My friend Barney and I walk every morning for exercise.Our walking trail is a par course along the banks of a man-made stream in a business park on the south edge of the city. One Sunday after our walk, when we got back to the lot where we had parked our vehicles, we discovered a gaggle of baby ducks huddled together next to the curb between our trucks. Barney said to leave them alone; Mama Duck would be along shortly to retrieve them. I was skeptical. They looked abandoned.Barney drove off, and I moved my truck to the other side of the nearly deserted parking lot to a place where I could observe the ducklings but be out of the way should the neglectful hen return. I waited for twenty minutes or so.No mother duck appeared to retrieve her offspring. With considerable misgivings, I left the parking lot and drove home.

I told my wife about the ducks and asked her what if anything she thought we should do. She called Animal Rescue, and they said we should move the ducks nearer to the water; otherwise they would dehydrate and die. They said we could also retrieve the ducks and bring them to the shelter.

We decided to do the latter. When we got back to the parking lot, the ducklings were where I had left them. I expected that we would have difficulty corralling the chicks, that they would scatter in all directions when we approached, but they didn't.My wife knelt carefully by the ducks, who stirred uneasily but didn't bolt, and put them one by one into a paper bag.

The tiny birds came to life on the trip across town.They protested captivity mightily. They scrabbled around in the sack and chirped away at the top of their lungs.

At the shelter, a young woman with beefy arms, who seemed to know exactly what she was doing, opened the sack and peered in. "Hey, come here, Sal," she yelled to someone in the next room. "Get these ducks and put 'em in the incubator." I asked the volunteer if the ducks would be all right, and she said they would be fine, that ducks do very well in the shelter. "We'll take good care of them," she said.

My wife and I drove back to our house feeling very pleased with ourselves.

Years ago, when I was young, I hunted ducks. I didn't kill very many because I was a lousy shot, but I killed some. I feel bad about that, but I feel good about what we did on this occasion. Nothing warms the belly like virtue.

- Jack Swenson