tormented him for he could not
see to harm them."

Grandfather Frog paused and looked dreamily across the Smiling Pool.
Suddenly he opened his big mouth and then closed it with a snap. One
more foolish green fly had disappeared inside the white and yellow
waistcoat.

"Chug-a-rum," said Grandfather Frog, "those were sad days, sad days
indeed for Mr. Owl. He couldn't hunt for his meals by day, for the
light blinded him. At night he could see but little in the darkness.
So he got little to eat and he grew thinner and thinner and thinner
until he was but a shadow of his former self. He was always hungry,
was Mr. Owl, always hungry. No one was afraid of him now, for it was
the easiest thing in the world to keep out of his way.

"At last old Mother Nature came again to visit the Green Meadows and
the Green Forest. Far, far in the darkest part of the deep wood she
found Mr. Owl. When she saw how very thin and how very, very miserable
he was her heart was moved to pity, for old Mother Nature loves all her
subjects, even the worst of them. All the fierceness was gone from Mr.
Owl. He was so weak that he just sat huddled in the thickest part of
the great pine. You see he had been able to catch very little to eat.

"'Mr. Owl,' said old Mother Nature gently, 'you now know something of
the misery and the suffering which you have caused others, and I think
you have been punished enough. No more may you fly abroad over the
Green Meadows while the day is bright, for still is the fear of you in
the hearts of all my little meadow people, but hereafter you shall not
find it so difficult to get enough to eat. Your eyes shall grow big,
bigger than the eyes of any other bird, so that you shall be able to
see in the dusk and even in the dark. Your ears shall grow large,
larger than the ears of any of the little forest or meadow people, so
that you can hear the very least sound. Your feathers shall become as
soft as down, so that when you fly none shall hear you.'

"And from that day it was even so. Mr. Owl's eyes grew big and bigger
until he could see as well in the dusk as he used to see in the full
light of day. His ears grew large and larger until his hearing became
so keen that he could hear the least rustle, even at a long distance.
And when he flew he made no sound, but floated like a great shadow.

"The little meadow people no longer feared him by day, but when the
shadows began to creep out from the Purple Hills