat the water, and his head disappeared.
I dropped the bucket and moved toward him.
Before I reached the bank, the mother duck pushed her body beneath his side.
She lifted him high enough for his bill to clear the surface.
The six ducklings rushed from the shallows, circling so closely that they formed a moving ring around them.
The smallest coughed out water and kicked.
His bad foot moved once, then stopped.
The mother guided him back to shore.
He collapsed on the wet mud while the others gathered around him.
The pond had been the goal every morning.
Now the mother turned her back on it.
She led the flock under a low patch of willow branches and settled on dry leaves several yards from the water.
The smallest duckling disappeared beneath her breast.
The others crowded in after him, though there was barely room.
One tail remained outside.
I carried the feed bucket home and left it by the porch steps.
That evening, I went back with a shallow pan of water and a handful of grain.
The flock was still under the willow.
When I placed the pan nearby, the mother watched me but did not move away.
The smallest duckling came out first.
He drank, shook his head, and sneezed water onto one of his brothers.
Then he ate.
His appetite was normal.
His balance was not.
Each time he turned left, his body leaned too far and one wing opened to catch him.
The other ducklings began walking short circles around the pan.
At first, I thought they were crowding him.
Then I noticed they were matching his speed.
When he stopped, they stopped.
When he turned, they turned.
The mother remained under the willow, watching the entire group instead of only him.
The next morning, I expected the smallest duckling to stay hidden.
He was the first one out.
He crossed the leaves, climbed over a root, and headed toward the empty feed bucket I had carried back with me.
The six ducklings followed in a loose row.
The mother brought up the rear.
For the first time, the weakest duckling was not walking behind the flock.
He was not leading them either.
He was choosing a pace, and the line was forming around it.
The long route to the pond went more smoothly that day.
The smallest duckling rested near the tall grass, but he did not sit down inside it.
His brothers and sisters widened the path around him without being called back.
Near the pond, a gray duckling stepped into a soft patch of mud and sank to its belly.
The others kept moving.
The smallest duckling stopped.
He turned around and went back.
He stood beside the trapped duckling while it kicked mud onto both of them.
The mother called once from the water.
The five ducklings ahead returned.
Together, they crowded around the gray one until its feet found firmer ground.
The smallest duckling had needed help the day before.
Now he was the first to notice that someone else was missing.
I spent that afternoon clearing the long route.
I cut the grass low, moved loose stones away from the fence, and filled two shallow holes with gravel from the driveway.
Near the old crossing, I dug the mud away from the drainage ditch and set a length of pipe beneath the path.
It was slow work.
My gloves stayed wet, and I missed lunch because I kept telling myself I would stop after the next shovel of gravel.
The broken board lay behind me in the sun.
I considered cutting off the rotten end and putting it back over the ditch.
It would have reached.
It also would have asked the flock to trust the same thing twice.
I left it where it was.
For the rest of that week, the ducks used the longer path.
The smallest duckling grew stronger, though his left foot never became straight.
He still stumbled on loose stones.
He still rested more often than the others.
The difference was that the flock no longer treated those pauses as interruptions.
The pauses belonged to all of them.
Four mornings after the accident, the mother reached the edge of the pond and entered without looking back.
All seven ducklings followed.
The smallest floated level this time.
He paddled close to shore while the others chased insects farther out, and whenever the distance between them widened, two ducklings returned to circle beside him.
Nothing dramatic happened.
A dragonfly landed on the feed bucket beside me.
One of the ducklings tried to catch it and bumped his head against the metal rim.
The dragonfly left.
By the following week, I had finished the raised gravel path over the new drainage pipe.
There was no narrow board and no open water beneath it.
The first morning the path was ready, I opened the gate and stood aside.
The mother approached the gravel.
She tested it with one orange foot, just as she had tested the old board.
Then she crossed.
Six ducklings followed.
The smallest stopped at the beginning of the new path.
My stomach tightened even though there was nowhere for him to fall.
He lowered his head and studied the pale stones.
A faster duckling bumped him from behind, stepped around him, and hurried toward the pond.
The mother turned.
Before she could call, the duckling that had rushed ahead stopped on its own.
It walked back across the gravel.
The other five came with it.
They gathered behind the smallest duckling in the same uneven line they had formed on the broken board.
He lifted his left foot.
He crossed without slipping.
Halfway over, he paused to peck at a piece of grass growing between the stones.
The whole flock paused with him.
When they reached the pond, the mother entered first and the smallest duckling went in beside her.
He no longer rolled in the water.
His bad foot worked differently beneath the surface, making him drift slightly left, so the others adjusted their circle until he remained in the middle.
Over the next month, his pale patch faded as new feathers came in.
His crooked step remained.
Some mornings he walked near the back, and some mornings he reached the pond before two of the stronger ducklings.
Whenever one bird fell behind, the flock turned around.
It did not matter which bird it was.
Late that summer, I cut the rotten end from the old board.
I sanded the splintered edge and carried the solid piece down to the pond.
Instead of placing it across the ditch, I laid it flat beneath the willow where the flock rested after swimming.
The mother stepped onto it first.
The seven young ducks climbed up around her, filling the weathered wood from one end to the other.
The smallest settled near the center.
His left foot rested sideways against the grain while the others tucked their feet beneath them.
The old board never crossed the water again.
It stayed beside the pond, holding the entire flock whenever one of them needed to stop.
