AN Ox, drinking at a pool, chanced to set his foot on a young Frog, and
crushed him to death.
His brothers and sisters, who were playing near, ran at once to tell
their mother what had happened. “Oh, Mother,” they cried, “a very huge
beast, with four great feet, came to the pool, and crushed our brother
to death in an instant, with his hard, cloven heel.”
The old Frog was very vain. She was rather large, as Frogs go, and gave
herself airs on account of it. “Was the cruel beast so very large?” she
said. “How big?”
“Oh!” said the young Frogs. “It was a terrible monster!”
“Was it as big as this?” she said, blowing and puffing herself out.
“Oh, much bigger,” replied the young Frogs.
“As big as this, then?” she added, puffing and blowing with all her
might.
“A great deal bigger,” they answered.
“Well, was it _so_ big?”
“Oh, Mother!” cried the Frogs; “pray do not try to be so big. If you
were to puff till you burst, you could not make yourself half so big as
the creature we tell you of.”
But the silly old Frog would not give up. She tried again to puff
herself out, saying, “As big as”—and she did indeed burst.
It is useless to attempt what is impossible.