sant it must be to live in
these deep sunshiny hollows, with green turf all about you, the
blossoming trees and the blue skies overhead, the bright gravel
underneath your feet, like powdered stars, and thousands of beautiful
fish for playfellows! all spotted with gold and crimson, or winged with
rose-leaves, and striped with faint purple and burnished silver, like
the shells and flowers of the deep sea, where the moonlight buds and
blossoms forever and ever; and then she thought if she could only just
reach over, and dip one of her little fat rosy feet into the smooth
shining water,--just once--only once,---it would be _so_ pleasant! and
she should be _so_ happy! and then, if she could but manage to scare the
fishes a little,--a very little,--that would be such glorious fun,
too,--wouldn't it, you?

Well and so--she kept stooping and stooping, and stretching and
stretching, and singing to herself all the while, "Sir, she said! sir,
she said! I'm going a milking, sir, she said!" till just as she was
ready to tumble in, head first, something jumped out of the bushes
behind her, almost touching her as it passed, and went plump into the
deepest part of the pool! saying, "_Once! once!_" with a heavy booming
sound, like the tolling of a great bell under water, and afar off.

"Goody gracious! what's that?" screamed little Ruth Page, and then, the
very next moment, she began to laugh and jump and clap her hands, to see
what a scampering there was among the poor silly fish, and all for
nothing! said she; for out came a great good-natured bull-frog, with an
eye like a bird, and a big bell-mouth, and a back all frosted over with
precious stones, and dripping with sunshine; and there he sat looking at
her awhile, as if he wanted to frighten her away; and then he opened his
great lubberly mouth at her, and bellowed out, "_Once! once!_" and
vanished.

"Luddy tuddy! who cares for you?" said little Ruth; and so, having got
over her fright, she began to creep to the edge of the bank once more,
and look down into the deep water, to see what had become of the little
fish that were so plentiful there, and so happy but a few minutes before.
But they were all gone, and the water was as still as death; and while
she sat looking into it, and waiting for them to come back, and
wondering why they should he so frightened at nothing but a bull-frog,
which they must have seen a thousand times, the poor little simpletons!
and thinking she should