nothing useless is or low.
—tennyson.
“to be sure i’ll come out,” answered a croaky voice, as ruth, holding belinda tightly, drew close to the edge of the brook. “how’s that?” and with a splash a big green and brown frog landed on the stone at her feet.
“now,” he added, swelling out his white vest with an air of importance, “i am a frog, of course, but my family name is rana. please don’t forget it.”
“family name?” said ruth, sitting down on the edge of the stone. “i didn’t know frogs had family names.”
“there’s a great deal you don’t know,” said mr. rana, in his decided way.
“maybe there is,” agreed ruth, “but it isn’t very polite to tell me so.” then, with a sudden thought, she added quickly, “why, you are really talking.”
“of course, i’m talking. do you suppose it’s the first time?”
“he’s dreadfully snappy,” ruth whispered to belinda.
“it isn’t my fault that people can’t understand,” finished mr. rana, swallowing very fast.
“i wanted to understand,” declared ruth meekly. “i was sure you could tell me such a lot of interesting things, and that nice fat toad in the garden too. he is so——”
“you’d better talk to the fat toad, then,” said mr. rana, looking very cross.
“oh, dear,” sighed ruth, “i didn’t mean i’d rather talk to him. i do want you to tell me things. all about yourself, please.”
“now you are showing your good sense,” said mr. rana, as ruth settled herself with a ready-to-listen air. “nothing can be more interesting than my story; but excuse me one second. i see mrs. mosquito. this morning i ate her husband, and now——”
his sentence was not finished, but mrs. mosquito was; and mr. rana folded his hands across his fat stomach and looked at ruth, while a big smile played about his broad mouth.
“she’s gone,” said ruth, in a slightly awed tone, “and i know you’ve swallowed her, but i wish you would tell me how you did it. i didn’t see you move.”
“i didn’t move, but my tongue did, and it went so quick you couldn’t see it. when you eat, you bring things to your tongue, but when i eat, i send my tongue to my dinner. it’s a simpler way, i think. my tongue is rather wonderful too. it is fastened to my mouth in front, and rolled back; besides, it has a sort of glue on the end that catches whatever there is to catch. the number of pests i eat in a day would astonish you. slugs, grubs, snails, mosquitoes, and—well, what’s the matter? you don’t like such things, i suppose. tastes differ, you see. now, to tell my story. what do you think i looked like when i was first hatched?”
“a tadpole, of course,” answered ruth. “i’ve seen lots of tadpoles. they are funny, wiggly things.”
“they are lively fellows,” agreed mr. rana, swallowing several times, while ruth silently watched the sides of his neck puff out.
“please tell me why you swallow so much,” she asked at last. “you are not eating, are you?”
mr. rana smiled, and this time the smile went all around his mouth.
“i swallow to breathe,” he answered. “i can’t swallow air while my mouth is open, and so i stop talking and shut it. every time i swallow, the air sac on the side of my neck fills out. that’s why my voice has such a lovely croak. my poor wife hasn’t any air sac, so her voice is never croaky.”
“but in the water——” began ruth.
“in the water,” answered mr. rana, “i take in air through my skin. it is very porous. my skin i mean. it is really a pleasure to tell you things. now to get back to the beginning, being a tadpole, or, i should say, an egg. looking at me now, could you imagine that i was once a tiny egg? it’s a fact, though. my mother laid her eggs near some water rushes, and, as i said, these eggs were but tiny specks, black specks enclosed in a gluey case, which the water made swell, until it looked like a mass of jelly. i came from one of those specks, and i tell you i was a lively fellow when i was first hatched. some people say tadpoles are all head and tail, but there were other parts to me—places for legs, and i know i had two eyes and a mouth. of course i made the most of life. a whole pond to circle in seemed a mighty big world to me, and i was soon swimming about with a lot of other tads, slapping tails, and having all kinds of fun. indeed, we were always lively, especially when we were trying to get away from those who wanted us for dinner. there were lots of them too.”
“ugh!” said ruth, screwing up her face.
this displeased mr. rana.
“a tadpole is very delicate eating,” he said. “you have never tasted one, so you cannot judge; but let that pass. i was not eaten, as you can see for yourself.”
“i am glad you were not,” said ruth as mr. rana stopped to swallow some air, “because then i shouldn’t have known you.”
“well, that’s a fact. now let me see what comes next. oh, yes—my legs. legs, you must know, are very important affairs to a tadpole, because when he gets them he isn’t a tadpole any more; so you may be sure i was happy when i saw mine beginning to grow. at the same time, my tail became shorter and shorter, until at last i had none at all. i was really and truly a frog. after this i was not obliged to stay in the water all the time. i had lungs and could breathe air.”
“but you do go in sometimes,” said ruth. “i’ve seen you.”
“of course i do,” agreed mr. rana. “i must keep my skin wet, and that reminds me it’s pretty dry now, so i will have to leave 25you. good-by for the present.” and before ruth could say a word there was a loud splash and mr. rana’s long legs disappeared in the brook.
“oh, dear, he’s gone!” sighed ruth.
“yes, and good riddance,” croaked a voice that was not mr. rana’s.
ruth looked around quickly.
“it’s nice having things talk to you,” she said, “but it keeps you jumping.”
