"Well, I don't know exactly how it does it," said Mr. Frog, "but you can see it is an egg, and eggs grow into the most wonderful things."

"I am not going to believe this one will grow into a frog till I see it," said Mrs. Frog; and she swam away.

The egg lay in the water under a lily leaf. It certainly did not look in the least like a frog; indeed, it did not at first seem alive at all. But the spot began to spread, and day by day it grew till at last a tiny tadpole came out of the jelly and hung on to the lily leaf.

Mrs. Frog saw it, and called Mr. Frog to come and look.

"You were wrong," she said. "It is not a frog. It is only a kind of wormy thing."

"Give it time," said Mr. Frog. "We all began like that."

"What nonsense you talk, Mr. Frog! If it's a frog, where is its head?

Where is its mouth? Where are its legs? The thing is nothing but a jelly-worm stuck on a leaf. And you tell me I was once like that! I have no patience with you. I shall not stay to hear another word."

Left to herself, the little tadpole dropped from the lily leaf and swam about in the water. In a day or two the head and mouth appeared, and funny, frilly breathing gills grew out from her sides. Then these went away and inside gills grew. A hard little beak grew on her mouth, just the thing for nibbling leaves and stalks. Now she spent all the day eating vegetable dinners and growing. How fast she grew, to be sure!

Mrs. Frog came one day to see how she looked. "Do you call that a frog?" she asked Mr. Frog scornfully. "Whoever saw a frog with a tail?

Or eating leaves? Or breathing like a fish?"

"My dear, think back," said Mr. Frog. "Have you no memory of a time in your youth when we all swam together in the water, never wishing to go up on the land? You had a lovely long tail in those days. And do you not remember how sweet those green things tasted to us?"

A puzzled look came into Mrs. Frog's eyes, and a dim remembrance flashed across her brain.

"Oh, well, I shall watch," she said.

So every day Mrs. Frog jumped into the pool and swam round the little tadpole, watching the changes that took place. Soon she saw the hind-legs begin to grow. Then one day the tadpole left off eating, and startling changes began to take place. The tail dwindled away, giving up its strength to feed the body; the h.o.r.n.y beak dropped off; the mouth widened and widened, till it went nearly round the head; the tongue grew big; the eyes and the front legs came out through the skin. Day by day the changes went on, and Mrs. Frog was at last convinced that the little tadpole was really a frog.

When she saw the little creature rise up to the surface and swim to the sh.o.r.e, breathing as frogs breathe, and when she saw her jump up on the land and catch a fly and eat it, she went home.

"You were right, after all," she said to Mr. Frog.

"Of course I was," said Mr. Frog.

b.u.t.tERCUPS

It was not at all a pretty spot, this swampy bit of roadside. A coa.r.s.e gra.s.s was the only thing that grew on it, for its soil was always wet and spongy.

Its neighbours despised it. "If you grew pink-tipped daisies and pretty white bells like mine," said the Hill, "the children would love you." "Or if you grew red and white clover like mine," said the Field, "they would love you." "Or if you grew wild roses like mine," said the Hedge, "they would love you."

But the swampy ground could grow neither daisies nor bells nor clover nor wild roses. It lay there, ugly and useless and sad.

One day a bird dropped a clinging seed from its feet as it pa.s.sed; that was the beginning of the wonderful change that came to the despised piece of ground. The tiny seed sank into the soft wet earth, sprouted, and grew. Soon it was a well-grown plant, with beautiful broad leaves.

It stretched its soft green stems over the ground, rooted afresh on this side and on that, and spread and spread and spread. How quickly the white roots grew! The damp soil suited them perfectly.

"This is a splendid growing place," they said.

"You dear things!" said the Ground. "How pleased I am that you have come! I will do my very best for you."

The summer and the winter pa.s.sed, and spring came. From the new plants little round buds pushed up their heads. They grew fast, and opened out into golden flowers. "b.u.t.tercups! b.u.t.tercups!" shouted the children. They ran down the hill to where the new flowers shone in the morning sun. How lovely these golden flowers were! How their polished petals glittered! They looked like fairy-cups in the children's hands.

The swampy ground has never been sad since, for now it is always beautiful, and the children love it. Year after year they watch the little buds unfold; then they fill their hands and pinafores with the golden b.u.t.tercups, and carry them home as treasures to be loved and prized above all other flowers.

SPINNY SPIDER

"Why don't you grow wings?" asked the Red b.u.t.terfly. "And whatever is the good of having all those legs? Eight! Why, I am sure six are enough for anybody. You are not at all handsome."

Spinny Spider turned herself round and round, and looked her velvety body all over with her six eyes.

"We seem to look at things from different standpoints," she said. "I have no fault to find with my shape. I don't admire wings at all, and I certainly need all my legs. But I have no time to argue. I have my web to make."

She ran to the top of the hedge and found a nice s.p.a.ce between several twigs. Then she sat still, and from a little spinneret on each side of her body she drew hundreds of fine threads of silk, so soft and gummy that they looked like honey. With the tiny combs she carried on each hind foot she combed the threads in the air till they dried and hardened; then she twisted them into a single silken rope.

She worked hard, and soon had made enough of the rope to reach to the opposite twig, so she put a drop of gum on it and let it float in the air till it caught the twig and stuck there. "This is a good start,"

she said. Now she climbed a higher twig and made another rope, and dropped it across the first one at right angles. Then she made several more, fastening them all together in the middle and gumming them tightly to twigs at the ends, until at last the foundation of the web was made. It looked like the spokes of a wheel without the rim.

She began to spin a finer rope. As she spun she moved slowly from spoke to spoke, drawing the new rope with her and gumming it firmly to each spoke. Round and round she went in ever-widening circles, till the web was complete.

Then she stood for a moment to admire her finished work. And well she might admire, for a moonshine wheel in a fairy coach could not be more beautiful than this. The delicate white silk glistened and shone in the sunlight, and here and there on every circle were set tiny drops of gum that gleamed like golden b.a.l.l.s.

In the centre there was no gum, for that was to be Spinny's waiting place. She curled herself up to rest after her work and to wait for her tea. And her tea soon came. A gnat came flying past in a hurry, caught one of his wings in the web, and in a moment was struggling for his life. "The gum will hold him," thought Spinny to herself. "I need not move." The gum did hold him, and his struggles only tightened the web about him. In a few minutes he was dead; Spinny went over to him, and had him for tea. Then she rolled herself up again.

Presently a big blue-bottle fly came noisily buzzing along, and blundered into the net.

"Goodness gracious! what's all this?" he shouted; and he banged and kicked with all his wings and legs. Such a commotion! "He will smash my web and get away, after all," cried Spinny, and she was out to him in a moment. Quickly she spun a few threads and bound them round him to hold him. Then she unsheathed two sharp claws in her feelers. She drove these into the fly, holding them still for a second while a drop of poison from her poison bag ran down each claw into the wound. Very soon Blue-bottle was dead.

"This is a splendid tea!" said Spinny. "The wings are too hard and dry, but the body is just what I like."

"You savage creature!" cried the Red b.u.t.terfly, who had seen the death of the fly. "How can you bear to be so cruel?"

"Again we look at things from different standpoints," said Spinny. "I cannot eat honey like you, but am made to live on flesh and blood.

What seems cruelty to you is only my nature, and I cannot help my nature. I must get my food in this way, or I should die."

SPINNY SPIDER'S CHILDREN

"What are you making now?" asked the Red b.u.t.terfly of Spinny Spider.

"A round cradle for my babies," said Spinny Spider.

"Really! And where are the babies?"