would keep to the same materials for a day. One would begin with
some pebbles; then she would stick on a piece of green wood; then she
found a shell, and stuck it on too; and the poor shell was alive, and
did not like at all being taken to build houses with: but the caddis did
not let him have any voice in the matter, being rude and selfish, as
vain people are apt to be; then she stuck on a piece of rotten wood,
then a very smart pink stone, and so on, till she was patched all over
like an Irishman's coat. Then she found a long straw, five times as long
as herself, and said, "Hurrah! my sister has a tail, and I'll have one
too"; and she stuck it on her back, and marched about with it quite
proud, though it was very inconvenient indeed. And, at that, tails
became all the fashion among the caddis-baits in that pool, as they were
at the end of the Long Pond last May, and they all toddled about with
long straws sticking out behind, getting between each other's legs, and
tumbling over each other, and looking so ridiculous, that Tom laughed at
them till he cried, as we did. But they were quite right, you know; for
people must always follow the fashion, even if it be spoon-bonnets.

Then sometimes he came to a deep still reach; and there he saw the
water-forests. They would have looked to you only little weeds: but Tom,
you must remember, was so little that everything looked a hundred times
as big to him as it does to you, just as things do to a minnow, who sees
and catches the little water-creatures which you can only see in a
microscope.

And in the water-forest he saw the water-monkeys and water-squirrels
(they had all six legs, though; everything almost has six legs in the
water, except efts and water-babies); and nimbly enough they ran among
the branches. There were water-flowers there too, in thousands; and Tom
tried to pick them: but as soon as he touched them, they drew themselves
in and turned into knots of jelly; and then Tom saw that they were all
alive--bells, and stars, and wheels, and flowers, of all beautiful
shapes and colours; and all alive and busy, just as Tom was. So now he
found that there was a great deal more in the world than he had fancied
at first sight.

There was one wonderful little fellow, too, who peeped out of the top of
a house built of round bricks. He had two big wheels, and one little
one, all over teeth, spinning round and round like the wheels in a
thrashing-machine; and Tom stood and st