Once upon a time, down on an old farm, lived a duck family, and Mother Duck had been sitting on a clutch of new eggs. One nice morning the eggs hatched, and out popped six chirpy ducklings. But one egg was bigger than the rest, and it didn't hatch. Mother Duck couldn't recall laying that seventh egg. How did it get there?

TOCK! TOCK! The little prisoner was pecking inside his shell. Before Mother Duck had time to wonder, the last egg finally hatched. A strange-looking duckling, with grey feathers that should have been yellow, gazed up at his worried mother.

The ducklings grew quickly, but Mother Duck had a secret worry. "I can't understand how this ugly duckling can be one of mine!" she said to herself. The grey duckling certainly wasn't pretty, and since he ate far more than his brothers, he soon outgrew them all.

As the days went by, the poor ugly duckling became more and more unhappy. His brothers didn't want to play with him, he was so clumsy, and all the farmyard folk simply laughed at him. "Why are you so different from the others?" sighed Mother Duck, and that made him feel worse than ever. He wept at night, all alone. "Nobody loves me. They all tease me! Why am I so different from my brothers?"

Then one day, at sunrise, he ran away from the farmyard. He stopped at a pond and asked all the other birds, "Do you know of any ducklings with grey feathers like mine?" But everyone shook their heads in scorn. "We don't know anyone as ugly as you." The ugly duckling did not lose heart, and kept on asking. At another pond a pair of large geese gave him the same answer, and warned him: "Don't stay here! Go away! There are men with guns around here!"

The duckling was sorry he had ever left the farmyard. His travels took him to an old countrywoman's cottage. Thinking he was a stray goose, she caught him. "I'll put this in a hutch. I hope it lays plenty of eggs!" said the old woman, whose eyesight was poor. But the ugly duckling laid not a single egg. The hen kept frightening him, and the cat too, until the poor duckling lost his appetite and his courage. "Oh dear me," he moaned. "And I did so hope someone would love me!" Then one night, finding the hutch door ajar, he escaped.