“use your eyes, and you wouldn’t have to jump,” went on the same voice. “i’m right over here in the shade. 26my blood’s cold, and i can’t stand the hot sun.”
it was her friend the garden toad. ruth could see him plainly now. he looked more puffy than ever, as he sat under the bushes, swelling his leathery throat with importance. “if my cousin can talk to you i guess i can too,” he added. “i’m mr. bufo, and i’m quite as interesting as he is.”
ruth was only too willing to agree to this, though, as she whispered to belinda, she thought frogs and toads had very good opinions of themselves.
“i have a wife,” croaked mr. bufo when ruth had sat herself on the ground close to him, “a worrying wife. do you know it’s a bad thing to have a worrying wife?”
ruth didn’t know, but she nodded her head in agreement.
“a bad thing,” repeated mr. bufo. “in the spring, after mrs. bufo had laid her eggs, she gave me no peace. of course, like all toads, she laid them in the water, but, instead 27of being reasonable about it, she was always asking me how she was to know them from the eggs mrs. rana and mrs. urodillo had laid. theirs were in the water too.”
“please, who is mrs. urodillo?” asked ruth. “i know mrs. rana is a frog.”
“mrs. urodillo is a water salamander,” answered mr. bufo, not over pleased at being interrupted. “now where was i? oh, yes. mrs. bufo was afraid she wouldn’t know her own eggs. well, i tried to argue with her.”
“‘didn’t you lay yours in double strings?’ i asked, ‘and didn’t you with motherly care enclose them in thin but strong tubes?’ of course she couldn’t deny it. ‘but i won’t know my own tadpoles,’ she kept insisting.”
“no wonder she was worried,” said ruth. “any one would want to know their own babies.”
“mothers in our family never do,” declared mr. bufo. “they lay their eggs, and that’s the end of it. mrs. bufo knew that as well as i did. she only wanted something to worry about. all tadpoles are pretty much alike to begin with, but they don’t end alike. toad egg tads always grow into toads; frog egg tads become frogs, and salamander egg tads will be salamanders and nothing else.”
all the while he talked mr. bufo had stopped every little while to swallow, not only air, but whatever in the way of insects came within his reach. so of course ruth saw his tongue.
“your tongue is just like mr. rana’s,” she said, after watching it for a few seconds.
“our tongues may be alike,” agreed mr. bufo, “but there’s a vast difference in our legs. his are too long for any use, and his skin is so horribly smooth it gives me the shivers just to look at it. of course i know i am not handsome, and that reminds me of some lines that have been written about me. want to hear them?”
then without waiting for an answer he swallowed some air and began:
“i’m a clumsy, awkward toad,
and i hop along the road;
’tis the only way we toads can well meander;
while in yonder marshy bog
leaps my relative the frog,
very near my aunt, the water salamander.
“and if you should ever stray
near a slimy pool some day,
and along its grassy margin chance to loiter.
do not pass it idly by,
for it is the spot where i
was born a lively tadpole in the water.
“i’m a homely, harmless thing;
i catch insects on the wing,
and in this i serve you all; it is my duty.
and now tell me which is best,
to be useless and well dressed,
or useful, even though i am no beauty?”
mr. bufo had scarcely finished, when his mate hopped out from some nearby bushes.
“i’d be ashamed,” she said, in a very puffy voice, “to sit there repeating that lovely poetry, with such shabby clothes as yours are. how many more times must i tell you to change them?”
“it doesn’t matter about his clothes,” said ruth. “i think it is so lovely to hear him talk.”
“you haven’t heard him as often as i have,” puffed mrs. bufo, hopping almost into ruth’s lap. “besides, his clothes are a disgrace. they are not only faded and dull, but they are actually beginning to split up the back.”
“are they?” croaked mr. bufo meekly.
then he drew a film over his eyes and pretended to be asleep.
“now look here,” said mrs. bufo, “you can’t deceive me. that is only your third eyelid. you are not asleep. now do get off those old clothes.”
“well, if i must, i must,” croaked mr. bufo, hopping away.
“there, i’ve made him do it at last,” puffed mrs. bufo, swallowing a passing fly. “it’s a hard job, and i don’t blame him for getting out of it as long as possible. he has to twist and turn, and use first one leg and then another, until he is quite free from his old suit, and then, tired as he is, he must eat it.”
“eat it?” repeated ruth, screwing up her face.
“yes, eat it, and not a tooth to chew with either. i can’t see why we haven’t teeth like those horrid frogs, though, to tell the truth, theirs are no good for chewing. they only have them in their upper jaws, and they point backward, too, like fish teeth. i can’t see that they help much in chewing, but they do help to hold what the frog wishes to swallow, and, after all, we toads and frogs are swallowers rather than chewers.”
as she spoke, several flies went to prove her words.
“yes,” she added with a big puff, which ruth took for a sigh, “we have our troubles and worries from early spring, when we leave our holes, where we sleep all winter, to the time when frost drives us into our holes again, and no one seems to think about the work we do. the garden couldn’t have a 32better friend, for the bugs and harmful insects we eat can’t be counted. well, there’s no use talking this way. i must go to mr. bufo. he’ll need some cheering up, i’m sure. one good thing, he won’t have to make his new suit. he’ll find it all ready under his old one.”
“well, she does think of him, anyhow,” thought ruth as mrs. bufo hopped away. “i hope she will talk to me again some day.”
