By the edge of the marsh lived a young Frog, who thought a great deal
about herself and much less about other people. Not that it was wrong to
think so much of herself, but it certainly was unfortunate that she
should have so little time left in which to think of others and of the
beautiful world.
Early in the morning this Frog would awaken and lean far over the edge
of a pool to see how she looked after her night's rest. Then she would
give a spring, and come down with a splash in the cool water for her
morning bath. For a while she would swim as fast as her dainty webbed
feet would push her, then she would rest, sitting in the soft mud with
just her head above the water.
When her bath was taken, she had her breakfast, and that was the way in
which she began her day. She did nothing but bathe and eat and rest,
from sunrise to sunset. She had a fine, strong body, and had never an
ache or a pain, but one day she got to thinking, "What if sometime I
should be sick?" And then, because she thought about nothing but her own
self, she was soon saying, "I am afraid I shall be sick." In a little
while longer it was, "I certainly am sick."
She crawled under a big toadstool, and sat there looking very glum
indeed, until a Cicada came along. She told the Cicada how sick she
felt, and he told his cousins, the Locusts, and they told their cousins,
the Grasshoppers, and they told their cousins, the Katydids, and then
everybody told somebody else, and started for the toadstool where the
young Frog sat. The more she had thought of it, the worse she felt,
until, by the time the meadow people came crowding around, she was
feeling very sick indeed.
"Where do you feel badly?" they cried, and, "How long have you been
sick?" and one Cricket stared with big eyes, and said, "How
dr-r-readfully she looks!" The young Frog felt weaker and weaker, and
answered in a faint little voice that she had felt perfectly well until
after breakfast, but that now she was quite sure her skin was getting
dry, and "Oh dear!" and "Oh dear!"
Now everybody knows that Frogs breathe through their skins as well as
through their noses, and for a Frog's skin to get dry is very serious,
for then he cannot breathe through it; so, as soon as she said that,
everybody was frightened and wanted to do something for her at once.
Some of the timid ones began to weep, and the others bustled around,
getting in each other's way and all trying to do something different.
One wanted to wrap her in mullein leaves, another wanted her to nibble a
bit of the peppermint which grew near, a third thought she should be
kept moving, and that was the way it went.
Just when everybody was at his wits' end, the old Tree Frog came along.
"Pukr-r-rup! What is the matter with you?" he said.
"Oh!" gasped the young Frog, weakly, "I am sure my skin is getting dry,
and I feel as though I had something in my head."
"Umph!" grunted the Tree Frog to himself, "I guess there isn't enough in
her head to ever make her sick; and, as for her skin, it isn't dry yet,
and nobody knows that it ever will be."
But as he was a wise old fellow and had learned much about life, he knew
he must not say such things aloud. What he did say was, "I heard there
was to be a great race in the pool this morning."
The young Frog lifted her head quite quickly, saying: "You did? Who are
the racers?"
"Why, all the young Frogs who live around here. It is too bad that you
cannot go."
"I don't believe it would hurt me any," she said.
"You might take cold," the Tree Frog said; "besides, the exercise would
tire you."
"Oh, but I am feeling much better," the young Frog said, "and I am
certain it will do me good."
"You ought not to go," insisted all the older meadow people. "You really
ought not."
"I don't care," she answered, "I am going anyway, and I am just as well
as anybody."
And she did go, and it did seem that she was as strong as ever. The
people all wondered at it, but the Tree Frog winked his eyes at them and
said, "I knew that it would cure her." And then he, and the Garter
Snake, and the fat, old Cricket laughed together, and all the younger
meadow people wondered at what they were laughing.
[Illustration]