t you could sing?" he asked one day,
as Old Mr. Toad looked up at him from the Smiling Pool.

"What was the use of wasting my breath?" demanded Old Mr. Toad. "You
wouldn't have believed me if I had. You didn't believe me when I did tell
you."

Peter knew that this was true, and he couldn't find any answer ready. At
last he ventured another question. "Why haven't I ever heard you sing
before?"

"You have," replied Old Mr. Toad tartly. "I sang right in this very place
last spring, and the spring before, and the spring before that. You've sat
on that very bank lots of times while I was singing. The trouble with you,
Peter, is that you don't use your eyes or your ears."

Peter looked more foolish than ever. But he ventured another question. It
wouldn't be Peter to let a chance for questions go by. "Have I ever heard
you singing up on the meadows or in the Old Orchard?"

"No," replied Old Mr. Toad, "I only sing in the springtime. That's the time
for singing. I just _have_ to sing then. In the summer it is too hot, and
in the winter I sleep. I always return to my old home to sing. You know I
was born here. All my family gathers here in the spring to sing, so of
course I come too."

Old Mr. Toad filled out his queer music bag under his chin and began to
sing again. Peter watched him. Now it just happened that Old Mr. Toad was
facing him, and so Peter looked down straight into his eyes. He never had
looked into Mr. Toad's eyes before, and now he just stared and stared, for
it came over him that those eyes were very beautiful, very beautiful
indeed.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "what beautiful eyes you have, Mr. Toad!"

"So I've been told before," replied Old Mr. Toad. "My family always has had
beautiful eyes. There is an old saying that every Toad has jewels in his
head, but of course he hasn't, not real jewels. It is just the beautiful
eyes. Excuse me, Peter, but I'm needed in that chorus." Old Mr. Toad once
more swelled out his throat and began to sing.

Peter watched him a while longer, then hopped away to the dear Old
Briarpatch, and he was very thoughtful.

"Never again will I call anybody homely and ugly until I know all about
him," said Peter, which was a very wise decision. Don't you think so?

VII

A SHADOW PASSES OVER THE SMILING POOL

Here's what Mr. Toad says;
Heed it well, my dear:
"Time to watch for clouds is
When the sky is clear."

He says that that is the reason that he lives to a