d herself on a road beside which people dwelt; but there were
flower gardens as well as kitchen gardens. And she sat down to rest by
a kitchen garden.

"What a number of different creatures there are that I never knew!
and how beautiful and great the world is! But one must look round in
it, and not stay in one spot." And then she hopped into the kitchen
garden. "How green it is here! how beautiful it is here!"

"I know that," said the Caterpillar, on the leaf, "my leaf is
the largest here. It hides half the world from me, but I don't care
for the world."

"Cluck, cluck!" And some fowls came. They tripped about in the
cabbage garden. The Fowl who marched at the head of them had a long
sight, and she spied the Caterpillar on the green leaf, and pecked
at it, so that the Caterpillar fell on the ground, where it twisted
and writhed.

The Fowl looked at it first with one eye and then with the
other, for she did not know what the end of this writhing would be.

"It doesn't do that with a good will," thought the Fowl, and
lifted up her head to peck at the Caterpillar.

The Toad was so horrified at this, that she came crawling straight
up towards the Fowl.

"Aha, it has allies," quoth the Fowl. "Just look at the crawling
thing!" And then the Fowl turned away. "I don't care for the little
green morsel; it would only tickle my throat." The other fowls took
the same view of it, and they all turned away together.

"I writhed myself free," said the Caterpillar. "What a good
thing it is when one has presence of mind! But the hardest thing
remains to be done, and that is to get on my leaf again. Where is it?"

And the little Toad came up and expressed her sympathy. She was
glad that in her ugliness she had frightened the fowls.

"What do you mean by that?" cried the Caterpillar. "I wriggled
myself free from the Fowl. You are very disagreeable to look at.
Cannot I be left in peace on my own property? Now I smell cabbage; now
I am near my leaf. Nothing is so beautiful as property. But I must
go higher up."

"Yes, higher up," said the little Toad; "higher-up! She feels just
as I do; but she's not in a good humor to-day. That's because of the
fright. We all want to go higher up." And she looked up as high as
ever she could.

The stork sat in his nest on the roof of the farm-house. He
clapped with his beak, and the Mother-stork clapped with hers.

"How high up they live!" thought the Toad. "If one could only
get as high a