y noticed
these at all.

"Why, you're all mouth!" he exclaimed, and then looked very much ashamed
of his impoliteness.

Grandfather Frog's great goggly eyes twinkled. He knew that Peter was
very young and innocent and just starting out in the Great World. He
knew that Peter didn't intend to be impolite.

"Not quite," said he good-naturedly. "Not quite all mouth, though I must
admit that it is of good size. The fact is, I wouldn't have it a bit
smaller if I could. If it were any smaller, I should miss many a good
meal, and if I were forced to do that, I am afraid I should be very
ill-tempered indeed. The truth is, I am very proud of my big mouth. I
don't know of any one who has a bigger one for their size."

He opened his mouth wide, and it seemed to Peter that Grandfather
Frog's whole head simply split in halves. He hadn't supposed anybody in
all the Great World possessed such a mouth.

"Where did you get it?" gasped Peter, and then felt that he had asked a
very foolish question.

Grandfather Frog chuckled. "I got it from my father, and he got his from
his father, and so on, way back to the days when the world was young and
the Frogs ruled the world," said he. "Would you like to hear about it?"

"I'd love to!" cried Peter. So he settled himself comfortably on the
bank of the Smiling Pool for the first of many, many stories he was to
hear from Grandfather Frog.

"Chug-a-rum!" began Grandfather Frog. You know he always begins a story
that way. "Chug-a-rum! Once upon a time the Great World was mostly
water, and most of the people lived in the water. It was in those days
that my great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather lived. Those were happy
days for the Frogs. Yes, indeed, those were happy days for the Frogs. Of
course they had enemies, but those enemies were all in the water. They
didn't have to be watching out for danger from the air and from the
land, as I do now. There was plenty to eat and little to do, and the
Frog tribe increased very fast. In fact, the Frogs increased so fast
that after a while there wasn't plenty to eat. That is, there wasn't
plenty of the kind of food they had been used to, which was mostly water
plants, and water bugs and such things.

"Of course there were many fish, and these also increased very fast,
and the big fish ate the Frogs whenever they could catch them, just as
they do to this day. The big fish also ate the little fish, and it
wasn't long before the Frogs and the little fish